Have you ever been skydiving? Was it fun? Scary? Would you do it again? Was it something you always wanted to do?
I’ve always thought it would be fun. Truth is, I’ll probably never get around to actually doing it, but I’d love to. I think it would be an incredible rush. I’d also probably be scared to death. What did you guys think?
I did it five times, for fun (at least that’s my story). It was really fun.
The first time I went up with no other students on board, but with 19 experienced folks who were going to practice formation work ( where they join up and make patterns, etc.). That was good because they were all gung-ho and not the least bit nervouus - so, I wasn’t.
The next time I went I was in a small plane with 3 students and an instructor, and fear was thick in the air. The first student froze in the door and the instructor shoved her out.
Driving the parachute proved a little trickier than I thought it might the first time out. I could see that I was heading towards a thick stand of trees (don’t wanna land there), so I tried going left and right to slow my forward progress. Just short of the trees was a Farm to Market road with a car coming down it. Another undesirable place. Next choice was a pasture. I wound up landing in the barbed wire fence; when I came to rest I was completely suspended in barbed wire and a bull in the pasture was eyeing my flutterring blue, orange and white parachute canopy, so I quickly disengaged the fence.
One thing that was neat was (depending on wind) that I could talk to another skydiver as he hung in his chute probably 50 (?) yards away.
While fun (and it will definitely take your mind off of whatever might be troubling you), I eventually decided that it was very expensive fun that involved lots of waiting (only once was I able to jump twice in a day).
I am glad I did it.
Yes, I have and it was an incredible rush… because I was terrified the whole freakin time!
Though I have to admit that the brief moments I was able to pry my eyes open, the view was spectacular.
But I will never do it again. Nope. I don’t think even manhattan could provide the incentive to get me to do that again.
Nope!
I can sum up my objections in one word: OOOPS!
In today’s Boston Globe there’s an obit for a 41 year old physicist who died of injuries from a skydiving accient. That’s a little close to home for me.
Never skydived. Skydove? But I was in a plane crash, and free-fell for at least 250 feet with the plane around me. It wasn’t a lot of fun. Having survived that, I have no real urge to throw myself out of a plane, unless a) it is going to crash, and b) I have a parachute. In the aforementioned incident, I had no chute, so it really wasn’t an option.
Any dopers every have sex outside while skydiving naked?
I’ve only been once, and it was incredible. It was a tandem jump, and the only time I was scared was as the instructor moved us to the door. He told me hold my arms and legs in, like the fetal position, so he could move us. Suddenly I realized how I had absolutely no control over any of it, which was okay, except for the jumping part. I really don’t like people telling me when to jump off of something high… I need a little time to muster the necessary gonads. So letting this guy have that control, and also not knowing when, exactly he was going to launch, made me uneasy. Once we were out, though, it was great.
The funny thing is, they asked each of us if we wanted to somersault as we left the plane. Heck yeah! I mean, do people actually say no?
About 15 years ago I made one static-line jump just so I could say I did it. I had one afternoon of ground school where they do try to scare you a bit (with good reason). Next day I went up. For some reason, I wasn’t scared until the plane started taxiing. When we finally lifted off, my fear vanished. Our landing target was a circle in a field across the road from the airstrip/ground school. I missed the circle by a few feet, but otherwise the jump went okay.
Nowadays you can go in tandem with an instructor, which is safer.
I mentioned that the target area was across the road from the airstrip. There were some telephone wires along the road. After I touched down, I saw a young woman come down in the parking lot of the airstrip where she bounced off the roof of a minivan! Fortunately, she only suffered a sprained ankle.
About a year before that, I took hang-gliding lessons, which were more fun. I did get a couple of good flights in, but it wasn’t enough to get a certificate. Just as well - carrying those things back up the hill is the part they never tell you about! 
For my bachelor party, I chose to go skydiving with my two groomsmen (first time for all of us).
Because we didn’t want to do static line or tandem, we had to train all day. Training consisted of (1) Practicing the freefall procedure over and over… [three hours]; (2) Practicing the emergency procedure over and over… [three hours]; (3) Practicing the jumping procedure over and over… [two hours]
This actually made it feel much less dangerous, since we knew what we were doing and why we were doing it every step of the way. Routinizing it also focused you on how active you had to be mentally throughout (instead of just “I’m Falling! AAAAHHHH!”)
We jumped the next day, and I was first. You had two spotters go with you, but they were unattached and just there to make sure you didn’t forget your procedure and just go splat. When we got to the right altitude, my two spotters said, “Let’s Go”, and then I went through the jumping procedure and that’s when I realized how helpful all that routinization was. After you’d done this procedure 50-70 times on the ground, you just got into this natural groove in the air. Then we jumped (or really, simply stood outside and let go)
Then the freefall procedure happens, and I was too busy counting, checking in with my spotters, checking my altometer, etc. to really be scared. Sure, somewhere back in my mind was “Holy Freakin’ Crap!” but the routinization (plus looking more at the horizon than the ground) helped immeasurably. Final check-in with the spotters (“OK!”, thumbs up), reach to the side and pull…
This was the best part, but also slightly the scariest cause now you’re on your own and you have to make sure your parachute opens OK. Once it did, no problem. I found that guiding the chute was easy, plus I was hooked up with a headseat in my helmet and my spotter (who had landed himself by then) talked to me to make sure I was doing fine. Those moments of silence beforehand were nice, but it was helpful to have him there so I could hear him to tell me to pull on my handles to give me that final moment of lift to get a little cushion of air before my landing (which was a three-pointer, if you get my drift, but not embarrassing). Judging the ground and your rate of descent was very tricky and I was probably most worried about crunching and breaking something, but that went off without a hitch, too.
Then, a quick landing procedure and TaDa! We had the option to have the whole thing videotaped (guy with camera mounted on helmet jumps out behind you) and the shots taken under me in freefall confirmed the thing I remembered most about the fall itself–it was really, really, windy. Can’t say that was fun (more simply unbelievable), but the floating down definitely was and the sense of accomplishment (I’m not much of a risktaker but this was one thing I’d always wanted to do) with my two best friends made the whole thing very worthwhile.
It is more expensive to pursue as a hobby than I’m interested in, and I doubt I’ll go again, but I can say I’ve been once now. 
I have done 2 tandems and completed the PFF training method. PFF stands for Progressive Free Fall and is basically what ArchiveGuy describes. To complete your PFF training there are a total of five jumps each with specific tasks that get incrementally difficult. Your first jump there are two spotters and you basically just do what Archive Guy did, jump,count,deploy,and land. Jump two there are still two spotters but you have to do a 180 and then another 180 back to your starting position. Jump three there is now only one spotter and you have to do a 360 in one direction and then another in the other direction. Jump 4 is basically an assited solo with the 360s. The spotter holds you until you are falling in a stable fasion and the rest is up to you. Jump 5 is all you, the spotter just watches to make sure you did everything ok, he also still provided the reference point so you know you’ve done a full 360. Up until jump 5 the spotter(s) hold onto you until you are falling in a stable fasion. Well, I breezed through jumps 1-4 with no problems but choked on my final jump. At about 3,000 feet I was quite tense and ‘potato chipping’ badly and flipped upside down a couple of times. Of couse since I’m typing this I righted myself and deployed my chute safely and had a nice landing. I had to repeat the jump in order to pass but haven’t been back since. Changing work situation and such but I fully intend to finish up and get my solo license. Damn fun,expensive but damn fun! I think one of the coolest things is seeing the other skydivers ‘flying’ right beside you or in front of you and the camera guy swooping around you.
This was in Canada and it is slightly different in the U.S. also ‘potato chipping’ means falling with an unstable rocking motion.
Well, there’re two things I’m curious about:
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How much (U.S. Dollars) to get your license?
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After you get it, who’s chutes do you use? Do you have to buy them (main/reserve)? If so, how much do they cost? Do they teach you how to pack them? Once you’re qualified, how much does a jump cost?
I’ve never jumped, but a friend is currently in the final stages of getting her certification. She told me she just spent about $2000 on a used jumping rig. At the place she jumps they charge a membership, plus $15 per jump. She used to rent the parachute rig before she bought one.
As for me, I have very little desire to do it. But I do have an observation about the skydiving culture:
(HIJACK)
When I’ve gone with my friend to watch her jump I always end up talking to the folks around the place. When they find out that I’m a pilot, they often ask me why we don’t wear parachutes when we fly. They usually scoff at my reply that we are trained in various emergency situations, and have a pretty good chance of landing a plane safely even if the engine quits completely. And besides, if I jump out of the plane it’s just going to crash on top of somebody.
This scenario has been repeated a number of times, leading me to believe there is a somewhat uneasy truce between the pilots and jumpers. Lots of pilots I know (myself included) see no reason to jump out of an airplane intentionally. And the jumpers think we’re morons for not wearing chutes. However, the pilots need the jumpers for work, and the jumpers certainly need the pilots to do their thing.
Of course, there are quite a few pilots who are also jumpers. But the dichotomy is pronounced enough to make me believe they are separate cultures of sorts.
Anyone else notice this?
Canadian prices…a couple years out of date.
Tandem jump $175
PFF #1 $165
PFF #2 $165
PFF #3-5 $135
that includes your chute,helmet,goggles,altimeter.
You need 10 jumps with an instructor supervising in order to get your solo license. After you have a license you can rent your gear from the drop zone,about $40/jump then the cost of the plane ride, I think it was also $40. So untill you have a chute of your own it’s about $80/jump. Buying your own gear is expensive. You can get decent used stuff from jumpers who are moving to super cool canopies for around 1,500 but you can easily spend several thousand on buying new cool gear. The drop zone I went to teaches you how to pack a chute and you really should learn to do it otherwise you'll be paying someone else to pack your chute after every jump. You can even earn towards jumps by packing the rental chutes.
Hope that helps even though it is in Canadian $. I’m sure you can find a drop zone near you on-line with a price guide.
I don’t know about the pilots’ and the skydivers’ relationship, but I did notice a skydiver cultural phenomenon that I wasn’t expecting.
At the time I was doing that, I was mildly interested in scuba diving as well. I imagined that with all these skydivers being outdoors athletic thrill seeking sorts, there’d be a few scuba divers in amongst 'em. No sirree, everyone I talked to about scuba diving expressed zip desire to be all covered up with water - too confining.
I’m sure there are folks who do both, but I was surprised at the universally negative perception of scuba diving amongst the skydivers I met.
Yep.
There are two separate cultures.
That said, after talking to some good flying buddies of mine who are also skydivers (guess you could call them bicultural) I’ve come to believe that both camps are right in some circumstances.
Last I heard, most skydivers who get killed are killed on the ride up, when a jump plane crashes. Jump planes are usually flown from near-sea level to 10,000 feet over and over with no “cruise” flight, which can lead to overheated and damaged engines, possibly engine stoppage, requiring emergency landings. Jump planes on the way up are also frequently stuffed to maximum (or more) capacity. All of this means they are slightly more likely to crash than a simillar plane used for different, less mechanically stressful purposes. So a perception that the ride in the plane is more dangerous than the freefall, canopy ride, and landing is not entirely bizarre from a skydiver viewpoint.
On the other hand, most general aviation (GA) pilots are not cramming their planes completely full then running them full-out to haul the weight to altitude, and most have little to no knowledge or experience of skydiving. The concept of “parachute” is linked only to “emergency” and “danger” in their minds, not fun. So, from the perspective of a GA pilot walking out of an airplane at altitude is completely nutty. Also, if everyone leaves the plane then there is no one to land it and that’s a waste of a good aircraft.
Pilots flying aerobatics are a different story - I’ve heard of many people being required to take at least a few jumps before getting instruction in aerobatics (I guess under the theory that, if the airplane has fallen apart around you it’s not a good time to start reading the instruction manual on the 'chute, you should have already done that). When delibrately performing arial gymnastics regulations require you to wear a parachute. Not everyone does. Not everyone wears seat belts either, or a helmet when riding a motorcycle. SSDD
Probably just as well.
It’s not a good idea to combine scuba with anything high-altitude. Pilots are cautioned about flying within 24 hours of any scuba dive, and longer periods are required between dives requiring decompression and flying. Same rules apply to passengers and skydivers. Violating them can result in the bends.
I know there are people who have done both - both Jacques and Phillipe Cousteau were both pilots and highly skilled scuba divers, for example - but not too close together.
I did a static line jump which meant the actual freefall part probably lasted, what, a second or less. The two-day training went largely out of my head when I jumped, but came back once I was out there. It cost me something like £120 for the training and first jump, and another jump would have been £17 - that would have been the only charge, if I’d kept doing at least one every three months, after which period my “license” ran out. The equipment was thrown in. I also did the initial (and only) jump for Cancer Research - if you get more than twice the jump fee in sponsorship, they pay for the jump. I think I made it.
Compared to how wound up I was immediately prior to jumping, I wasn’t all that blown away. I never really felt free - the countryside from that height just looked like the countryside, and of course the canopy was more or less unsteerable - just the ability to spin around (but not alter course), and speed up. I am more annoyed by such a bored attitude in myself than anyone else could be!
If I went again I’d want to do maybe a tandem freefall thing. I guess it could get really cool if you got used to it. I also go on the wildest fairground rides and just close my eyes until I’m relaxed enough not to freak, which ruins the exhilaration.
I’ve a feeling I’ll be on the first commercial space flights, quietly disappointed (well… yeah… but I ALREADY SAW IT ON TELLY…)
Sad man? I think so.
I think anybody who would abandon a perfectly good airplane is a little looney.
Now, has anybody had sex while skydiving naked inside? 
I haven’t, but I have an older brother who does regularly (I haven’t because my other older bro was killed skydiving and I promised my mother I wouldn’t). I have been hanggliding and scuba diving, tho.
One of the many jobs I have had in newspapering was to do really stupid things my editor suggested and write about them (actually I loved it). Among others, I rafted down the Grand Canyon, went technical mountain climbing, became a certified scuba diver, went on a cattle drive, went to prison and (here is where I touch the OP) learned to skydive.
Honestly, I enjoyed it. It is an incredibly free feeling. I was hoping it would help me overcome my fear of heights. But while jumping, there is no actual sense of being high. It’s weird. So no luck there.
It may be interesting to note that I don’t think I would tandum jump. If I am jumping, I am in control, badly perhaps, but in control none-the-less. That is not the case tandem jumping.
Agree, not many scuba enthusiasts jump, also I seldom find any pilots who like to skydive. There comments were similar to the ones stated earlier in this thread.
“Why would anyone want to leave a perfectly good airplane?”
TV
One of the many jobs I have had in newspapering was to do really stupid things my editor suggested and write about them (actually I loved it). Among others, I rafted down the Grand Canyon, went technical mountain climbing, became a certified scuba diver, went on a cattle drive, went to prison and (here is where I touch the OP) learned to skydive.
Honestly, I enjoyed it. It is an incredibly free feeling. I was hoping it would help me overcome my fear of heights. But while jumping, there is no actual sense of being high. It’s weird. So no luck there.
It may be interesting to note that I don’t think I would tandum jump. If I am jumping, I am in control, badly perhaps, but in control none-the-less. That is not the case tandem jumping.
Agree, not many scuba enthusiasts jump, also I seldom find any pilots who like to skydive. There comments were similar to the ones stated earlier in this thread.
“Why would anyone want to leave a perfectly good airplane?”
TV