Living the Dream: Bill Goes Skydiving

May 7, 2010— -- I know what you're thinking: Why would anyone with more than 12 working brain cells ever willingly throw themselves out of a perfectly good airplane?

It is a valid question, one I've been forced to confront since choosing skydiving as my "Living the Dream" adventure for "Good Morning America."

"There is no such thing as a perfectly good airplane" is a common retort worn on T-shirts around drop zones, but that is an unsatisfying answer by itself. So here are a few more:

My altitude sickness is hereditary. When the elder Bill Weir wasn't working the graveyard shift as a Milwaukee cop, he was jumping out of Cessna 180s at a little suburban airstrip called Aero Park. He met a cute blonde in freefall, made her my stepmother and they would drag little Billy along where I spent countless weekends as a "drop-zone rat," listening to an odd group of adrenaline-junkie bankers, welders, teachers and nurses laugh and joke as they repacked their chutes for the next load.

And I spent countless weekends peering into the sky for his familiar red-and-black canopy, wanting to be just like him.

The minute I turned 18, I did my first tandem and as soon as I could afford it, went through the classes to get my license at the mecca of the sport, Perris Valley, Calif. I chalked up nearly 100 jumps before life pulled me away. It had been more than a decade since my last jump, and when this delicious assignment came my way, it took less than a nanosecond to decide to head back out and get reacquainted because ...

It's the most fun I've ever had with pants on. When the airplane door opens and the cold air roars through the cabin, everyone onboard grins. The anticipation of what is about to occur provides a giddy sense of focus. And it intensifies as you step into the door and look down on the earth's expanse more than two miles below.