Sky Diving

[sychopike]

hey i've wanted to skydive for some time now and i've finally gotten the chance to do some research. I DO NOT want to do the skydive with the person attached to your back because that pretty much defeats the purpose. i've found out that i can take 7 lessons at 250 bucks each to get my certificate to skydive on my own. i'm wondering if anyone has ever been skydiving and what it was like or like what kind of training they put you through before you jump.

thanks

 

[Lucid]

You can skydive for free.
Get a large garbage bag, and jump off the roof of the highest building you know!

Spoiler

If you attemp this, I'm not responsible for any injuries you may obtain from it. kthx.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Wow. Skydiving's cool and all, but I'd be real pissed off if my parachute didn't open.

 

[halflifeguy]

never been skydiving but i want to wicked bad

 

[xLostx]

i'd love to sky dive or bungee jump, but 250 a lesson for 7 lessons is a bit much just to skydive, unless you were going to do it all the time. the skydiving with another person strapped to you is gay tho.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Unless, presumably, that person is your wife.

 

[Razor]

hey i've wanted to skydive for some time now and i've finally gotten the chance to do some research. I DO NOT want to do the skydive with the person attached to your back because that pretty much defeats the purpose. i've found out that i can take 7 lessons at 250 bucks each to get my certificate to skydive on my own. i'm wondering if anyone has ever been skydiving and what it was like or like what kind of training they put you through before you jump.

thanks

If you're American, you could always join the Rangers. If you're lucky enough to be English though, there's the Paras.

 

[sychopike]

haha yea do they teach you how to skydive in rotc or the reserves? but me and my friend are going to do this during college, then out of college we're going to join either the marine corps or the air force (dunno if the airforce has ground combat units?)

 

[Icarusintel]

haha yea do they teach you how to skydive in rotc or the reserves? but me and my friend are going to do this during college, then out of college we're going to join either the marine corps or the air force (dunno if the airforce has ground combat units?)

air force does have ground combat troops, but not many
you can actually go to jump school if you're in army ROTC in college, you just have to have good grades and such and apply for a spot, don;t expect the ROTC at your college to have more than one slot or so depending on where you go though

if only i had better grades i could be at jump school right now

 

[jabberwock95]

I DO NOT want to do the skydive with the person attached to your back because that pretty much defeats the purpose.

That made me laugh for some reason.

What exactly is the purpose of skydiving?

 

[N.P.C.]

Jumping from a plane at 30,000ft and not dying?

 

[jabberwock95]

Jumping from a plane at 30,000ft and not dying?

I just spent the last 5 minutes not dying, and I didnt have to go 30,000ft in any direction.

 

[Anthraxxx]

Wow. Skydiving's cool and all, but I'd be real pissed off if my parachute didn't open.

If that ever happened, you wouldn't be pissed for very long...:smoking:

 

[Ikerous]

Almost two hundred bucks to learn how to fall?
Screw that. Go cliff diving, jump off tall shit for free
Plus you dont have to pay for airfare everytime you wanna jump
(Is jumping off tall cliffs with a parachute really a sport...?)

 

[ailevation]

I think he meant 7 lessons, 250 bucks EACH lesson.

I want to Skydive with you Ikerous. I'll be in the back.

 

[Ikerous]

I think he meant 7 lessons, 250 bucks EACH lesson.

I want to Skydive with you Ikerous. I'll be in the back.

Actually i missed the 0
Posting is hard.

 

[Griz]

Almost two hundred bucks to learn how to fall?
Screw that. Go cliff diving, jump off tall shit for free
Plus you dont have to pay for airfare everytime you wanna jump
(Is jumping off tall cliffs with a parachute really a sport...?)

Yeah, it's called "base jumping".

 

[Adidajs]

I HAVE JUMPED OUT OF A PERFECTLY GOOD AIRPLANE. and i enjoyed it. I have only jumped static line, which is 1 of the 7 I'm sure you're referring to. The chute opens as soon as you jump. I jumped at about 4000ft. You're in the air about 8 minutes. better than any rollercoaster, pulling on those toggles. pretty badass. totally recommend it. When i'm richer I will definitely try and freefall, but it's just too expensive to do it all those times. i had to take an all-day class just to jump static line. Some scary stuff, but really awesome. My brother jumped after I did and so i watched him from the ground. He had a larger chute than necessary and stayed in the air for quite a while. I was so jealous.

edit. I think the coolest thing occurred when the instructor opened the door to the plane. The wind rushing. You have to climb on under the wing by yourself, hold on with your hands, let your feet dangle, try to get horizontal, and then let go arching yourself backwards. totally freaky thinking back about it.

 

[jabberwock95]

Almost two hundred bucks to learn how to fall?

Actually, the fall is free. It's the landing they charge you for.

 

[sychopike]

yea its expensive, but i think it'd would be worth it. i mean its alot of fun on bf2 so i figure itll be at least 200000x that in real life. haha jk

 

[Fishlore]

I've been skydiving a few times. Unfortunately it was over the course of three years and didn't accumulate towards my certification. I did AFF or accelerated free fall. It was nice because it wasn't tandem. I didn't want to be attached to anyone either. Two guys jump with you and sort of hold on to the sides of rig to make sure you don't fly away. You pull the cord and you fly the chute in solo. By far the most fun I've ever had.

Jumped from just over 14,000 feet. About a one minute free fall then a long ride in. It took about twenty minutes to get to altitude and the feeling when people start jumping out is crazy. The whole plane bounces up and down like crazy. It was a rear entry aircraft. The first time I jumped out I did this backwards cartwheel and the two instructors almost lost me. I still have my log book and laugh everytime I read the line, "it was the worst exit I've ever seen from a student."

 

[JellyWorld]

The idea of skydiving totally freaks me out.... It sounds fun but horribly scary. I'll probably faint during freefall and fail to open my chute.

 

[sychopike]

hey fishlore thats the exact program i'm going to try to complete! what kind of training did they give you before you were able to do the jump?

 

[Adrien C]

In France they charged 150 bucks for one fall with attached to someone.

 

[Fishlore]

hey fishlore thats the exact program i'm going to try to complete! what kind of training did they give you before you were able to do the jump?

The training lasted from about 8 am to about noon or 1 pm. A few of the highlights were the correct posture during free fall. This was simulated on a picnic table. You have an instructor show you what to do and then you do it and they critique you. During free fall your two instructors will give you hand signals they teach you on the ground to assure you have the correct posture. For example I let my legs bend too much at the knees so they gave me a hand signal to correct it during free fall.

Another thing was the proper exit from the airplane and the checklist you have to do before you actually jump. Our aircraft was a rear exit as opposed to a side exit. They teach you the preflight checkdown and then how they expect you to exit the craft. First time around I was concentrating so much on the checklist that I screwed the actual exit up horribly. No big deal though.

Another thing they show you are pictures of all the different ways a parachute can open improperly and what you have to do to fix it. Tangled lines, twisted canopy, no canopy, etc. You have to be able to spot each one and tell the ground instructor exactly what you have to do to fix it, or if you have to cut away and rely on the reserve. Cutting away a failed main chute and pulling the reserve is another important part. You practice this stuff a lot. You have to learn where each cord is.

You practice how to hit the ground and roll. The funnest part of ground training though was the virtual reality. You wear a headset and practice approaches to the landing area. When riding in the chute you're constantly moving forward 21 or 22 mph so you have to learn how to judge where you'll end up. You learn when the right time to flare the chute is. You also practice a few bad chutes here and what to do about them. You practice cut aways also.

You will absolutely love it, I promise you. It's funny, with so much adrenaline there were so many parts of training I completely forgot on my first jump. Things like the proper exit I totally botched. I didn't even look at the instructors hand signals during free fall. I did keep track of my altitude perfectly though. It's funny they tell you to be sure to hold on the pulled ripcord when you pull or else it's a fifteen dollar charge. I landed and then realized I had no idea what happened to my ripcord. Oops. I scimped them on the fifteen though, they got enough of my money.

 

[CyberPitz]

I've always wanted to sky dive. Wanna know a crazy fact? I'm horribly afraid of hights. HORRIBLY. I guess it would be my "I want to die" self kicking in for that one?

 

[AmishSlayer]

I went tandem jumping in South Africa. It was cheap and we only had a little over an hour of ground school stuff. We jumped from about 10,000 feet which gave us like 40 seconds of freefall and a long ride after the chute opened.

I had always wanted to go skydiving so I wasn't scared at all during the climb up to altitude (the cameraman was annoying and asked me how I was every 30 seconds) or as we jumped. It took us a while to get to altitude but it was hot as hell inside the cabin. As soon as they opened the door all the hot air rushed out and air that was 30 degrees colder came in. This and a snap instinct in my head saying, "WTF doors aren't supposed to open in a plane" had me startled for a short second. It was weird watching the people in the plane just leap away from the plane and watch them as they fell out of view.

As we jumped we did a foward flip and as my back was toward the ground I caught sight of the plane getting smaller as it seemed to fly up and away from us. That's when the weird feeling of, "I just jumped out of that plane" hit me. I just smiled the whole freefall which happened to feel like forever (they say some hardly remember the freefall or it feels like a lonnggg time).

When he pulled the chute my harness yanked hard against my thighs and it felt like we stopped falling at 120mph (er however fast you fall) and just instantly changed direction and started launching back upwards (of course you don't though). After the chute was fully opened I got to steer the chute for almost the entire time as we went down (he wanted to steer for the landing). It was pretty badass.

As the guy was editing the video he had he and my tandem instructor guy kept asking me if I had jumped before because they had never seen someone that calm before during the jump. I can't wait to get the chance to go again.

I plan to take the classes eventually so I can jump solo whenever.

 

[sychopike]

haha fishlore thats great! do you mind if i ask which company your went through to do your jump and what location you did it in? i'm getting really excited about this... i'm glad i could find people on these forums who've done this before. thanks for all the info and good stories!

 

[Fishlore]

haha fishlore thats great! do you mind if i ask which company your went through to do your jump and what location you did it in? i'm getting really excited about this... i'm glad i could find people on these forums who've done this before. thanks for all the info and good stories!

I did my jumps at Cleveland Parachute Club in Parkman, OH.

http://www.clevelandparachute.com/

Once again, it was one of the funnest things I've ever done. If you have the money I highly suggest it. If you're from the states, this site lists places that you can jump at.

http://www.ground-rush.com/dz.htm

It's been about two years since I last jumped and I'm itching to go again. If you plan on getting certified you should know that it's best to do the whole training program in a matter of days or weeks. Training from one year generally doesn't carry over to the next. Make sure you at least ask about that when you go. I kind of got screwed because I thought it would accumulate over time, but I was wrong. Good luck to you. The more you jump the cheaper it gets. With your own rig and certification it really drops. My buddy works for cleveland parachute and films student jumps and gets every jump for free.

 

[Fishlore]

I went tandem jumping in South Africa. It was cheap and we only had a little over an hour of ground school stuff. We jumped from about 10,000 feet which gave us like 40 seconds of freefall and a long ride after the chute opened.

I had always wanted to go skydiving so I wasn't scared at all during the climb up to altitude (the cameraman was annoying and asked me how I was every 30 seconds) or as we jumped. It took us a while to get to altitude but it was hot as hell inside the cabin. As soon as they opened the door all the hot air rushed out and air that was 30 degrees colder came in. This and a snap instinct in my head saying, "WTF doors aren't supposed to open in a plane" had me startled for a short second. It was weird watching the people in the plane just leap away from the plane and watch them as they fell out of view.

As we jumped we did a foward flip and as my back was toward the ground I caught sight of the plane getting smaller as it seemed to fly up and away from us. That's when the weird feeling of, "I just jumped out of that plane" hit me. I just smiled the whole freefall which happened to feel like forever (they say some hardly remember the freefall or it feels like a lonnggg time).

When he pulled the chute my harness yanked hard against my thighs and it felt like we stopped falling at 120mph (er however fast you fall) and just instantly changed direction and started launching back upwards (of course you don't though). After the chute was fully opened I got to steer the chute for almost the entire time as we went down (he wanted to steer for the landing). It was pretty badass.

As the guy was editing the video he had he and my tandem instructor guy kept asking me if I had jumped before because they had never seen someone that calm before during the jump. I can't wait to get the chance to go again.

I plan to take the classes eventually so I can jump solo whenever.

Very nice story. The air temp change was a shocker to me too. I had a bit of a sweat going with all the gear on a hot summer day and it felt so awesome once we got to altitude. I didn't film my first jump, but my friend's camera man was the same exact way with the annoying questions.

Also a good point about the yank on the inner thighs. I didn't tighten that part of the rig tight enough and came away with some nasty burns/bruises the first time. Then riding the chute in, I almost wanted to cry it hurt so bad, but I was quick to put that in the back of my mind.

I was pretty calm too, so much else to think about, I didn't really have time to worry. My instrcutor wasn't so complimentary though. He told me I had the worst exit he's ever seen, I fell like a ton of bricks and I didn't pay attention to one single hand signal. Oh well, it sure was fun. I did okay the next time I went.

 

[CrazyHarij]

Skydiving seems to be so awesome, being free like that.