Any skydivers here?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Next week, my wife has announced, she is going to go skydiving with a friend of hers. This is awesome for her–it’s been a lifelong dream in fact.

I just mentioned that to explain the occasion for my present post. Myself, I know exactly how I would behave if I were to go skydiving. And the way I would behave is, I would shriek and flail and weep and scream and claw at anything that might give me the illusion of purchase. Falling is fucking scary.

This led me to be curious. Your first (and some subsequent?) time skydiving, you’re tethered in some way closely attached to a coach, aren’t you? If so, what do those coaches do if the person they’re coaching ends up in a total, blind instinctive panic like the one I imagine I’d find myself in. Seems like a blindly panicing homo sapiens could really fuck things up for the both of them, to the point of death, if they’re really close to each other and tied to the same get up as I’m imagining.

What are they trained to do when faced with a panicker?

2

Like, just to explain why I am so certain I would have an actual mind-disabling panic attack, I want to mention that my heart is racing and I am feeling a “fight or flight” instinct right now just thinking about my wife doing it, not even me.

3

You don’t get to jump alone for a long time. I don’t think you’d freak out because it honestly doesn’t feel like you’re falling (outside of maybe the first second). That said, if you knock your instructor out, there should be a mechanism that deploys the chute automatically.

4

Oh that makes sense! I should have assumed such a device would exist and be standardly deployed.

As to it not feeling like falling–I can imagine that’s because after the first few seconds nothing around you seems to be moving upwards so rapidly? (Because the earth is just this constant giant thing below you, nothing whose motion you can actually detect?)

Does it just feel like floating in water?

5

Yeah, more or less, it feels like you’re floating. In a wind tunnel.

6

It’s been more than twenty years since I did skydiving. It was a weekend course, and after we’d passed a written test we did a line jump from 3000 feet. We jumped alone, but the parachute was deployed by a line attached to the plane, so we we were only falling for about 4-5 seconds.

I described the feeling then as being sucked backwards away from the plane by a giant vacuum cleaner.

7

I went skydiving with my daughter for her 21st. It was a tandem jump, I had a man strapped to my back.(not something I make a habit of doing)

We went up in a seriously small plane, no seats, and climbing out the door onto the wing struts with someone strapped to my back getting ready to jump was one of the freakiest things I’ve ever done.

Once you actually jump, it’s no issue. While you’re freefalling the wind in the face is cool, once the parachute is open I didn’t even have the sensation of falling, more like being suspended in the air and just hanging there.

it was cool

8

Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope. Nooooooooope.

:wink: Sorry I know it is totally cool for most people. I would have to be pushed, I’ll just leave it at that.

9

This is IMHO, so there it goes. There is no reason to do this. Unless you are in the military or training to be a pilot, there is no reason to jump out of a plane. Many people have done great things in their lives for themselves and others without jumping out of a plane. It is a stupid thing to do.

10

We jumped from a Cessna 182, and the way we would exit was to climb out on the wheel and hang under the wing by our arms until we got the go signal from the jump master. Then we let go and just fell right into the x position.

If someone had gotten so far that they were out the door and under the wing - they would actually be pushed if they lost their nerve and tried to get back in. Getting a panicking person back into the plane was too dangerous.
Since the chute was deployed quickly by line, they wouldn’t have time to go into a spin or anything so simply pushing or kicking them off to float safely to the ground was the better option.

We were made very clear that they would do this beforehand, of course.

If you’re inside the plane and decide that you don’t want to jump - then you don’t jump - and you will not be forced or coerced in any way.

11

I did my skydiving with some friends who were firemen and did their skydiving as a part of a search and rescue team. I had to attend 4 weeks of intensive classes in preparation for the jumps. They drilled me so hard that everything I needed to do was instinctive by the time I actually took my first jump, which I did by myself (untethered) but with a trained companion next to me. I loved it and couldn’t wait to go again. The hardest part of the first jump is convincing yourself that it really IS ok to jump out of a perfectly functional airplane! It goes against everything your reptilian brain is shouting at you.

But yes, it’s glorious, and your wife is going to love it. (sorry)

12

Of course I couldn’t agree more. :wink: but if someone does not agree, I have no business interfering.

13

Nothing to apologize for. There’s this thing they say, something about strokes and folks…

14

Thanks for your ‘humble’ opinion. Fortunately, you are not the arbiter of what is and is not ‘stupid’. By the way, most pilots are not licensed skydivers and rarely if ever carry a parachute under the notion that there is little reason or opportunity to abandon a perfectly good aircraft. (Skydivers will counter that there is no such thing as a “perfectly good aircraft”, but then we get into the kind of arguments that occur between powerboaters and sailors.)

For the o.p., I’ve done Accelerated Freefall (AFF) training followed by a handful of other jumps. AFF consists of about four hours of ground training followed by a jump accompanied by two divemasters who retain control of you and assist you in deploying the drogue if you are unable. The next two or three jumps are with a single jump master, and then another three or four jumps on your own (although we wore earpieces that allowed the ground observer to give directions for final descent after canopy deployment). Unlike falling (or thinking about falling) from a low height, once you’ve exited the aircraft and slowed to terminal speed, there is really little sense of falling. The wind rushing past you is more aggressive than any other inertial forces and you’re high enough that there is no real sense of how fast or how far you are going (which is why it is critical to be attentive to the altirmeter strapped to your arm and deploy at the correct altitude (typically 6000 ft AGL for the first few jumps). Note that all modern personnel parachutes are equipped with auto deployers (the most common type is called a CYPRES) which will deploy at a pre-set altitude, typically somewhere between 1200 and 750 ft. Once you deploy the canopy (which occurs so quickly you don’t really experience it as much as just transition from “blasting wind” to “tranquail”) you’re really just kind of peacefully floating, and it only gets scary when you get to about the last hundred feet and see the ground coming up at you faster than it seems. A last minute flare gives a braking effect so you can take the landing with your bent legs.

We jumped out of Twin Otter aircraft, which are pretty standard for light transport/jump craft, racked along lateral benches. For the first couple of jumps, we were always near the front so that the experienced skydivers could get out of the way and we could climb out and hang onto the aircraft to get positioned by the divemasters. In theory, you could decline to jump (and that point was reinforced several times) but in practice with everyone rolling out if you were in the middle or rear you were more or less pushed out to the door by the mass of bodies behind you. Honestly, the worst (scariest) part of skydiving was the ride up in those ancient and somewhat decrept-looking aircraft while being jammed elbow to asshole with a bunch of other yahoos, and it was actually a relief to jump and be free to move.

I took up the sport in part to gain an intuitive understanding of parachutes that we were using in air deployment of sounding rockets, and while I kind of enjoyed it, to go further would have been expensive and time consuming. Since I already have a goodly amount of expenive and time consuming hobbies I quit doing it before earning my ‘A’ license but it was far from the most dangerous or frightening thing I’ve ever done. Consider that there is one fatality for every 175000 person-jumps and most skydivers only log a few hundred dives at most, you could go through hundreds of lifetimes worth of jumps, and most deaths, as with many sports, are the result of poor preparation and being in too much of a rush, or else, taking significant risks as in BASE jumping. I’ve met skydivers with tens of thousands of jumps including massive formation jumping who have experienced no significant injuries. In fact, if you eliminate injuries and deaths from high risk jumping like BASE and night jumping, it actually compares favorably in terms of risk of major injury to golf or softball.

Stranger

15

I did 3 static line jumps when in university back in the early 80’s. The first part of the training was reassuring us how safe the equipment was. They told us things like “each metal bit can hold X tons, each cord can hold Y tons, nearly impossible to foul, etc” They emphasized that everything was safe, safe, safe. Then we went out to the field where we would be landing. They then told us, “there’s trees over there you don’t want to land in, water over there, power lines over there, and if you land in that farmer’s field he’ll shoot at you”.

We then did some practice landings by jumping off a platform about 3 feet high to learn how to land and roll. I think we then hung in a harness from a bar to learn how the steering toggles worked.

The plane was a bit scary to look at. The wings and fuselage had different color schemes, they told us it was put together from 2 planes that had been tossed around in a tornado. There just one seat for the pilot. The instrument panel had lots of holes where instruments should have been.

There were 3 students and one jump master. When we got to 3000 feet he threw out a streamer to make a last minute check of the wind. Then the process was sit in the door and grab the wing strut. Put you feet on the step above the wheel. Stand up, and shuffle your hands further along the strut. Hand your right foot off into space. Then when the jump master says ‘go’ simple let go and start counting. The static line would open the main by the count of three. If it hadn’t then you had to open the emergency one yourself.

After the main was open look for your marker on the ground. There was a big arrow on a pivot. A jump master on the ground would spin it to tell you which direction to face. So if you just keep pointing the same way as the arrow you’ll land in the right place. It was a very peaceful float down.

Since this was over 30 years ago these were big round parachutes, not the fancy rectangular ones around today. They came in two sizes, medium and large. How much you weighed determined which you’d get. I was right on the border between medium and large. They gave me a medium since those were easier to repack which means I descended faster than the lighter folks. I landed with a pretty heavy bump but didn’t injure anything. I did another jump a couple weeks later. If I’d done 5 to the instructors satisfaction I would advance to free fall training.

It was an expensive hobby for a student so gave it a break for a year or two before going back to do another. They’d updated the equipment some so I did the basic training over again. I got into the harness and squirmed into the back of the plane. Somewhere between squirming in, and scooting back to the door one leg strap shifted and settled over my left testicle. The exit went just the same as before, but once the chute opened half my body weight was squishing my left nut. :eek: Squirming around to free it was just more :eek: :eek:. The instructor was impressed with how close I hit the target so invited me to join the university team, but I’d decided more skydiving wasn’t for me.

16

I used to help run a college skydiving club and have a little over 200 jumps. Not currently active but I don’t think a great deal has changed since I was.

Tandem instructors have to go through a lot of specialized training and each manufacturer of tandem gear has their own program (although I’m sure they are all quite similar). A big part of any instructional rating is how to handle people who are scared, don’t do what they are supposed to, etc.

Part of it is training the student properly - drill the routines into them so that when they’re in the plane they are reacting automatically to instructions.

The steps that students follow are designed to reduce the likelihood of something going wrong. For example I remember that tandem students at our DZ were taught to cross their arms and grip their own harness at the shoulders as the pair approached the door immediately prior to exit. If you are nervous you’re probably going to grab something firmly and this way your arms are tucked in, you aren’t grabbing the plane/instructor/reserve handle/another jumper/etc and you’re unlikely to let go until the instructor gives you the pre-arranged signal.

Tandem gear includes a drogue chute - this is basically a small round parachute that is deployed a few seconds after leaving the plane. It stabilizes the pair and keeps terminal velocity down to that of a solo jumper. It’s also the pilot chute for the main canopy.

Handles on tandem gear are placed specifically so that the instructor has access to them despite having a passenger attached to his front (which is where the cutaway and reserve handles are usually located) and where the student would have a hard time grabbing them accidentally.

And so on. If the student is completely freaking out in freefall, trying to grab the instructor’s head or some other foolishness the instructor can always deploy the main immediately as a last resort (I’ve never heard of that happening). I believe they also carry AADs (automatic activation devices) on the reserve for tandem jumps (they were required for solo students when I was active and they were being introduced for tandem gear); an AAD will deploy the reserve if you’re at low altitude and high enough speed (e.g. don’t have something landable over your head at proper altitude).

As far as the feeling of falling - never had that once when jumping out of a plane. The only time I ever felt it was from helicopters and balloons; since you’re starting from zero velocity you get that “stomach dropping” feeling for a couple of seconds. Exit velocity from a plane is quite similar to terminal velocity in freefall so you aren’t really conscious of a change in speed (you’re basically just changing direction from “forward” to “down”).

17

“Folks who have an intense fear of heights should not jump out of airplanes lest they have a stroke” - is that the saying you were thinking of?

18

My brother spent his time in the military jumping out of planes. He did all kinds of jumps; from extreme heights, very low heights, night-time jumps, etc.

When he came home, I figured he’d teach/accompany me on a jump. Nope. He had no desire, whatsoever to jump out of a plane. I never did try it.

19

I’ve skydived twice, both times from about 10,000 feet. Both times I jumped with an instructor; we were attached by harness.

IMHO, it wasn’t much fun, really. It wasn’t as scary as I thought, but the acceleration sensation for the first few seconds is very unpleasant. Also, the scary part isn’t the jump itself, but the long minutes of anticipation as the airplane slowly climbs higher and higher.

20

One of my best pals at the airline was an inveterate skydiver and jumpmaster and had been for many years, all without injury.

Until the day he was escorting a batch of students up in the skydive center’s ratty Twin Otter and an engine came unglued shortly after takeoff. After which the pilot stall/spun the aircraft vertically into a neighborhood. 8 dead at the scene and my friend and one other skydiver survived in ICU for a couple weeks.

I’ve never skydived myself, but used to soar at a combined soaring / skydiving facility. If I was inclined to skydive I’d be far more concerned about the ratty jump planes than I would be about the jumping itself.

p.s. I’m not sure we’re helping the OP very much. :rolleyes: