The Year 10s at Katikati College do a unit in Science called Crash Physics and as part of it the students learn about the forces acting on a parachutist from the time they stand in the plane until they land on the ground.

 They are taught about weight forces, gravitational pull, terminal velocity and deceleration to name but a few of the scientific principles. But what is it really like to do a jump and what does the jumper actually experience?

After months of negotiating with the RNZAF the answer fell (literally) into place on Friday November 2 at precisely 10:30am. Katikati put on a stunning day despite it being a bit windy and the Elite Air Force parachutist instructors were able to practise their manoeuvres for their upcoming Air Show displays as five men leapt from a small plane at 4,000 m above Katikati College grounds. The entire College junior school, Year 13 students back for their fun-day, 120 primary school students and a group of pre-schoolers with their teachers and carers gathered on the back field looking upwards at the circling white dot that was the noisy plane. Suddenly there was coloured smoke and the men were falling towards us.

The display was amazing to watch. The instructors first formed a circle, then moved into a straight vertical line and finally suddenly broke away to their own piece of sky, swooping and swirling rapidly downwards to land on our back field. The smoke canisters attached to their legs made it easy to watch the entire jump and it also formed a grand pattern that lasted in the sky for minutes. It was a super display, awe inspiring.

Following the jump, all the Year 10s were given a talk in the Action Centre about the science of parachuting. The instructors showed us four different parachutes and what they could or could not do with them. Some fascinating facts came to light… like they only take 10 minutes to pack the main chute but it takes half a day to pack the reserve… because of its importance for life. They have a chute that can hold up to 200kg of weight that allows them to tandem dive a medico or an engineer who can’t parachute and also have boxes of gear attached to their legs. In this case the reserve is the same size as the main chute and is heavy for them to carry around once on the ground. They can leap from a Hercules plane at 300 m with a smaller parachute that has the plane activate the ripcord as they jump out of it rather than have a manual cord. With movements of their bodies they can cheat the deceleration or acceleration process as they fall through the sky, however it is all about the timing that allows them to reach the spot they are aiming to land on. Sgt Lennox had his Gopro on throughout his jump and we got to view the footage  - it was cool to see the school and the people gradually appear as they came down towards the target - a giant J on the ground. It was amazing how clear that letter was from  way up high.

Those of us at the talk were riveted and lots of questions were asked ranging from near death experiences to finding out that jumping out of the plane is nicer than leaping off the Sky Tower, (because you cannot see the ground when leaping from the plane), and despite the apparent ease with which they came down, just how much training it has taken to be that superbly skilled. Most had the experience of over 800 jumps. My thanks to New Zealand Defence Force Kiwi Blue Parachuting team for doing this jump and coming to talk to their first ever school… they all were just absolutely amazing and this event will talked about for a long time to come.