I went bungee jumping today. Ugh. I hat that feeling in my stomach. If someone does it many, many times, does that feeling go away? What replaces it?
I just do NOT like that sort of thing. Do you? Why? I’m just curious 
What about skydiving? Does one feel that horrible feeling in the stomach the entire time? I’d go insane.
Hey, thanks for your replies. I just can’t do my own research
Which feeling in the stomach? The butterflies leading up to the jump, or that “falling” feeling? I have a little over 20 jumps, and I feel it in my stomach every time. I don’t get nervous, in fact, I LOVE jumping. But if you’re talking about that sense of falling one feels in his gut, then yeah, I feel that every time.
But I dont think about that. I concentrate on the awesome view and my canopy!!
If you’re talking about the “falling” feeling, you experience it for a moment just after jumping, but it disappears as you pick up speed. You certainly don’t feel it all the way down. To be honest, your mind’s on other things anyway, at least for the first jump!
Since orbiting astronauts experience this for protracted periods, I presume you can get used to it, even enough to sleep through it.
I do like that sort of thing. Don’t know why.
You only get that feeling when you are accelerating. The closer you come to g, the bigger it is. When you skydive your acceleration slows until you reach terminal velocity at which time it is about zero. If you have any length of freefall, then the queasiness will only be a small portion of your jump.
As matt observed though, astronauts have this the whole time they are in orbit. This is because they are always accelerating at g. If that doesn’t make sense then you need to brush up on orbital mechanics.
Having gone skydiving twice now if that feeling really is there my mind has been on other things. From my experiences the feelings associated with skydiving are far different than rollercoasters or bungee jumping.
Done both. I found bungee jumping far more bizarre and off-putting vs. skydiving. Why? Near as I can tell, bungee jumping is much “closer” in scale to my normal experience - from the platform I was jumping off of, I could read the license plates of the cars parked below and having a yelling conversation with folks on the ground (may 150 feet up?). So it was basically like every worst high-diving freak out you could imagine. Skydiving was much less “real” - heck, it was like jumping into a postcard. I was the first one out all 3 times I did it and I just thought it was a rush every time.
Also, when bungee jumping, the relative perspective shift is much faster. When you skydive, the difference between 12,000 feet and 11,000 is a small shift. This continues for some time - finally, as you get to, oh 500 feet, then the relative shift of another 50 feet starts to be a much larger proportion of your total height. The ground seems to rush at you - this is called (strangely enough) “ground rush.” Well, with bungee jumping, I felt that right away and through the whole jump. With skydiving it was gradual and more manageable.
Hope this helps.
I love all that kind of stuff!
I too have both Bungeed and Skydived! Bungee 2 Skydive 3.
WordMan’s post describe my sentiments and experience pretty well!
I did the static line jump, I didn’t want to be strapped to anyone! Anyhow the
rules, at the place I went, were that you had to be able to get into that
skydivers position, the X face down, twice in a row, before the static line
pulled your ripcord (5 seconds to do this) before you could free fall on your own and pull your own cord. All three times I was a spinning ball, happy though, till the static cored pull my chute! Oh, the grand view floating down
I did the Bungee later on in life and like WordMan said I could wave at my brother on the
ground, scream at him ect. It was much more “Real.” You think wow look at how high I am,
and about to Jump. My left leg start twitching uncontrollably the first time. I took a deep breath, calmed my self down, then jumped and went best ride you can have! Weeeeeee!
Skydiving the view before jumping is more surreal!
Also, IMHO, I think that somewhere in the back of my mind the reasoning was …
Skydiving … proven technology … since W.W.II … especially learning, they use the
W.W.II paratrooper type chute. Round. They just ask you, make sure your not to
heavy or light for the chute. Oh, they teach you how to land correctly. Feet togeather.
Bungee, newer technology, they have to weigh you, know the elasticity of the
cord, jump height, do the math correctly, and makes sure you jump from a safe place
so you don’t hit the point you jumped off on the way back up! Seems like more could go wrong!
As for that “feeling” you get … like other posters said … I really don’t feel it …
just for a sec maybe. Your mind is really too busy with other stuff… trying to
orient you in free fall! And in my case having fun!
If you did static line jumps, I’m not sure if you’d feel it or not since the line must drag a little as it’s paying out, and then the chute snaps open. I’ve only jumped tandem, but at the moment of the jump I could certainly feel I was falling. A couple of seconds later you don’t feel like you’re falling - it feels like you’re being supported by the gale that’s blowing up at you.
I’ve done 2 static line jumps and 1 tandem jump. I don’t recall a pulling sensation from the static line - the bigger issue is the fact that the fall lasts about 5 seconds before your 'chute deploys - barely time to register the overall sensation (yes, yes, time slows down - but that is more in replay. When it happened, it happened very quickly - I just seem to be able to remember every millisecond of it).
Tandem - having this person strapped to me (why, O why, couldn’t it be Salma Hayek??) made this feel different - I felt a little like “payload” if you will. But jumping out at 12,000 feet (vs. 3,000 for static line) was very cool and there was a LOT of freefall time (30 - 40 seconds at least) where my partner was quiet and I could imagine I was alone.
My humbling skydive story: first jump, Perris Valley, CA. 20 years old. Get training, get suited up, and 12 or so of us go up in a huge DC3 with about 5 or so experienced jump teams. They drop us off at 3,000 before heading up. I am first out - GO!! Very cool - static line works, I am there, hanging in the sky. I work my round ‘chute and am able to turn left, turn right - I did it!! I am enjoying my ride down - and I see the landing target, oh, a quarter mile off to the left. We had been told “DON’T worry about the target - worry about a safe landing your first time.” But I was cool - I had this shit down - oooohhh yeeeaaaah. So I turn towards the target and start bookin’ at the full 15mph (air spills out the holes in the back of the chute at about 7 - 10mph; the wind was going about 5 mph that day - and I had turned to run with the wind).
I am running with the wind - there’s the target - it’s all good, baby! I am going to land on the target my first time! I am go- wait; what’s am I forgetting? Oh yeah, look down and see if it feels like I am close to the ground so I can be ready for impact. I look down - wow, so THAT’s what ground rush looks like - it must time to - uh oh: I am supposed to turn my 'chute INTO the wind, so my forward velocity negates the wind’s forces (10mph - 5mph = 5mph; or, a LOT less than my 15mph). Oh shit - BAM! I SLAM into the ground being dragged along by my 'chute - through brambles and tumble weeds and shit. I am able to stop my 'chute and get up and “run round” (get on the good side of the wind, so the 'chute collapses"). And I am close to the target - and a bunch of old pro’s laughing and clapping at my wonderful performance. sigh
I have never sky dived or bungee jumped. Sky diving I would love to do but bungee jumping is something I just can’t wrap my head around (and I come from the land of the bungee). It is NOT natural to jump off something head first!
Oneday I will sky dive…as soon as finances allow. The bugger is that I could bungee less then 5 mins from where I live, fairly cheaply (Auck harbour bridge) but I just can’t do the headfirst thing.
Doesn’t have to be head first - I did two: one head first; one attached to a safety harness more or less in the middle of my body - so I guess at my midsection…had to jump off backward.
Didn’t really change much in my mind - both had the full “high dive” anxiety.
There is no way in hell you’d get me to voluntarilary jump out of a perfectly good airplane. You’d flat out never get me to bungee jump off anything. I get nervous hanging christmas lights, and I’d rather pay someone to clean my gutters.
This is bound to hurt, but the consolation would be that you’re then well on the way to perpetual motion. Lots of $ to be made there.
Then you won’t have a problem. The plane I jumped out of most certainly was NOT a perfectly good airplane.
I’m with Maxx. If you enjoy it, good for you. But even if only 1 in 100,000 die from these activities, I have enough faith in my bad luck not to risk being that 1.
I’ve bungeed. It was terrifying, and the only thing that made me jump was the operator giving me a countdown. If he’d just said “go when you’re ready” I couldn’t have done it. I went off in what they recommended, something like a “swan dive”, but the video shows it looking a lot more like Frankenstein shambling off a cliff. There was a little of the “stomach” feeling as I fell. Apparently if you jump off feet first you get a lot more off the “stomach” feeling.
I wish now I’d done it a few more times. As scary as it was, the fear was what made it so fun. And it felt absolutely safe. I get scared climbing ten feet up in a tree, but being strapped into the bungee equipment and knowing that no injury will befall me makes it a whole lot better.
I haven’t skydived. It’s on my list though.