Anyone ever done a Sky Dive?

Tokyo

Have done both tandem and solo jumps - I lived in South Africa at the time, where going to schools/courses for such things is infinitely cheaper than in Europe. Ended up doing a paragliding course in the end which was more enjoyable IMO - gliding for an hour and actually being able to take in the countryside below.

Tokyo

Threads like this always remind me of this video from a few years back - two planes carrying 9 skydivers collided mid air in Wisconsin, USA. All 9 skydivers landed safely, and I believe one of the pilots (presumably the one whose wing didn't go spiralling to the ground) managed to land - the other one bailed. All skydivers were wearing Go-pros, which resulted in some pretty amazing footage of the incident...

Wildsurfer

duffman13 wrote: »

Tandem, if you're doing a solo skydive you have to do a fairly decent amount if training including a number of tandem dives IIRC

I did a static line solo on my first jump back in early nineties. Chute is attached by a line to plane so when you jump it pulls the chute open. Only thing is if it malfunctions you have to pull the reserve yourself which was the scariest thing about doing the solo. Would you freeze once you went into free fall?! Which obviously happened somewhere because when I went back a few years later I had to do tandem as solos were not allowed for beginners. Tandem was better though as the free fall is where the real buzz is. When I was doing my solo first day all sorts of stuff was going on. One pilot had the wrong drop zone on his navigation and the lads who jumped ended up at a different airstrip 7 miles away. Another first timers chute failed and he was free falling for a while before he realised th pull the reserve. And another lad had an epileptic fit just as he was about to jump.. Jaysus I've never seen a plane come back down to earth so fast.. Ambulances the whole lot called. A few lads on that plane were white coming off and just went straight home.

Auguste Comte

gidget wrote: »

Yes, did one 3 years ago, 10,000 ft it was. It was one of those experiences i always said i wanted to do in my lifetime & just went & booked it one day. Loved every second of it, would do it again in a heartbeat, if it wasn't so pricey.

If it's a sport you fancy taking up it gets a lot cheaper. Tandem jumps are great for getting the whole freefall and canopy ride buzz and are pricey.

If you then think it's for you there are two ways forward from there. AFF, ie accelerated free fall which is expensive but the quickest way to gain the skills to be able to go to full altitude and jump on your own.

Your first few jumps are done with two instructors holding on to you and you have certain exercises that you carry out on each jump focusing on body position, falling stable, altitude awareness and opening your own parachute.

You then do some jumps with one instructor learning more skills, turning, moving forwards, backwards etc. These jumps are generally done from 13,000 feet.

The last jump on the course is a hop and pop which is done from a lower altitude and as the name suggests you exit, get stable and open straight away.

The course is based on 8 levels and some people complete it in 8 jumps, most have to repeat some of the jumps to get the skills right.

A lot of people who choose to go down the AFF route go abroad to somewhere like this to do this course for weather reasons altho it is available at the IPC, it can just take longer due to our weather.

The cheaper option is to do a static line course, where your first jumps are done using static line gear which is automatically opened when you leave the plane and take place from around 3500 feet and you fly your own parachute to a hopefully graceful landing back on the airfield aided by radio instructions from the ground, this is the same in aff. Once you demonstrate that you can exit the plane in a stable position you are given a dummy rip cord to pull and when you show you can consistently do this then the next move is a 3 second free with no static line.

After this the free fall times are increased and other exercises are included in the jumps, turns moving forward etc and before you know it you will be jumping with your friends having the best fun you can have with your cloths on. All parachutes today are equipped with an AAD so if you are not able to open for some reason the aprachute will open its self. Once you have your own gear which can be bought 2nd hand for reasonable money then you can jump for less than the price of a game of golf.

And as the saying goes, only skydivers know why the birds sing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY-UH_Uu8g8

jimmurt

duffman13 wrote: »

Tandem, if you're doing a solo skydive you have to do a fairly decent amount if training including a number of tandem dives IIRC

No it's not necessary to do tandems before. You can if you want and some dropzones might make you do one.

One day of intense training and all going well you can do your first solo jump, that day after course.

airvan

It's definitely worth doing at least once. I did two tandem jumps and there's no question it's exhilarating and an adrenalin rush. They were freebies too because I worked for them. Can't understand why anyone would think it's 'safe' or 'boring'. I've seen some hair raising moments over the years. The moment you go out that door you know you've committed yourself to something you have no control over. You are falling towards earth at high speed trusting only to a piece of cloth and expertise of a total stranger.

I've seen hundreds if not thousands of people jump and everyone of them were absolutely buzzing afterwards.

As for the charity angle. Often groups would jump together on the day. Between them they would often raise thousands and many people would pay for their own jump and give the donations to charity. I was involved in one weekend in Kerry where approximately 70 people jumped for one charity over two days. The amount raised hit five figures. So don't knock the charity element. Yes of course some of the money went to operator but it's not a charity and everyone involved has to be paid for their work. They may be doing the job for the love of it but they're all professionals.

If you want to learn to skydive solo, only the Irish Parachute Club provide training these days. The other two concentrate on tandems. The IPC are a club first and foremost while the other two are businesses. So pick the one that suits.

The most danger you'll be in will be the drive to the dropzone and the fact that you might get sucked in with the atmosphere and want to continue skydiving. Next thing you'll be spending a fortune on gear and travelling all over the world visiting dropzones and living the crazy life of a skydiver. I could tell you stories!!

Go for it.

Dr Crayfish

To answer your question, yes. Every female on Plenty of Fish.

DanMurphy

Did my skydiving in the Army.
Great experience.
Heed your instructors, take in the advice.
You'll be fine.
Jump and Enjoyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!