Mr Bill Skydive - Video

Now, some may say its stupid, and well, it is. If you YouTube a Mr Bill skydive then you will mostly see videos of it going wrong, very badly wrong for some people.

What is a Mr Bill?

Two skydivers exit the plane, one holding on to the other. One deploys the parachute and the other stays holding on. They then fly around a little then the skydiver holding on will let go and go back into freefall and deploy their own parachute.

Skydiver 1 is responsible for deploying the parachute quickly, but not so quickly that they deploy while stepping out of the plane and wrap their pilot chute around the tail of the plane and take down the entire aircraft.

Skydiver 2 is holding on tight and as the parachute is opening they wrap their legs around skydiver 1, so that they don't get ripped off when the parachute opens, as the force is tremendous.
It took us two attempts because of this. The first time I wasnt wearing gloves and I didnt lock my legs around, so I was able to hold on for 3 secs until the parachute fully opened then I got ripped off. This is also very dangerous as people have ended up with skin grafts where the force is so strong.

I knew Sam could exit a plane stable and deploy his pilot chute without wrapping it around the tail of the plane or around my feet, so if I was going to do it, it was with him.

I have never felt the urge to do one, mainly as I have seen so many go wrong and end up in reserve rides, but my friend Sam talked me into it.

A lot of drop zones won't allow a Mr. Bills, but as we were at Skydive Seven (who allow lots of skull duggery, including the shark skydive) we took the opportunity. We were jumping at Skydive Algarve (next door) also but they are affiliated with the BPA (British Parachute Association), and as we know, they don't like you to have fun.

This second time I also got Sam to grab my harness straight after he deployed for added strength to keep me from slipping. Some people prefer to exit the plane in a leg lock, but I have seen this go very wrong as both skydivers end up going unstable and deploying on their back, thus causing a pilot chute entanglement...so we chose the safer option.

You'll see we were a bit excited when it worked, my hands were still burning from being ripped off a few days before when we tried it, so this was our last attempt as I only has one more left in me haha.

Sam was on a Pilot 168 and I was on my 150 Squirrel Epicene, so it made sense that I was holding on to Sam with the larger parachute.

Enjoy our jump at 1080p 60fps below: