Seriously, does the act of jumping out of a plane and experiencing the thrill of skydiving become boring and divers want to re-charge their adrenaline rushes?
Or are the crazy stunt skydivers very much a minority who get attention, whilst the majority are content with simple skydiving?
Most of the skydivers are happy with simple skydiving, doing relative work, or RW.
Freeflying has come in vogue big time over the past couple of years, though, and that involves sit flying, stand-up, head-down, and so on. A lot of it’s also done with other people in the air, so it is also formation diving.
But crazy stunts, like hopping out one plane and back into another, or jumping out in a car, and all those other things are usually done by a small minority.
There is quite a substantial part of skydivers that give BASE jumping a go, though. Which is quite crazy, if you think about it.
By definition.
Well, skydiving isn’t very crazy. It just seems like it because the price for error is very, very high. Well, 2 errors with the back-up shoot.
They do those significantly more difficult things for the same reasons some skiiers try the ski jump and others take on the black diamond courses. To say they’ve tried it. To look back with a sense of completion at something which required lots of skill.
My Mom’s boyfriend has been a participant in all but one of the world record formation jumps for the past 10 or so years. He does it because he gets to go to neat places (Russia and Thailand for example) and he gets to be around skydivers and talk shop.
He also does small formations when he’s just hanging out. Why those? Skydiving communities are all pretty tight. It’s a way they can bond in the air.
Oh, and most of the skydivers I’m aware of tend to knock backa few at the end of the day and when you’re drunk you can think up some crazy things. This is how, I believe, you get those naked skydivers, living room sky dives, surf board skydives and other weird things.
yeah, but nude jumps and skysurfing aren’t weird, though. they’re great fun.
And I must disagree with Napier, that sydiving is per definition a crazy stunt. It’s quite rational and thought through if the outfit and gear you’re using is going to protect you from harm and death when used properly.
Of all sports combined, the top 10 sports in which most fatalities occur are none-adventure sports. Number one, I believe, was fly-fishing.