Yeah, cheeks flutter.
The wind noise is so loud that you can't hear ANYTHING else. It's one of those things that comes back to you in your sleep.
You communicate by hand signals.
And the speed is the other thing...
Your first jump is usually sensory overload, between the fear and the wind noise, and the visuals, and then the sudden weightlessness and speed...
The sound people make as they go out the door WHHOOOOSHHHH! and then the plane jumps up in altitude because it just got lighter. Inside the plane, watching them fall away, you do get a sense of speed...
The instant after you step out the door, you accelerate to 125 mph... and you don't lose your stomach. You don't feel like you're falling. You're flying "Peter Pan" style... Your shoulder blades are your ailerons, and your feet act like rudders. The extent to which you arch or de-arch, and your body angle, dictates your speed/angle of descent and stability.
My "normal" tracking speed is about 180-185 mph.
My vertical tracking speed is in the 190's to just over 200 mph. Yeah. 200 mph. No car. No Plane. Just you and the wind. If I have to explain that one to you, someone needs to check for a pulse.
Barrel rolls, flips and spins, 360's... only take fractions of a second.
And where else can you do 200 mph relatively safely, AND STILL BE ABLE TO MANEUVER LIKE THAT?! Can't do that down on the ground. There are too many things to run into. Maybe on the track, with a really, really expensive car... BUT this is only $22.00 - (plus the cost of the optional rubber ducky.)
My fastest recorded was 255.6 (which I did twice.) I've broken 220 on a couple of other occasions. I've probably logged 50+ jumps in the 200 mph or over category...
