But a fellow typist introduced her to hang gliding, a hobby that had been around since the 1890s. Though she showed great promise as a classical dancer in her youth, her father told her “dancers whores,” and forced her to take up typing at 17. You have to seek vengeance on mediocrity however you can,” she writes. When the husband started talking, they shut up.”ĭuval had no intention of staying quiet. They started to cut their hair, but in their heads, the chignon was still there. "France was dancing the rumba … Coco Chanel was beginning to eliminate the corset, and women, shocked to have a waist at ease, physically liberated themselves. “The sun was in the sign of Leo," she writes of the year of her birth, 1930. ![]() She was born in a small village in northern France near the border with Belgium, where her father had a post with the national railway. According to her 1986 autobiography S’en fout la mort (“I don’t give a damn about death”), Duval had a difficult childhood with a tyrannical, alcoholic father. According to a USPA instructor responding to safety questions on Quora in 2017, accidental water landings were historically a frequent cause of skydiving fatalities.Ĭolette Duval was a born thrill-seeker. However, USPA was considerably smaller then, with just 3,353 members,” the organization notes. “With 14 fatalities, 1961-the first year records were kept-stands as the year with the fewest skydiving fatalities. Feet out, knees bent is the ideal position-otherwise the jumper might risk breaking an ankle, or worse.Īccording to the United States Parachute Association (USPA), the number of skydiving fatalities in 2016 was one per 153,557 jumps, or 21 fatal skydiving accidents out of roughly 3.2 million jumps in the United States. The landing is the most precarious for knees and ankles. Pulling low-waiting for the last possible second to yank the rip cord-is frowned upon among conservative jumpers not allowing the parachute enough time to inflate could be deadly. After about 45 seconds, she opens the parachute, feeling it catch and pull hard on her back and shoulders. She thrusts her pelvis forward, parallel with the ground. The wind whips past her helmet and goggles. A surge of adrenaline hits-it’s so strong that she’ll feel withdrawal tomorrow.Īround 4,000 meters (13,123 feet), the temperature outside the plane is about 13 degrees Fahrenheit. After exiting the airplane, also known as “bombing out,” the jumper experiences acceleration for a few seconds before hitting terminal velocity, 120 miles per hour. The plane soars above the drop zone, stalling as the wind whips past the open door-giving the jumper only a moment to collect herself, or else miss her landing mark. I wanted to discover something insane that I knew would be the joy of my life.”īy all accounts, this insane joy, skydiving, feels more like weightlessness than falling. ![]() “I didn’t have a penny, I was separated from my family, no more husband … and no career! I was alone and I had screwed myself, I didn’t want to think of that. Duval was 20 years old, in the middle of an amicable divorce from her first husband, and thoroughly obsessed with parachuting. ![]() A slap of fresh air, a violent shock at the opening, and the rising sun.” It was 1950. ![]() “In every way, I was too impatient and too curious to be afraid,” she recounted in her autobiography. Reading French parachutist Colette Duval’s account of her first jump-in which the future Parisian fashion model wore red, no less-one is reminded of a fearless matador in the arena.
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