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.

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.