TAKING THE PLUNGE

15-year-old finds rolling, diving, plunging in the sky so much fun that he's done it more than 2,000 times.

Think about the things 11-year-olds typically do - ride bikes, skip rope, play catch and maybe join a pick-up game of basketball.

Charles Mullins is a little different. He started to skydive when he was 11.

Now 15, the teen-ager from Germantown, Tenn., still holds the record as the world's youngest sky diver. In his own words, "It's an honor."

Charles was not nervous on his first jump. The only way he can describe it is, "It's just a lot of fun. You ought to try it," he said in a telephone interview.

His first jump was with an instructor in something called a tandem jump. That means he held onto the instructor during the free fall part of the jump. "At first you tandem sky- dive. Then after that, you jump solo," he said.

Charles has had more than 2,000 sky dives. "You don't just jump once," he explained.

Charles' father, who owns West Tennessee Skydiving, inspired him to get involved in the sport.

"Ever since I was little, my dad has always run an airport which has had sky diving," he said. "I was around it for all my life and then finally, I got to do it, and he taught me how."

He added that when his father started to dive, the parachutes they used were round. These are the kind you see in old war movies.

Today, however, square parachutes are used. These allow for more maneuverability and softer landings.

Charles also enjoys skiing and water skiing, but he says none of his other hobbies compares to sky diving.

Sky diving is not all fun and games. Charles was once involved in an accident. "My reserve parachute accidentally fired. . . . It got tangled up in my main (parachute)."

Charles managed to make a rough landing with the tangled chutes. He suffered numerous bruises but no broken bones.

Even though Charles is passionate about sky diving, he only jumps on weekends because his schoolwork comes first. "You can't make a living at it. It's just for fun," he said.

As for his future, Charles wants to become a pilot.

He'll continue to sky-dive in his spare time. He hopes to experiment with different sky dives, such as canopy relative work, in which divers stack themselves on each others' parachutes, and base jumping, which is jumping over fixed objects like antennas and buildings.

EDITED BY: Jon Katz, 14