# Oops. Name one essential piece of equipment for skydiving. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 8, 2008, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197 "2008-06-08T03:11:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2008, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197/1 "2008-06-08T03:11:57Z")
OK, one of my standard jokes is that the first time I go skydiving I don’t want to wear a parachute. I don’t want to take the chance it won’t open. As for reality… [Man jumps out of plane without parachute](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25024995/) > [@](#): > > DUANESBURG, N.Y. - A 29-year-old man leaped out of a plane at 10,000 feet with a camera but no parachute Saturday. His body was found next to a house with a damaged roof, police said. ---
**Author:** ![SSG\_Schwartz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SSG\_Schwartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SSG_Schwartz)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2008, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197/2 "2008-06-08T03:25:24Z")
So, uh, maybe a static line… SSG Schwartz ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2008, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197/3 "2008-06-08T03:28:45Z")
What will those performance artists think of next? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2008, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197/4 "2008-06-08T03:45:25Z")
The standard line, “Why would anyone want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane?” isn’t even appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2008, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197/5 "2008-06-08T04:50:02Z")
I dunno. I’d say a plane is more essential than a parachute. You can go skydiving without a parachute. Once. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2008, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197/6 "2008-06-08T05:00:17Z")
Usually, it’s the 29 year old women I know who consider jumping w/o a parachute. > [@](#): > > _His body was found next to a house with a damaged roof, police said._ Who the hell, encumbered with terminal velocity, bounces off a roof? ---
**Author:** ![ToeJam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dfb087/32.png) [@ToeJam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ToeJam)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2008, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197/7 "2008-06-08T05:10:14Z")
[QUOTE=lieu] Who the hell, encumbered with terminal velocity, bounces off a roof? [/QUOTE] :points down: Apparently… that guy. ---
**Author:** ![Kuboydal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecb155/32.png) [@Kuboydal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kuboydal)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2008, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197/8 "2008-06-08T05:51:52Z")
I wonder if he got some nice photos. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2008, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197/9 "2008-06-08T06:45:30Z")
Wait. There was a skydiving \*instructor \*with him? The hell? “Oh, don’t bother with that pesky parachute! Just flap your arms really hard, you’ll be fine!” ---
**Author:** ![meek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce73a5/32.png) [@meek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/meek)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2008, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197/10 "2008-06-08T06:54:47Z")
(Stolen from [this](http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/carkeet.html) page.) > [@](#): > > Snow is good – soft, deep, drifted snow. Snow is lovely. Remember that you are the pilot and your body is the aircraft. By tilting forward and putting your hands at your side, you can modify your pitch and make progress not just vertically but horizontally as well. As you go down 15,000 feet, you can also go sideways two-thirds of that distance – that’s two miles! Choose your landing zone. You be the boss. > > If your search discloses no trees or snow, the parachutist’s “five-point landing” is useful to remember even in the absence of a parachute. Meet the ground with your feet together, and fall sideways in such a way that five parts of your body successively absorb the shock, equally and in this order: feet, calf, thigh, buttock, and shoulder. 120 divided by 5 = 24. Not bad! 24 mph is only a bit faster than the speed at which experienced parachutists land. There will be some bruising and breakage but no loss of consciousness to delay your press conference. Just be sure to apportion the 120-mph blow in equal fifths. Concentrate! > > Much will depend on your attitude. Don’t let negative thinking ruin your descent. If you find yourself dwelling morbidly on your discouraging starting point of seven miles up, think of this: Thirty feet is the cutoff for fatality in a fall. That is, most who fall from thirty feet or higher die. Thirty feet! It’s nothing! Pity the poor sod who falls from such a “height.” What kind of planning time does he have? > Think of the pluses in your situation. For example, although you fall faster and faster for the first fifteen seconds or so, you soon reach “terminal velocity”—the point at which atmospheric drag resists gravity’s acceleration in a perfect standoff. Not only do you stop speeding up, but because the air is thickening as you fall, you actually begin to slow down. With every foot that you drop, you are going slower and slower. . ---
**Author:** ![Amblydoper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@Amblydoper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amblydoper)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2008, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197/11 "2008-06-08T09:37:52Z")
> [@](#): > > …As you go down 15,000 feet, you can also go sideways two-thirds of that distance – that’s two miles! Choose your landing zone. You be the boss… Before you go skydiving without a parachute, its probably a good idea to scout out the locations of the closest marshmallow factories. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2008, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197/12 "2008-06-08T10:34:05Z")
[QUOTE=Kythereia] Wait. There was a skydiving \*instructor \*with him? The hell? “Oh, don’t bother with that pesky parachute! Just flap your arms really hard, you’ll be fine!” [/QUOTE] It seems that the guy who jumped was there as an observer, and snuck out the door of the plane after everyone had jumped, just before the pilot closed it. The skydiving instructor had no reason to think he was going to jump. ---
**Author:** ![Carson\_O\_Genic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cdc98d/32.png) [@Carson\_O\_Genic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carson_O_Genic)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2008, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197/13 "2008-06-08T10:35:41Z")
Had he carried a GPS he could have avoided the roof. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2008, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197/14 "2008-06-08T12:10:08Z")
\>Had he carried a GPS he could have avoided the roof. I think a GPS tells you where you are. Not the other way around. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2008, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197/15 "2008-06-08T12:33:39Z")
I don’t see it on Youtube anymore, but there was a similar incident about ten years back in (I seem to recall) North Carolina. An experienced diver went up just to shoot video in the plane and without thinking followed the divers out the door when they jumped. In the video (from his helmet cam), you see him filming everyone free-falling as if nothing was wrong. Only after the others pull their cords (and he presumably reaches for where his cord would be) do you see him suddenly look down at himself and start whipping around in a panic. He didn’t survive the fall, although the tape did. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2008, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197/16 "2008-06-08T14:11:13Z")
[QUOTE=meek] (Stolen from [this](http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/carkeet.html) page.) . [/QUOTE] I thought the key was to become distracted before you hit the ground. Then you can fly. ---
**Author:** ![Astroboy14](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@Astroboy14](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astroboy14)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2008, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197/17 "2008-06-08T17:20:11Z")
Bet he won’t do that again… ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2008, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197/18 "2008-06-08T17:25:39Z")
[QUOTE=Astroboy14] Bet he won’t do that again… [/QUOTE] He doesn’t have the guts. ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2008, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197/19 "2008-06-08T17:38:41Z")
[QUOTE=Sublight] In the video (from his helmet cam), you see him filming everyone free-falling as if nothing was wrong. Only after the others pull their cords (and he presumably reaches for where his cord would be) do you see him suddenly look down at himself and start whipping around in a panic. He didn’t survive the fall, although the tape did. [/QUOTE] That’s depressing. In that case you have to wonder if maybe, just maybe, by realizing your mistake soon enough you could have held on to one of your friends with a parachute, but the acceleration from free fall to having a parachute seems pretty extreme from the videos I’ve seen. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2008, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197/20 "2008-06-08T17:48:44Z")
As they say, it’s not the fall that kills you; it’s the sudden stop at the end. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-name-one-essential-piece-of-equipment-for-skydiving/452197.md?page=2)