Who among us, at one time or another, hasn’t wanted to tell a politician to go take a flying leap?

But don’t bother to say that to Oxford Township Supervisor Bill Dunn because he’s already done it.

Last week, the 1965 Lake Orion High School graduate marked his 70th birthday by going skydiving.

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” Dunn said. “People ask me, ‘Aren’t you scared?’ If I was scared, I wouldn’t do it. I’m more anxious than anything because I’ve been wanting to do this all my life. Growing up, watching war movies, it always seemed like such a thrill to be able to jump out of a plane and survive.”

He made a 14,000-foot tandem parachute jump – meaning he was attached to an experienced skydiving instructor – in Macomb County’s Ray Township through a company called Midwest Freefall Skydiving.

“What a rush!” exclaimed Dunn, following his safe landing.

After arriving at the dropzone, located at 62912 Kunstman Rd., Dunn watched a short video, read and signed a waiver, put on a jumpsuit and harness, then had the whole process, from exiting the plane to landing, explained to him by skydiving instructor Phil White.

White, a Utah native who now lives in Rochester Hills, has been skydiving for 31 years. He loves the “freedom” and “the (feeling of) weightlessness.”

“It’s a feeling you can’t describe unless you try it,” said White, who’s jumped 8,400 times. Of those, 3,700 were tandem skydives.

Dunn, a Vietnam veteran who was in-country from 1967-68, never had the opportunity to jump during the four years he served in the U.S. Air Force.

“I was an airframe repairman,” he said. “I patched bullet holes.”

The closest he ever came was riding as a passenger in a jet with a parachute strapped to him just in case something went wrong.

“Luckily, I didn’t have to use it,” Dunn said. “In the Air Force, the only time you jump is when you have to because the plane’s malfunctioning or you’ve been shot down.”

Once Dunn had his feet planted squarely back on terra firma, he couldn’t say enough good things about the exhilarating experience.

“It was better than I thought. It was higher than I thought,” he said. “It was worth the wait.”

Following take off, Dunn said the plane climbed “higher and higher and higher” until a green light came on indicating the altitude of 14,000 feet had been reached.

“The guys in front of me lifted up this door and the wind just started rushing in,” he said. “I started hyperventilating. It was a combination of the altitude and being a little nervous. I was thinking, ‘Boy, I hope I don’t pass out.’”

Standing at the edge of the door with White strapped to his back, Dunn looked down at the distant earth below and thought to himself, ‘Wow, this is really going to happen.”

The next thing he knew, he was leaping out of the plane and racing through the air with absolutely nothing between him and the ground.

“Freefall is very intense because you’ve got this 120-mile-an-hour wind hitting you right in the face and it’s cold,” Dunn said. “It was definitely a rush. It was almost to the point where I couldn’t think. It’s like instinct takes over. You’re just trying to survive.

“It’s a little bit uncomfortable, but I’m sure you get used to it. It’s uncomfortable because I wasn’t expecting that much force and besides, it was 40 degrees.”

“Then all of a sudden, your chute opens,” he continued. “(The harness straps get) a little tight in the crotch . . . It gives a pretty good jerk up on your legs. It wasn’t unbearable, but there’s a lot of pressure wherever there are straps.”

After the parachute successfully deployed, Dunn told his instructor he just wanted to “glide around” and “soak” in everything. “That was the best thing,” he said. “The freefall was exciting, but the gliding, looking at the view below, that was breathtaking. It’s so beautiful. It’s just quiet up there. There’s no noise.”

Under the parachute, the descent rate is about 1,000 feet per minute.

Dunn highly recommends others give skydiving a try.

“I say do it,” he said. “If you’re afraid to, don’t do it. But if you want an exciting experience, if you want a rush, then go for it. You only live once. I only wish I hadn’t waited so long to do it. If I was still in my 20s, I’d buy the gear and learn how to jump on my own.”

“I would go back up and do it right now if they’d give me a discount,” Dunn added. “I would do it again in a heartbeat.”

Midwest Freefall Skydiving was founded in 2001 by owner/chief pilot Randy Allison, a Royal Oak resident who’s been jumping since 1983.

“On an annual basis, we’ll do about 12,000 lifts [i.e. taking people up for jumps],” he said. “We do a couple of thousand tandems a year.”

Over the years, Allison has personally made about 4,500 jumps, of which approximately 500 were tandem skydives.

So, what’s the appeal?

“It’s really about that sensation that you get (during) freefall, going 120 miles an hour without anything constraining you,” Allison explained. “(It offers) the opportunity to go up (into) the blue sky and look at the clouds and become completely detached from the Earth. I think people are intrigued by that idea and once they try it . . . it’s the exhilaration (they enjoy).”

Allison noted the skydiving industry has come along way “from the old days of the round military parachutes” and it continues to evolve and improve.

“It’s much safer than it was,” he said. “I’m never going to tell you it’s safe. If you think about it, you’re jumping out of an airplane. Gravity is always there and it always will win (if) given a chance.

“But the equipment’s advanced to the point where we’re able to do this with people, in a tandem environment, (who) wouldn’t normally have (this) opportunity or maybe (are) physically limited or don’t want to dedicate the time and effort (to becoming licensed for solo jumps).”

Tandem skydiving has been around since the mid-1980s.

A person must be at least 18 years old to skydive with Midwest Freefall.

For more information about Midwest Freefall Skydiving, please call (586) 752-5867 or visit www.MidwestFreefall.com.