‘Mind-blowing’: Suburban astronomy teacher completes eclipse skydive
Marvelous, mind-blowing and absolutely amazing. That’s how Tyler Michie described his experience jumping out of a plane and sailing through the air during Monday’s total solar eclipse.
“I was just stunned,” said Michie, who is an astronomy and earth sciences teacher at Hoffman Estates High School. “It’s very hard to put into words what I felt.”
The lead-up to the eclipse was rocky and frustrating on Monday morning in Dallas, where Michie traveled for an event organized by Skydive Spaceland Dallas. With cloudy skies overhead, Michie and the other skydivers thought the weather might prevent them from jumping at all, but eventually the jump was cleared to proceed. Even so, he said, disorganization at the site and an unexpected second plane full of tandem jumpers led to plan changes and delays.
The original plan called for Michie to jump three minutes before totality, followed by three minutes in the air during totality and three minutes after. Ultimately, when he exited the plane, the eclipse’s totality phase was already occurring. Despite the hiccups, Michie said he is very grateful for the experience.
“I was in the air for probably something like nine minutes, but unfortunately only the first minute and a half was in totality,” Michie said. “But it was still just absolutely mind-blowing, and I hope I get the chance to do it again someday.”
The eclipse was awe-inspiring for those on the ground, including students at Hoffman Estates High School who watched from the school’s football field, but the effect on Michie was multiplied. The pinprick of light masked by the moon was up close and personal. In the darkened sky, Michie could see Venus, millions of miles away. The clouds below and lights dotting the ground completed the surreal experience.
Michie has been using his skydiving experiences to complement his teaching for several years, and this jump is no exception. He said he is excited to show his students the mid-eclipse photos and to analyze them based on lessons from class.
“What he’s going to bring back to our kids, you can’t learn that in a book,” HEHS principal Mike Alther said. “It lands more strongly, kids will gravitate toward it more strongly, because it’s real.”
Michie said he is also excited to hear about the eclipse from his students’ perspectives. According to Alther, Michie and other astronomy teachers in the district prepared for the eclipse by collecting eclipse glasses and putting together a video on how to use them properly. On Monday, their work came to fruition when the student body gathered for the event that Alther said brought the classmates together in a powerful way.
When it comes to future eclipses, Michie plans to keep chasing them around the world, but he said he’ll stick to watching from the ground for now. If he’s still skydiving in 2044 when a total eclipse makes it back to the United States, then he plans to view it from the sky once again.