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My First Tandem Skydive Slow Motion

2,726 views · Published 15 August 2008 · 2:58 · Indexed 5 October 2026

Channel: Faissal aka Md. Faisal Halim · 2008 · Sports

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My First Tandem Skydive Slow Motion
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Dear Professor Ho, Thanks for telling me, when I complained of my frustrations during my senior year of engineering, to "Let it out." Thanks for warning me that "People who (keep it to themselves) end up shooting random people." I had never imagined it could get that serious. Thanks for insisting that I let out my pent up frustrations at the progress of the experiments in my senior design project (and, most certainly, the programming for modeling some quantum structure devices, for a materials and devices class: EE 441).
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Dear Professor Crouse, Thanks for the opportunities for modeling the electronic behavior of quantum wells, quantum wires, and quantum dots, when used as photodetectors, for your EE 441 course. Modeling the quantum structures for your 441 class was the most fun I have had in college. All those nights that I spent trying to understand why and how I would use Bessel's functions (right after devising an algorithm for finding and optimizing the height and the width of the quantum well) I used to crack away for an hour or two, and then I would spend 15 minutes at a time jumping off the stairs, in Shepard Hall. As I jumped from ever higher, eventually needing to tuck and roll (essentially, taking only one element of parkour), I developed a whole other side of me, one that I had never known to have existed. This continued, till one day (during senior design, and some time after your course was over) I decided I wanted to jump off a cliff.

[Note: You can see my exploits from back then, bad technique and all, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=347-KKKVZj8 ]

I think skydiving is a great way to train for that. It doesn't provide that tremendous ground rush (and the inherent tunnel vision) of jumping off a 6 feet high wall, but it does open up avenues of acrobatics that I would also want to do when free running. Besides, this experience has opened up a whole new avenue: it makes me think I would enjoy skimming a high performance parachute just above the tree tops, down a mountain side, before I swoop across a pond, or a flat patch of ground.

While my free running skills have improved, in these past two years (I have just learned vaulting, and am trying to get the hang of cartwheeling), I definitely think I want to pursue skydiving further.

You can see the limits of my parkour abilities, at the time of this first skydive, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ckl7gyYM1Q

The full speed version of this video, including the take-off and parachute landing, is located here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngwO_UPlJ7U
In this video, above, you can see that I was scared on my way up: I was praying, reciting Ayat-al-Kursi (from a book called the Quran) all the way to the top. By the time we got there, I was relatively calm; and so, compared to my turbulent climb up, my fall was rather serene.
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Professor Dorsinville, Thanks for a most challenging, and rewarding experience with senior design. Without the demands of that project, my ability to destress may never have developed past when Professor Crouse' project got me to start jumping off the stairs. I think you have seen some of my early clips, from my first, improperly trained, jumps. Once again, thanks for helping me find my id. Without your OLED fabrication project, I may never have truly discovered it.
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The dive was at Hazelton, in the Poconos, in Pennsylvania, USA. My jumpmaster was Frank, and my cameraperson was Jules.

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