In Eschbach, many curious people dare their first parachute jump – Eschbach

How do you jump from a five-meter tower, how do you drop abruptly on a roller coaster or how do you ride an elevator? Lily Loessl, a 19-year-old student from Tübingen, has long thought about what a parachute jump would feel like. It was clear that she would do it, because after all, you don’t get an airy adventure every day. “Actually, I’m only afraid of the first moment when I have to get off the plane,” she says when Robin Schimmele puts on her passenger harness on the terrace of the jumping area in the Breisgau industrial park in Eschbach.

The managing director of Air Adventures is your tandem partner. He’s carrying a rucksack with an umbrella twice as big as that of a single diver. He has already completed 6,500 jumps, many of them as a tandem master. “I just enjoy seeing how other people feel happy when they arrive downstairs,” he explains with the camera in hand, which also captures the colorful heap that comes together in front of the Cessna Grand Caravan for a souvenir film.

“I was lying on the wind and when you feel the resistance, it calms you down” Lily Loessl

There is space for 18 people on two long benches, and on weekends, in addition to individual jumpers, up to 50 tandems are brought to jump height. That is an impressive 4,000 meters and while the machine is climbing Lily Loessl talks to herself. It’s too loud here to talk to Robin Schimmele, but he calms down with gestures and a hand on his shoulder. Jump height reached: the door opens, the benches empty. One after the other falls into the blue. “Now I pretend I can fly,” the 19-year-old encourages herself and mumbles her mantra: “I don’t fall, I fly.”

After landing on the meadow, she recounts this with a broad smile and that distant facial expression that the experienced jumpers already know. Now she knows what it is like “up there”, why it cannot be described but has to be experienced, and that she absolutely wants to go up again. “I was lying on the wind and when you feel the resistance, it calms you down,” she explains, adding that it seemed quite long to her. But that is purely a matter of feeling: the free fall at 180 kilometers per hour takes just under a minute. In a tandem, the pilot pulls the parachute at an altitude of 1,500 meters, and it takes another four minutes to land.

Quite a few remain after the first jump

Nina Schimmele, Robin Schimmele’s daughter and an experienced competition jumper in training to become a tandem master, watched the arrival of the newbies. She knows that after the first jump, it is not uncommon for you to “get stuck” in the sport and then become part of the 300-member Skydiving Eschbach club, whose members are between 14 and over 60 years old. “You fall out of the plane with your own weight and, because the plane has its own speed, you don’t fall into space. It’s more like floating,” she describes the feeling that makes you want more. Her club colleague Carsten Dücker compares it to driving a convertible where you keep your hand out of the vehicle in the airstream.

The heroes of the action thriller “Dangerous Surf” with Patrick Swayze from 1991 also had wind around their noses. “When they jumped out of the helicopter with the parachute, they were also promoting parachuting,” believes Robin Schimmele . “Surfing, diving, gliding, a balloon flight. For most people, skydiving is pretty high on the wish list. Many want to have done it once in their life.” Jumps with a tandem were still the exception thirty years ago. The desire for adventurous sporting activities has increased significantly over the past decade.

“There is particularly strong demand this year. People are now apparently looking for alternatives in the summer because most of them do not travel abroad.” Robin Schimmele

“A lot of people don’t know what to give either, and that is definitely something that the recipient will remember for a long time,” says Schimmele, reporting on the oldest female tandem jumper to date, who landed safely and euphorically at the age of 87. According to the regulations, you can jump from 120 centimeters in height, the weight limit is 100 kilograms, and there is no age limit. A parachute jump including a flight costs 210 euros and is therefore a gift that family or friends will happily pool for. In 2018 there were around 1,600 tandem jumps.

“This year there is a particularly strong demand. People are now apparently looking for alternatives in the summer because most of them do not travel abroad,” explains Schimmele and emphasizes that the leased plane will be able to use its new 900 aircraft after being converted last year. PS turbine now takes off at a significantly lower speed. “We’re doing everything we can to keep the pollution as low as possible,” says Schimmele.

150 tandem jumps in one weekend – that is the record so far

For seven years he has been managing director of Air Adventures GmbH, which exists alongside the Eschbach Parachute Sports Club, which is geared towards sporting activities. “The work could no longer be managed on a voluntary basis,” says Robin Schimmele, looking back on the time after near bankruptcy due to rising flight costs. As managing director, he is also responsible for the utilization of the aircraft. “The previous record is 150 tandem jumps from Friday to Sunday. Desirable figures, because we incur flight costs of 400,000 euros every year,” he reckons.

Due to its location in the border triangle, a visitor terrace with a bistro and a clear view of take-offs and landings, the place in the Breisgau industrial park is popular. In addition, many Swiss and French jump here, because the next opportunity in Switzerland is only in Lucerne-Beromünster, in France in Strasbourg.

Jumps are no longer possible in Freiburg

By the way, if you enter the keywords “parachuting” and “Freiburg” into the search engine, you will first find a large provider of adventure vouchers. But they don’t offer jumps in Freiburg, but in Lahr. Black Forest Skydive is the name of the club located there. It used to be in Freiburg is home and moved when the new SC stadium was built, and you can also go parachuting on Lake Constance in Konstanz, Radolfzell-Stahringen, Hilzingen and Bad Saulgau.

“We don’t work with agencies and large providers like skydives. What I get back from them for a jump sold are only my own costs,” explains Schimmele and adds: “We also need tandem jumps to determine the actual costs of the jumps To compensate for club members who are not covered by the price of 30 euros “.