Army skydiving demonstration team more than a job Published May 8, 2009 By Wayne Crenshaw 78th Air Base Wing Public Affairs ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- Army Sgt. Aaron Figel didn't fulfill his boyhood dream of playing baseball in the Major Leagues, but he makes a living doing something he loves. Sergeant Figel, an Army Ranger, is one of 12 members of the Golden Knights, the Army's skydiving demonstration team that performed at the Robins Air Show. It was a special performance for the Golden Knights, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. He fell in love with skydiving before he joined the Army shortly after the Sept. 11 attack. As a teenager, he watched the movie "Point Break," which was about a group of live-on-the-edge surfers who skydive and rob banks. Sergeant Figel and a friend decided they wanted to give it a try - the skydiving, not the bank robbing - and he has been at it ever since. Joining the Army, and the Golden Knights, gave him a way not only to skydive without the rather large expense of doing it recreationally, but to get paid for it as well. "It's a dream come true," he said, as the team prepared to go up for a practice drop on the Friday before the show. Sergeant Figel, like most of his teammates, has extensive combat experience, although not as a paratrooper. He is a veteran of numerous deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. He described his first jump, at the age of 19, as "pretty scary," but once he got over the anxiety, he enjoyed the feeling of freedom that comes with hurtling to the ground. "The thing I remember most is jumping out and seeing the plane fly away and you are out there on your own, and you think 'what have I done?'" he said. "It's the coolest thing." He made the comments just before the team boarded its converted Fokker F-27 for the air show rehearsal. They did a "dirt dive" on the ground, going through their motions in what looked something like a dance. The plane, with the two rear doors open for the entire flight, flew in a steady upward spiral over the runway until it reached 13,000 feet. Team members, crouched on their knees at the doors, peered downward and gave the pilot hand signals to make sure the plane stayed on the right position. The first to jump was the narrator, who would sail downward with an American flag trailing with him. He would go to the podium during the show and talk to the crowd as the rest of the jumpers came behind him. Sgt. 1st Class Dan Hendricks, a recruiter liaison for the team, is on the low end of the experience scale with only 150 jumps. "The first time you jump out an airplane, it's like a sensory overload," he said. On the high end of the scale is Sgt. Steve Robertson, who has over 5,000 jumps to his credit. "I'm not really that good though," he shouted over the roar of the plane and the wind rushing in the doors just before he jumped. "Really, I'm not."