Skydiving Quotes

whuffo - "What do you do if you have a malfunction?"

me - "Well.. I've got the rest of my life to think about it."

It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end!

edit to add:

Live to Jump, Pull to Live

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whuffo - "What do you do if you have a malfunction?"

me - "Well.. I've got the rest of my life to think about it."

I like saying, "damn, I've never thought about that." And then turn away with a perplexed look on my face! hehe

Can the magic of flight ever be carried by words? I think not.

— Michael Parfit, 'Smithsonian' magazine, May 2000

The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious. And why shouldn't it be? -- it is the same the angels breathe.

— Mark Twain, ‘Roughing It,’ Chapter XXII, 1886

My soul is in the sky.

— William Shakespeare, 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' Act V. Scene I.

More than anything else the sensation is one of perfect peace mingled with an excitement that strains every nerve to the utmost, if you can conceive of such a combination.

— Wilbur Wright

The exhilaration of flying is too keen, the pleasure too great, for it to be neglected as a sport.

— Orville Wright

To most people, the sky is the limit. To those who fly, the sky is home.

— anon

When I'm up in the air, it's like I'm closer to heaven; I can't explain the feeling.

— First Officer Jeffrey Gagliano, who died on AA 4184.

Why fly? Simple. I'm not happy unless there's some room between me and the ground.

— Richard Bach, 'A Gift of Wings,' 1974.

Don't let the fear of falling keep you from knowing the joy of flight.

— Lane Wallace, 'Flying' magazine, January 2001

when interviewed in Kalispell Montana (Evel Knievel's home state) for a television station, I told them that if Evel could only jump over his own mouth, he'd set a world record. LOL

Thank, y'all!

There are a lot of great ones here, and I just emailed those to my Web Mistress. Once the website is fully operational (right now it's only a home page) I will post the link.

Cheers!

ok, I have two.
turtlespeed overheard this one at the dz the other day
Whuffo #1: "so what happens if you don't pull?"
Whuffo #2: "oh, don't worry, they have this electronic device that pulls it for you if something goes wrong."
Whuffo #1: "hmm....well, why bother pulling??"
lol
and I found this one on the net, i love it.
"When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on or you will be taught how to fly." Barbara J Winter
Cieux Bleus,
Amanda

Out of 10,000 feet of fall, always remember that the last half inch hurts the most.

— Captain Charles W. Purcell, 1932

I watched him strap on his harness and helmet, climb into the cockpit and, minutes later, a black dot falls off the wing two thousand feet above our field. At almost the same instant, a while streak behind him flowered out into the delicate wavering muslin of a parachute -- a few gossamer yards grasping onto air and suspending below them, with invisible threads, a human life, and man who by stitches, cloth, and cord, had made himself a god of the sky for those immortal moments.

A day or two later, when I decided that I too must pass through the experience of a parachute jump, life rose to a higher level, to a sort of exhilarated calmness. The thought of crawling out onto the struts and wires hundreds of feet above the earth, and then giving up even that tenuous hold of safety and of substance, left me a feeling of anticipation mixed with dread, of confidence restrained by caution, of courage salted through with fear. How tightly should one hold onto life? How loosely give it rein? What gain was there for such a risk? I would have to pay in money for hurling my body into space. There would be no crowd to watch and applaud my landing. Nor was there any scientific objective to be gained. No, there was deeper reason for wanting to jump, a desire I could not explain.

It was that quality that led me into aviation in the first place -- it was a love of the air and sky and flying, the lure of adventure, the appreciation of beauty. It lay beyond the descriptive words of man -- where immortality is touched through danger, where life meets death on equal plane; where man is more than man, and existence both supreme and valueless at the same instant.

— Charles A. Lindbergh, contemplating his first parachute jump, 'The Spirit of St Louis,'  1953



Why does one want to walk wings? Why force one's body from a plane to make a parachute jump? Why should man want to fly at all? People often ask these questions. But what civilization was not founded on adventure, and how long could one exist without it? Some answer the attainment of knowledge. Some say wealth, or power, is sufficient cause. I believe the risks I take are justified y the sheer love of the life I lead.

— Charles A. Lindbergh

If riding in an airplane is flying, then riding in a boat is swimming. If you want to experience the element, then get out of the vehicle.

— Anon.

When the people look like ants -- Pull.
When the ants look like people -- Pray.

— Anon.

Young man at EAA Oshkosh: "What color are your parachutes?"
Ron Terry, aerobatic pilot: "I don't know and I hope I never find out!"

Man small
Why fall?
Skies call
That's all.

— Anon.

Yeah, I knew a lot of those guys who parachute jumped at county fairs in the twenties and thirties, I just never knew any of them for very long.

— Fritz Orchard

Skydiving has been my life, and it will probably be my death too. But hopefully not yet, for I have many years of jumps left in me.

— Robin Wilcox, four days before dying too soon, 1987.

Only skydivers know why the birds sing.

— Anon.

In a world in which we are all slaves to the laws of gravity, I'm proud to be counted as one of them freedom fighters.
Skydive!

— cliché

Skydivers do it in the stable spread position.

— cliché

I now know the color of fear. . . . It's brown.

— Anonymous skydiver.

It is one thing to be in the proximity of death, to know more or less what she is, and it is quite another thing to seek her.

— Ernest Hemingway

It at first you don't succeed, well, so much for skydiving.

— cliché

Only skydivers know why the birds sing.

— Anon.

That is the last line of a poem By Al Miller of London Ont.

Lions roar, wolves howl,
Only Skydivers know why birds sing.


He also wrote
You picked a fine time to fail me reserve

if you haven't heard that song, from the mid 70's, you haven't been hanging around enough campfires


Live fast, land soft, leave good memories.
(writen on the inside of a jump plane in Austrailia.

dying from natural causes is for wimps.

"That guy can track like a set of car keys"
Billy Porter

No I don't go up I just hit the breaks
-Linda

"Beautiful Streamer"

[The other version of the classic - ED.]

Anonymous

To the tune of "Beautiful Dreamer".



Beautiful streamer open for me.
Blue skies above me and no canopy.
Counted nine thousand, waited too long,
Reached for my ripcord, the damn thing was gone.

Beautiful Streamer, why must it be?
White silk above me is what I should see.
Just like my mother, looks over me.
To hell with the ripcord, 'twas not meant for me.

Beautiful streamer follow me down.
Time is elapsing and here is the ground.
600 feet and then I can tell,
if I'll go to heaven or I'll go to hell.

Beautiful streamer, this is the end,
Gabriel is blowing "My Body Wont Mend".
All you jump happy sons-of-a-gun,
take this last warning, jumping's no fun

Blood on the Risers
Sung to the tune of "?Glory, Glory?"
Revised and edited for sport by Little David
First jumper on the wingstrut called the spotter as he looked
Our hero now was fearless for he'd read Russ Gunby's book
He jumped right out into the blast, his static line unhooked
He ain't going to jump no more.
Chorus:

Gory, Gory, what a helluva way to die,
Gory, gory, what a helluva way to die
Gory, gory what a helluva way to die
He ain't going to jump no more.

He counted long, he counted loud, six thousand was his goal
He tumbled out of stable and began a forward roll
He spun out flat, began to dive and went out of control
He ain't gonna jump no more.
Chorus (above)

The risers wrapped around his neck, connectors cracked his dome
The lines were snarled and tied in knots around his skinny bones
The canopy became his shroud, he hurtled to the ground
He ain't gonna jump no more.

Chorus (above)

He pulled the handle on his reserve and threw it far away
He tried to grab the skirt, but all his thumbs got in the way
He threw it out all full of holes and then began to pray
He ain't gonna jump no more.

Chorus (above)

The days he'd lived and loved and laughed kept running through his mind
He thought about the girl below, the one he'd left behind
He thought about the medico's and wondered what they'd find
He ain't gonna jump no more.

Chorus (above)

The ambulance was on the spot, its mighty siren wailed
The medics rolled their sleeves and smiled as through the air he sailed
For it had been a week or more since last a chute had failed
He ain't gonna jump no more.

Chorus (above)

The drop zone coming fast, a hundred miles or more
"I get his helmet and his boots," he heard a buddy roar
He bounced around the runway in the welter of his gore
He ain't gonna jump no more.

Chorus (above)

His pelvis crashed into his chest, his ribs poked through his side
His helmet bounced a hundred feet, his head was still inside
The ground crew stood there laughing as he rolled around and died
He ain't gonna jump no more.

Chorus (above)

"There was blood up in the risers
There were brains up in the chute
Intestines were a dangling from his paratrooper's boots.
They picked him up, still in chute, but he poured right to the floor
He ain't gonna jump no more!"

Chorus (above)

Just because noone knows what "brand new Telsan boots" are, doesn't mean that you should go changing the words to "paratrooper's boots."

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Just because noone knows what "brand new Telsan boots" are, doesn't mean that you should go changing the words to "paratrooper's boots."

***

COOL!

Another "Old Timer!"


Remember THIS one?!

"The Chauvinist Pig Team"

The Chauvinist Pig Team we call them,
The Chauvinist Pig Team they are,
With swear words and bad breath,
Big egos, wet armpits,
And jumpsuits that smell like manure.

We watch as they Z out the airplane,
We watch as they take out the star,
And after they get down, they still try and tell us
What wonderful jumpers they are.

He's constantly pulling his pants down,
The reason we don't really know -
We pitythe fool, trying to show off his tool,
Cuz two inches just ain't much to show.

They talk about how dumb the broads are,
And how all we can do is screw
But what they don't realize is, men are no better,
For fucking will usually take two!

And now that we have your attention,
There's something we'd like to say:
You chauvinist pigs can complain all you want,
But in skydiving, we're going to stay!!!

Just prior to my first jump:"It is a small step to man, but a giant leap for me" ( I think the man in the moon said something like that too...)

- You should stop smoking, dude. "I quit smoking when my reserve fails to open." - But serious, what would you do then? "Bend my head between my thighs and kiss my ass goodbye"

some more quotes: some from famous people, and some from me

Who dares wins ( Motto of Britain's SAS forces)

Never give up, never give up, never, never give up.Winston Churchill

He can who thinks he can (unknown)

Sincere thanks, given to God, is appreciation in its greatest form (Bill Cole)


Something that seems impossible just takes a little longer. (Bill Cole)


If you dont stand for something, you'll fall for everything (unknown)


In any economy, inflation is great for parachutes an hot air balloons (Bill Cole , parachutist and balloonist)

skydivers - good down to the last drop.

If at first you don't succeed, thank f**k you weren't skydiving!

I've no idea where to look for skydiving quotes. I've got two books full of flying quotes, many several of them posted here. Wish there was a skydiving quote book like the tow flying ones I have. Mind if I use some of these?

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Mind if I use some of these?

Feel free . . . I am using them, and I got them all from someone else! This is an open source, so go for it!