Jumping out of a perfectly good airplane with only a parachute for protection is not a move most people would willingly make. Especially not as a routine. But this is exactly what Khalida Hendricks, a senior in physics and former Army master sergeant, does for fun.
“It was just on my list of things to do. Just like so many other people, I wanted to do a sky dive sometime. But instead of just doing one, I wanted to get my license, which at the time took 20 jumps to get my A license,” Hendricks said. “By the time I finished 20 jumps, I was completely hooked and I never looked back.”
While getting ready to get out of the Army, the military was trying to find some way to keep Hendricks in. They offered a chance to be on the United States Army Parachute Team, also known as the Golden Knights.
“I did demonstrations with the Golden Knights for two years, and then my third year on the Golden Knights they asked me to be on the competition team. So I spent all of 2009 travelling around the country doing national competitions here in the United States, and I learned how to do accuracy, which is my particular discipline that I compete in,” Hendricks said. “At the very end, just as I was getting out of the Army to go to college, I went to the national championships and I qualified for a spot on the U.S. National Team, and now I’m going to the World Championships… as a civilian.”
Hendricks will be headed to the World Style and Accuracy Landing Parachuting Championships for accuracy jumping Aug. 28 to Sept. 4 in Nicsik, Montenegro. For accuracy jumps, she will exit the airplane between 3000 and 4000 feet and maneuver her way to the specified target.
“We pretty much pull the parachute right away, so there’s really no free-fall involved. There’s an electronic scoring pad, it’s 32 centimeters in diameter. In the center of that, there’s a little yellow dot that’s two centimeters in diameter. From 3000 feet we have to navigate our parachute down through all the conditions and try to hit that yellow dot,” Hendricks said.
Cheryl Stearns, a fellow U.S. team member, said Hendricks is both a good competitor and a good person.
“That’s the biggest thing. Sometimes you can be a great competitor but everybody hates you out there because you’re a jerk. But to have a good personality, a good competitor, on top of it is a special case,” Stearns said. “I have seen a lot come, a lot go – a lot of good ones and a lot of bad ones – attitudewise. She’ll bring up the team in terms of personality, and competition-wise, when you’re around good people you tend to be good yourself.”
Stearns, who holds the record for most jumps – over 18,000 – said even though jumping out of an airplane for her is like stepping out of a car for others, it’s still very difficult.
“Every jump is different because we’re jumping in different conditions. The winds are different; you caught a thermal, I didn’t catch a thermal; the sun went over the target, the sun didn’t go over the target; the clouds came over the target – you have totally different conditions. It’s a constant challenge; that’s why I’ve been doing it for almost 40 years,” Stearns said. “It’s still a challenge for me. I’ve lost more than I’ve ever won, but I’ve won a lot. It’s the consistency out there that will get you to win.”
John Hendricks, father to Khalida, said the main thing he feels when watching her parachute is pride, but there have also been times where he has been worried for her.
“The failed parachute [demonstration] would always make my heart race a little bit. That one would always scare me because they would drop so far before that second chute would go. The first one would deploy where they normally pulled and then they would have to cut it away,” John Hendricks said. “I was always worried that they wouldn’t get the second one up, and if the second one failed if there would even be time for the third one.”
When she first started jumping with the military, John Hendricks said there was a three-month period where the family did not hear from Khalida.
“When she finally contacted me, I said ‘why haven’t you spoken to us?’ and she said ‘I didn’t want you to worry.’ ‘Why? ’ ‘Well, I was jumping out of this plane and I hit some trees.’ Why wouldn’t she tell us? ‘Well, basically I broke my back.’ And that’s why she wouldn’t tell us,” John Hendricks said.
Even with the risks, no close calls will scare Hendricks away from doing what she loves at the World Championships.
“She’s going to do the best she can, she’s going to represent our nation with pride, and she will be delighted if she or the team gets a medal,” John Hendricks said. “Just the fact that she is there representing our country is enough.”