Birds, Squirrels, Superheroes, and Rock Climbers: The Rise of the Wingsuit

Saturday, July 23rd, 2011

Even kid who has been allowed to wear a Superman costume has wondered if the cape could assist flight, but most children grow out of the idea after a few test jumps off the garden wall. Unless they grow up to be skydivers or BASE jumpers, that is. Then, they might find themselves graduating to a wingsuit (also known a bird suit or squirrel suit).

Fly for miles

Wingsuits allow much greater horizontal movement than parachutes. The Guinness World Record for the longest wingsuit flight belongs to Japan’s Shin Ito. The total horizontal flight distance was well over ten miles, from a starting altitude of around 34,000ft. Even greater distances have been unofficially reported by wingsuited skydivers in Australia and Spain and a wingsuited BASE jumper managed a distance of 3.6 miles from the top of an alpine peak in 2009.

Wingsuits and climbers

That man- Dean Potter- is best known as a rock climber and mountaineer, and a number of climbers have been at the forefront of BASE wingsuit activity over the last few years. More recently, professional climbers Leo Houlding, Sean Leary, and Carlos Suarez tackled a 6,600ft peak on Baffin Island (well above the Arctic Circle). Their goal wasn’t just to get to the top, although that’s the traditional be-all and end-all for climbers. They also wanted to make a wingsuit jump from the summit.

The resulting film, The Asgard Project, was featured at the Banff Film Festival and won major awards from Slovenia to the US to Switzerland. Others, like pioneering female climber Steph Davis, have been experimenting with combinations of solo climbing, BASE jumping, and wingsuiting. The best case scenario is that the climber gets to the top of their chosen route and then jumps. At worst, they fall, deploy the wingsuit or parachute and hope for the best.

A wingsuit timeline

Despite the recent burst of publicity, wingsuiting isn’t a new development. Here are a few key moments in wingsuit history:

- 1912Franz Reichelt falls to his death from the top of the Eiffel Tower in an early wingsuit experiment

- 1930s First successful wingsuit flights

- 1969Burt Lancaster’s film The Gypsy Moths featured a wingsuit sequence

- 1999The first commercially available wingsuits arrive on the market

- 2003 Widespread wingsuit interest starts to hit the BASE jumping community

- 2005 First international wingsuit piloting contest

- 2011Jeb Corliss becomes the first man to pilot a wingsuit through a waterfall

What now?

The next big wingsuit piloting challenge is to land without a parachute. A number of groups have plans in this direction, although many experts think it’s impossible to accomplish this without exposing the pilot to extreme danger. Well-known American BASE jumper Jeb Corliss certainly wants to have a shot at it.

Inevitably, there have been deaths and serious accidents amongst both BASE and skydiving wingsuit pilots, but the discipline continues to grow fast. There are now about a dozen wingsuit flight schools in the US alone. Exact figures for the number of active pilots are hard to come by, but there is little doubt that there are far more now than there were a decade ago. We’ll be seeing more and more wingsuits in the skies over the next few years.

Jess Spate is an Australian extreme sports enthusiast. She works for Appalachian Outdoors, a US-based outdoor sports store. They don’t stock skydiving gear but they do carry rock climbing, hiking, mountaineering, and snowsports equipment.

10 Things You Should Know Before Your First Skydive

Friday, July 15th, 2011

Skydiving, that exciting extreme adventure sport to which adrenalin junkies are drawn like moths to a flame, takes a bit of preparation. Like most extreme sports, skydiving carries several risks. Being prepared with the salient facts will help you face this sport in complete readiness. Here are 10 things that you absolutely must know before your first skydive.

Basics For Beginners

1. Before you start your skydiving adventure, you need to decide on what kind of skydiving instruction you want to take. You can choose from the following options:

• Tandem skydiving: In this mode, the skydiver is attached to a certified skydiving instructor who will be in charge of opening the chute. Tandem jumping allows the beginning skydiver to prep for the static line or accelerated free fall jumps.

• Static line skydiving: In this form, you won’t be attached to an instructor, but your parachute will be deployed through a static line that’ll be attached to the plane.
• Accelerated freefall skydiving: in this mode, the skydiver has his or her own chute, but two certified instructors make the jump along with the skydiver, maintaining physical contact until chute is opened. If you want the best adrenalin rush, and if you’re confident, then this is the jump for you.

2. Before you attempt skydiving, find yourself a reliable skydiving school. To find a good school in your area, check at your local airports, phone books and search the internet.
3. If you’re in a hurry, opt for tandem skydiving as the instruction takes about 30 minutes after which you’ll be on a plane.
4. You must be above 18 years of age, and weigh less than 250 pounds in order to qualify for skydiving.
5. Check the accident records of your local sky diving airport or your skydiving class. Choose the skydiving organization that you want to join based on their accident records and safety regulations.
6. Note that skydiving can set you back anywhere from $150 to $300 for a single jump. Consider both cheap and expensive skydiving places but when you make your final choice, don’t let money be the deciding factor.
7. A lot of first sky dive attempts are recorded on camera. Some skydivers tend to dress glamorously for the camera. Remember not to do this: wear comfortable clothing and not something that constricts movement.
8. You can leave your spectacles or contact lenses on if you like; you’ll be given a pair of goggles for your dive.
9. If you have long hair, pull it back and fasten it into a bun. Loose hair or a flipping ponytail can cause issues not just to you but to your jumping partner, who’ll be strapped to your back. Accidents happen when loose hair blocks the skydiver’s vision.

Skydiving Errata

10. Depending on your jump height, the average free fall time is anywhere between 30 to 45 seconds. The regular jumps are from 10,000 feet; however, you can jump from as high as 13,500 feet if you pay extra.
11. After your parachute opens, lift your legs and place your thighs into the stirrups; this will place you in a sitting position. This will not only help you make a comfortable landing, but also discourage your jumping partner from spiraling and twirling towards the earth like a tornado. Jumping partners tend to do this to add a level of additional excitement to the jump but if you have a sensitive stomach, this move can make you vomit before you land.

Health And Safety

12. During freefall, you will reach an unbelievable speed of 110 miles per hour. If you have heart issues, unregulated diabetes or high blood pressure, compromised blood circulation, damaged nerves or other issues, speak to your doctor and then your instruction. Find out your options and how much you can attempt.
13. Even the best divers hit the ground with a jolt. If you have bad knees, or spinal cord issues, it’s best not to attempt skydiving.

Qualifying As A Skydiver

14. Once you’ve completed about 5 hours of skydiving school training, and have successfully completed 25 jumps, you are eligible for a skydiving license. You can proceed then to obtain your D license, for which you need to make 500 jumps.

Teena Celis is a copywriter for Adrenalin, an Australian presents for men company that offers a lot of experiences like helicopter helicopter rides, driving, flying and water experiences all across Australia.

How Long Will You Fall When Sky Diving

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

This is an often asked question from people who consider doing their first jump. The short answer is it depends. It depends most on the freefal distance, i.e. the difference between the exit altitude and the deploy altitude. In addition to the distance the freefall time depends on your body and equipment.

But wait, I know you prefer some numbers. At the time of writing this in our skydiving logbook we have 57 jumps recorded. The average freefall time of our members is

54 seconds

You can assume there will be no huge differences in your jumps too. Right now the longest freefall time of our members is 78 seconds.

Top 7 Reasons To Take Skydiving Lessons

Friday, April 29th, 2011

This article is not endorsing any specific skydiving school. It only gives you some more reasons (apart from the obvious) to go ahead and take skydiving lessons before your first solo jump.

1. Try what is it like before spending money on equipment.

I’d even suggest you to just have a tandem jump first. You don’t even need training for that. Many people think they will enjoy skydiving, but they quickly discover it’s not for them. It’s better to discover this on your first entertainment tandem jump or during the skydiving lessons rather than after you have bough lots of expensive equipment.

2. Because of safety

You must take professional instructions if you want to be safe when skydiving, period.

3. Learn things you can’t learn yourself

Sure, there are some self-taught skydivers who can do wonderful things but they are exceptions. Without professional instructions most people can learn just to open the parachute and land safely at best. On the other hand, at some skydiving school you can learn wonderful skydiving disciplines that the others can only dream about.

4. Learn proper landing

Landing is one of the really important part of the safety. The instructors will teach you how to land without fracturing your knee or leg.

5. Learn freefall

Accelerated freefall is one of the disciplines you’ll learn in almost every skydiving school. And it’s one of the most useful and entertaining parts of the training.

6. Use professional equipment

In the skydiving schools you may be able to try some high class parachute and other skydiving equipment which otherwise might be too expensive to buy.

7. Meet other skydivers

You can meet other like-minded people, have fun with them, organize parachute jumps together after the training, and even fall in love with someone.

There are even more reasons to take skydiving lessons but these 7 are most important. If you think of any reasons not to take professional lessons, I’d be happy to hear them in the comments.

Parachuting with high blood pressure?

Friday, August 13th, 2010

People often arrive at the site asking can you do a skydive if you have high blood pressure.

People with high blood pressure along with most other heart diseases are not recommended to skydive. In fact many dropzones will not allow you to do it at all. You should definitely ask the instructors in the dropzone and not try to hide your health problem from them.

One of the reasons is that skydiving jumps is quite an exciting experience and too much excitement is usually something that people with high blood pressure should avoid.

Another serious reason is that oxygen deprivation affect seriously such people. And oxygen deprivation happens often on jumps over 10, 000ft.

Finally, parachuting is an extreme sport which involves irregular and high activity in a short time. This is exactly the opposite type of sport that’s recommended to people with hearth diseases.

My own amateurish opinion is that you should NOT skydive. You can always ask your doctor and the instructors in the dropzone however.

How To Choose a Parachute

Monday, May 24th, 2010

What I can help with is some more information about the types of parachutes and their prices.

The most important characteristics of the parachutes are:

• Area. It’s usually given in sqft. The “normal” areas can be from about 100 sqft to 280 sqft. The larger the area is, the higher weight it can serve. The smallest parachutes are appropriate only for people weighting less than 70kg/150 lbs.
• Weight. It’s important because you may need to bring your parachute in a backpack.
• Aspect ratio. Usually it’s 2.6:1 or 2.59:1.
• Price. The prices of the new parachutes usually start from $2,000 and go up.

There are different types of parachutes and most of them can be used for skydiving jumps:

• Military parachutes.
• Main canopies which give flat guide and easy landings.
• Reserve canopies – can be used together with the main ones.
• Tandem parachutes – with wider area and more durable, suitable for tandem jumps.

Good reviews of skydiving parachutes are available here.

Where and If To Find Cheap Skydive Jumpsuit

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Here’s another of reader’s question that I’ll try to answer.
Jumpsuits are one of the expensive parts of the skydiving equipment. In most cases their price exceeds $100 and goes to $200 and more. There are different types of jumpsuits – for free fly, camera suits, crater suits and more.

As usual one of the possibilities to find cheap skydive jumpsuit is to look for a second hand one. Unlike other sensitive parts of the skydiving gear, the jumpsuit isn’t as strictly related to safety so it’s OK for most people to buy used.

There aren’t much places where to find used jumpsuits online – one is eBay (just now there is only 1 offer, a jumpsuit for $50).

Here is a place which discusses several companies offering used skydiving gear: Skysurvey.com.au.

More links to used gear stores are available at DropZone and Skydive World.

As usual you can simply search the web.

You can consider buying used jumpsuit a better idea than buying very cheap new one (if we assume you find any). The new cheap jumpsuit is likely to be made in China and to have a questionable quality and non-standard size.

Skydiving Directory

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

Our site focuses mostly on the safety aspects of skydiving. We know that you may want to learn more and start skydiving for real. So we decided to create this skydiving resource center with links to some of the best sites about skydiving. We don’t aim to create the largest directory – instead of that we are looking to list only the must-visit resources. If you feel a great resource is missing, use the comments to suggest one.

General Skydiving Information

U.S. Parachute Association – this official site is a huge source of general information and current news and events from USA.

Skydive World is the best portal with links to other skydiving resources, just like ours here.

Top 10 Fascinating Skydiving Myths is just one page but well worth reading.

Skydiving Training

Here are few useful resources that can point you where to learn skydiving. I will not list any specific schools because I can’t recommend them without trying them.

Learn to Skydive – Dropzone’s great article will help you jump-start with skydiving.

The 7 Best Places to Skydive Around the World is a great article by Turner Wright that will give you some good ideas.

Where is the best place to go skydiving? – that’s a Yahoo answers page and the best answer is really very informative.

If you were looking for skydiving school better use the search engines – but do check forums and local groups for opinions about the school you plan to attend!

Skydiving Gear

Once again I’m not going to give you links to specific stores at least until I research them enough to be sure in their quality. Instead of that here are some good resources which will help you to buy your skydiving equipment. Of course don’t forget to check our detailed article on the topic as well.

Buying skydiving equipment for the new skydiver is an article that will answer your most important questions if you are just starting.

Of course you should also check Dropzone Skydiving Gear which offers not only good links in categories but also reviews of the equipment.

If you are ready to buy you may also check the Yahoo directory on skydiving gear and equipment.

Skydiving Discussions

You guessed right, DropZone has also a skydiving forum and it’s probably the most popular. But let’s list few other places with good discussions about skydiving.

UKSkydiver Forum is the favorite places of those who live in UK, but even if you are not there you can learn a lot from the discussions there and participate in them.

College Skydiving Forum is a relatively new place and less active but still a good one.

Skydive Safety is a small community dedicated to skydiving safety (just like this site is)

Indoor Skydiving

Once again, there are hundreds of places where you can go to try some indoor skydiving. My target is not to give you links to all of them – it wouldn’t make sense because you need one which is close to where you live. Instead of that, here are few resources where you can learn more about it:

Vertical Wind Tunnel – indoor skydiving explained in deep details in Wikipedia

How to Indoor Skydive In a Vertical Wind Tunnel – eHow’s guides usually aren’t very good, but this one is.

Other Sites of Interest

As we are building sites about other topics too, we believe you may find some of them interesting. This section will list some of these sites, even if they don’t seem too much related to skydiving.

Retro and Mechanical Toys – a site about old fashioned toys with a lot of information and pictures.

Outdoor Garden Benches – know everything about garden benches and even learn to build benches yourself.

How Old Do You Have To Be To Go Sky-diving?

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

Photo by gynti_46

Is Indoor Skydiving Safe?

Thursday, April 16th, 2009

As described in the article about indoor skydiving, it’s much safe than the real outdoor skydiving. Only one indoor skydiving fatality has been documented as far as I know.

If you have tried this discipline yourself, please share your experience.