SKYDIVING    FREE FALL

PARACHUTING

JUMPING!

GO GET YOUR PARACHUTE

WHAT IS SKYDIVING?

Skydiving is a sport in which one or more people jump from an aero plane and fall freely before opening a parachute. Skydivers typically jump at altitudes of up to 4600 meters and fall at speeds of more than 160 kilometers per hour. They open their parachutes between 600 and 900 meters from the ground and then glide to earth at about 16 kilometers per hour.

JUMPING!

A good friend gives me the best birthday gift I have ever received. On February 18th, she and I jump out of a perfectly good airplane at 11,000 feet. WE WENT SKY-DIVING!!! It is one of the peak experiences of my life.

What is Accelerated Free Fall?

AFF is the quickest method of becoming a qualified skydiver and is also the easiest way to learn with approximately 50 seconds of free fall on every jump guided by our expert instructors. Most of OUR skydives are made from 15,000 ft, and AFF usually turns out to be much cheaper in the long run, and much more fun than the outdated static line method.

What are the benefits of AFF over other training methods?

There are many benefits, but two of the main ones are the continuous exposure to free fall, that means that you are in free fall for a long time giving you the time to practice your free fall techniques. Another is our ability to teach you in free fall using hand signals to adjust your body position, thereby giving you a better result.

How will I know how I am doing on the parachuting course?

As well as your debriefs, the often offer video of your jumps, these videos are used to show you how well you are doing and are also combined for you to have and take with you as a record of the whole trip.

How does free fall feel?

Free Fall is not the stomach churning feeling of a fun fair ride; because you are falling on a cushion of air like a hovercraft it is a feeling of buoyancy similar to being in the wate, but with a much greater thrill.

What if I do not open the parachute?

The opening of the parachute is a very simple affair where you take a toggle attached to a pilot chute and throw it into the airflow; the parachute then opens in sequence. If you lost altitude awareness we would guide you through hand signals telling you to open the parachute and if you did not respond we would open it for you. You should also recognize that our parachutes are fitted with a computerized automatic activation device, which would open the parachute for you if all else failed.

What is skydiving really like?

Because you are falling on a cushion of air, freefall is a buoyant feeling similar to floating on water — only much more thrilling.

After opening is it easy to find the landing zone and fly the parachute to land in the target area?

This worries many people, but everyone finds this easy, after teaching you exactly what to do we give you a mounted radio, and talk you down till you are confident and competent to fly and land yourself. Our canopies fly at approximately 20 mph and are great fun to steer across the sky.

How Fast Am I Going When Skydiving?

The magnitude of terminal velocity depends on the weight of the falling body. For a heavy object, the terminal velocity is generally greater than a light object.

This is because air resistance is proportional to the falling body's velocity squared. For an object to experience terminal velocity, air resistance must balance weight.

An example that shows this phenomenon was the classic illustration of a rock and a feather being dropped simultaneously. In a vacuum with zero air resistance, these two objects will experience the same acceleration.

But on the earth this is not true. Air resistance will equal weight more quickly for the feather than it would for the rock. Thus the rock would accelerate longer and experience a terminal velocity greater than the feather.

Calculations of the Captain

As one would expect the actual value is slightly less than the theoretical value. This agrees with the notion of a small, but still non-zero, amount of drag.

At nine-tenths the speed of sound, Captain Kittinger also holds the record for the greatest speed attained by a human without the use of an engine. The standard value of the speed of sound in air at 31,000 m is 300 m/s (670 mph).

Are the parachuting landings hard?

We now use the latest ram air canopies, which allow you to land like a fairies fluff! Even the big guys can be afforded soft landings.

A Real Jump

How hard can it be? After all, James Bond jumped out of a plane without a parachute, landing onto a waiting, revving snowmobile, and he was fine.

We hate to remind you, but you're not James Bond. Faced with this horrifying reality, you are forced to ask an important question: how safe is it to skydive? Well, minus the snowmobile and parachute-free plunge, skydiving is actually one of the safest so-called "extreme" sports.

Sky Diving Is Something Else

Let's be honest: It's not bowling. You are, after all, jumping out of an airplane and hurtling 12,000 feet towards the ground at 120 miles per hour, so there is risk involved. But it's not Russian roulette either. Each year, about 35 people die skydiving, and that's out of about 2 million parachute jumps. Given the odds, you're better off skydiving than you are, say, shark-cage diving. Every year, about 46,000 people die in traffic accidents, about 140 people die while scuba diving, about 850 die while bicycling, and about 80 are killed by lightning. (OK, we realize that our logic is kinda flawed, but it proves our point.) Now that we've brought you that cheerful knowledge, do you feel any better?

Fear of Skydiving

It should also be said that mistakes in judgment and procedure are the cause of 92% of skydiving fatalities. What does that mean? It means that if you do everything you're supposed to do during that exhilarating 60 second drop to the ground, you'll be fine.

The biggest reason why people are afraid of skydiving (aside from the thought of plummeting toward the earth) is because popular culture has propagated several inaccuracies about skydiving. Here are some of the most popular myths, along with the real story for each one:

* MYTH: You can't breathe during freefall.

FACT: Contrary to popular belief, you can breathe during freefall. Otherwise, skydivers would be unconscious before they get the chance to open their parachutes . . . making skydiving a much messier sport.

* MYTH: You can hold a conversation during freefall.

FACT: Yes, Wesley Snipes may have done it in Drop Zone, but that was Hollywood. In reality, freefalling is way too loud to hear anything other than the wind screaming through your ears.

* MYTH: If you jump out of a plane without a parachute but you grab on to someone with a parachute, then all you have to do is hold on to him, and when his parachute opens, you'll float down to the ground with him.

FACT: Another movie miracle, and another Snipes move. While stunts (may we stress S-T-U-N-T-S) like this have been done, it is almost impossible to achieve. When a parachute opens, it exerts a tremendous jolt to the body, and anyone trying to hold on to that body is 99.99% likely to get flung off.

* MYTH: Freefalls can last five minutes.

FACT: Most skydiving planes cruise at about 10,000 - 12,000 feet. This means that you have about 35 seconds of freefalling before you open your parachute. To fall for five minutes, you'd have to go up to 60,000 feet (and bring extra oxygen for the plane ride). Yes, that means you can't pull out the emergency exit and jump out of a cruising 747 the next time you're scared of turbulence.

FAQ: Is packing the parachute difficult?

Packing is a very simple procedure, we teach you to pack as the course progresses so that you will be competent at all aspects of skydiving before we are finished with you. You are not expected to pack parachutes on your initial skydives.

Jumping Off The Top

you can't just take a parachute up to the top of the Empire State Building and take a big leap. That, by the way, is called "base-jumping," which stands for jumping off fixed objects, including Buildings, Antennas, Spans (bridges), or Earth (cliffs). But don't even think about doing it - it's illegal almost everywhere, and honestly, it's pretty darn stupid.

* Ask around. You probably have some friends who have done it. Are they still alive? If so, then go to the same place they did; that way, you can feel assured of your safety. Plus, you might be able to convince those friends to jump with you (some drop zones offer discounts to groups).

FAQ: So where can you go TO SKYDIVE?

There are about 400 skydiving centers across the U.S. To find the drop zone nearest you, you can:

* Call 1-800-SKY-DIVE, which will automatically connect you with a parachute center in your area.

* Call the United States Parachute Association at 703-836-3495 to get the name of an affiliated drop zone in your area.

* If you're in college, most universities have skydiving clubs. This offers a cheaper and easier way to get into the sport. Plus, nothing brings people together better than absolute terror. You may even make some friends.

FAQ: Where Else?

* Look in the Yellow Pages.

That's right. Squeezed somewhere between skin care and tanning salons, you'll find a whole slew (depending on where you live) of listings for "Skydiving and Parachute Jumping Instruction." A simple phone call should be enough to organize the whens and wheres of your first jump. Many drop zones offer first-jump courses every weekend, so you may be able to drop by (no pun intended) and check out the class before you schedule your own.

Skydiving Virgins

As a skydiving virgin (and we're assuming that you are), there are several ways you can experience your first time in the air. The only requirement for jumping is that you be at least 18 years old (some drop zones allow 16-year-olds to jump with parental consent) and under 250 pounds. You should also be free of any heart or severe medical conditions (even Space Mountain says that) and, as always, if you've got something wrong with you (and we don't mean your hair) you should probably talk to your doctor before you jump. Someone who has had fainting spells, blackouts or respiratory problems should probably not be jumping and should definitely discuss this with the drop zone staff.

Skydiving Certified Instructor

Most skydiving courses work the same way. First, you will get trained by a certified instructor. This instructor will try to scare you into not jumping (the last thing an instructor wants to deal with is a panicker in mid-drop). Then you will fill out all kinds of legal documents saying that if you get hurt, the skydiving company is not responsible. Again, these documents are very scary, and you will see words like "injuries" and "die." But if you wanna jump, you have to sign these documents.

Skydiving Options

Depending on 1) how much time you have, 2) how much cash you've got to spend, and 3) how brave you are, you have three options for what method of skydiving you'll use for your first jump: tandem, static line, and accelerated freefall (AFF). These offer varying levels of airborne freedom and varying levels of training time. You want to fly freely? Go AFF. Just along for the ride? Try tandem. Want to make it quick? Do static line. You decide.

* Tandem (costs about $125 to $200): This is the most common first-timer's version of skydiving. This is probably because you don't ever have to work up the nerve to jump out of the plane - you have no choice. In this scenario, you are basically strapped onto the jumpmaster (i.e., the pro) and he/she controls the jump from exit to landing. You're along for the ride, so all you have to do is enjoy the view and try not to wet your pants (it'd suck for the jumpmaster). This method requires little preparation time - usually under an hour.

Skydiving Basic Stuff

It works like this: you wear a harness that is attached to the jumpmaster's parachute system. The two of you, sandwiched together, leave the plane together and fall for about 45 seconds before the jumpmaster pulls the chute at about 4,000 feet. From there, the ride to the ground lasts about 5 minutes.

FYI- in the United States, tandem jumping is still classified by the Federal Aviation Administration as an "experimental" form of parachuting, since there are only two parachutes (main and reserve) to cover two jumpers.

* Static Line (costs about $85 to $150): Developed by the military to drop soldiers down from the sky in a hurry, this method is also used as a first foray into skydiving. These jumps are made from about 3,000 feet and require a four-to-six hour training class. With static line skydiving, a cord attached from the plane to your parachute pulls the parachute open almost immediately after you jump out. The advantage to this method is that you don't have to pull your own rip cord. The disadvantage is that you only get about 3 seconds of freefall. The parachute ride to the ground lasts about three minutes, during which you are directed to the ground by radio contact or ground signals. So there's still a danger, because you have to land yourself instead of letting the instructor do the work for you.

Will I be scared?

Everyone experiences some fear throughout the course. Some find the first jump the most frightening, whereas others feel more relaxed about the first skydive, then feel it later in the course. This is part of the adrenalin buzz of this course. One of the things you will achieve is the ability to confront and control your fear.

More Options

* Accelerated Freefall (costs about $250). This is the way to go for true thrill seekers - you're as much on your own as you can be (at least for your first time in the air). You pull your own rip cord and you float to the ground solo. Of course, the training usually lasts all day, but this is the method used most frequently for those interested in becoming serious skydivers (AFF dives earn more credits toward certification than static line jumps).

* Accelerated Freefall (costs about $250). This is the way to go for true thrill seekers - you're as much on your own as you can be (at least for your first time in the air). You pull your own rip cord and you float to the ground solo. Of course, the training usually lasts all day, but this is the method used most frequently for those interested in becoming serious skydivers (AFF dives earn more credits toward certification than static line jumps).

How They Help You Jump

Upon leaving the airplane, two instructors jump out with you, holding on to you during the entire freefall. Usually, the jump is made at about 11,000 feet, and the freefall time lasts about 45 seconds. During those 45 seconds, you have to perform three "practice pulls" in which you go through the motions of pulling your rip cord. This is done so that the jumpmasters can determine your relative sanity in the air.

If you're not performing the practice pulls correctly, the jumpmaster may assume you're too nervous to do the real thing, at which time he/she will pull your rip cord for you. If you're handling the 120 mile-per-hour drop okay, you pull your cord at 4,500 feet. Either way, once the parachute is pulled, the instructors will let go of you, and you'll be on your own. The gentle sail to the ground lasts about 5 minutes, during which you're guided by radio or ground signals.

How Accurate Can This Be?

Most Four-Man Team Formations In A Skydive
On the 23rd September 1999, four members of the Arizona Airspeed Team arranged themselves in a record 39 formations before finally landing.

In accuracy skydiving, the jumper aims for a target that measures about 5cm in diameter. In relative work skydiving, a team of free-falling skydivers join together to make geometrically shaped formations.

Videotape Your Skydiving

For all three methods, make sure you consider having your first jump videotaped, which costs $50-$100. There's nothing better than looking back and feeling the nostalgia of fear as you watch your body awkwardly flip out of an airplane. To tape your jump, another skydiver jumps out of the plane before you and flies somewhere nearby with a camera mounted to his helmet.

Fresh Air

Yes, it's kinda scary. But despite the fact that you dart out of the airplane and reach speeds of 90 to 110 miles per hour during the first 10 seconds, freefalling doesn't even feel like falling. That's simply because the sensation of falling is primarily a mental one, caused by the sight of things moving closer or past us. During a freefall, most of what you'll feel is lots of wind and a small sensation of pressure against your body. It's more like floating than falling.

Open The Parachute

When you open your chute it's a different story. Once it opens, it feels like you're being stretched upwards. It doesn't hurt and lasts only about four seconds. After that, one steers the parachute using simple controls in each hand. Radio contact with the ground (via walkie talkies in your helmet) makes is very easy to "Right turn," "Left turn" your way to the ground.

As for landing, beginning jumpers use big, square parachutes that act more like gliders than umbrellas, making landing slow and soft (none of that G.I. Joe slapping to the ground). The landing is usually easy to maneuver, but keep in mind that most skydiving injuries are caused during landing. (When else are you going to injure yourself?! Crashing into a bird?!)

What if the parachute doesn't open?

So this all sounds fine and dandy, but you still have a burning question: "What if the parachute doesn't open?" Yes, this is a concern - but not too big. You do have a second chance. By law, all parachute backpacks must be made with a main chute and a reserve chute that can be opened if the main chute is damaged, twisted, or simply doesn't come out. The FAA also requires that the reserve chute must be inspected and repacked every 120 days by an FAA-rated parachute rigger, even if it hasn't been used during that time. However, to get the reserve chute out depends on you.

FAQ: What is Tandem Skydiving?

Tandem Skydiving is the best method for making your first skydive. It takes a minimal amount of instruction, and allows you to make your initial skydive(s) with an instructor harnessed to you for the entire skydiving experience.

SPEED OF SKYDIVING

Captain Kittinger most likely did not exceed the speed of sound on 16 August 1960. To do so would have required an additional 1,300 m (4,200 feet) of free fall. That's a pretty large distance. I think he would have noticed it. This in no way detracts from his truly amazing accomplishment.

HIGH UP

An Australian parachutist is planning to jump out of a balloon floating nearly 40 kilometres above the Earth's surface. Rodd Millner expects to reach speeds of between 1,600 and 1,800 kilometres (994-1,118 miles) per hour during his descent. If he pulls it off, he will become only the second man to break the sound barrier by merely falling through the air."

VERY FAST JUMP

Millner believes that he will reach a speed of between 700 and 900 miles per hour within one minute of leaping from the balloon. If he is successful, he will be the first human to break the sound barrier sans vehicle."

Apparent wind.

The wind perceived by an observer. See relative wind.

A parachute is a soft fabric device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag. Parachutes are generally used to slow the descent of a person or object to Earth or another celestial body within an atmosphere. Drogue parachutes are also sometimes used to aid horizontal deceleration of a vehicle (a fixed-wing aircraft or space shuttle after touchdown, or a drag racer).

The word parachute comes from the French words para, protect or shield, and chute, the fall. Therefore parachute actually means "fall protection". Most modern parachutes are classified as semi-rigid wings, are quite maneuverable, and can be flown as a glider.

Parachutes were once made from silk but these days are almost always constructed from more durable woven nylon fabric, sometimes coated with a - silicone - zero porosity coating to improve performance and consistency over time.

Originally silk was used for parachute suspension lines, but was replaced by nylon during the Second World War. When square (aka ram-air) parachutes were introduced, manufacturers switched to low-stretch materials like Dacron or zero-stretch materials like Spectra, Kevlar, Vectran or high modulus aramids.

da Vinci and Skydiving

Leonardo da Vinci sketched a parachute while he was living in Milan around 1480-1483. However, the idea of the parachute may not have originated with him:

the historian Lynn White has discovered an anonymous Italian manuscript from about 1470 that depicts two designs for a parachute, one of which is very similar to da Vinci's.

The first successful test of such a parachute was made in 1617 in Venice by the Croatian inventor Faust Vrančić which he named Homo Volans (Flying Man). A 1595 sketch of Vrančić's parachute is at left.

Parachute Reinvented

The parachute was re-invented in 1783 by Sébastien Lenormand in France. Lenormand also coined the name parachute. Two years later, Jean-Pierre Blanchard demonstrated it as a means of safely disembarking from a hot air balloon.

While Blanchard's first parachute demonstrations were conducted with a dog as the passenger, he later had the opportunity to try it himself when in 1793 his hot air balloon ruptured and he used a parachute to escape.

Further Parachute Development

Subsequent development of the parachute focused on it becoming more compact. While the early parachutes were made of linen stretched over a wooden frame, in the late 1790s, Blanchard began making parachutes from folded silk, taking advantage of silk's strength and light weight.

In 1797, André Garnerin made the first jump using such a parachute. Garnerin also invented the vented parachute, which improved the stability of the fall. Gleb Kotelnikov invented the first knapsack parachute, later popularized by Paul Letteman and Kathchen Paulus.

Parachute from a Balloon?

At San Francisco in 1885, Thomas Scott Baldwin was the first person in the United States to descend from a balloon in a parachute. On March 1, 1912, US Army Captain Albert Berry made the first parachute jump from a moving aircraft over Missouri. Štefan Banič from Slovakia invented the first actively used parachute, patenting it in 1913. On June 21, 1913 Georgia Broadwick became the first woman to parachute jump from a moving aircraft over Los Angeles.

Compact Parachutes

Subsequent development of the parachute focused on it becoming more compact. While the early parachutes were made of linen stretched over a wooden frame, in the late 1790s, Blanchard began making parachutes from folded silk, taking advantage of silk's strength and light weight. In 1797, André Garnerin made the first jump using such a parachute. Garnerin also invented the vented parachute, which improved the stability of the fall. Gleb Kotelnikov invented the first knapsack parachute, later popularized by Paul Letteman and Kathchen Paulus.

Military Parachuting

The first military use for the parachute was for use by artillery spotters on tethered observation balloons in World War I. These were tempting targets for enemy fighter aircraft, though difficult to destroy, due to their heavy antiaircraft defenses.

Because they were difficult to escape from, and dangerous when on fire due to their hydrogen inflation, observers would abandon them and descend by parachute as soon as enemy aircraft were seen. The ground crew would then attempt to retrieve and deflate the balloon as quickly as possible.

Allied aircraft crews, however, were forbidden from carrying their own parachutes. It was believed to encourage a lack of nerve in action. As well, early parachutes were very heavy, and fighters lacked the performance to carry the additional load through most of WW1. Only the German air service, in 1918, became the world's first to introduce a standard parachute.

Tethered Parachutes

Tethered parachutes were initially tried but caused problems when the aircraft was spinning. In 1919 Leslie Irvin invented and successfully tested a parachute that the pilot could deploy when clear of the aircraft.

An early brochure of the Irvin Air Chute Company credits William O'Connor 24 August 1920 at McCook Field near Dayton, Ohio as the first person to be saved by an Irvin parachute.

Another life-saving jump was made at McCook Field by test pilot Lt. Harold H. Harris on Oct 20, 1922. Shortly after Harris's jump two Dayton newspaper reporters suggested the creation of the Caterpillar Club for successful parachute jumps from disabled aircraft.

Steerable Round Parachutes

Some round parachutes are steerable, but not to the extent of the ram-air parachutes. An example of a steerable round is provided in the picture of the paratrooper's canopy; it is not ripped or torn but has a "T-U cut". This kind of cut allows air to escape from the back of the canopy, providing the parachute with limited forward speed. This gives the jumpers the ability to steer the parachute and to face into the wind to slow down the horizontal speed for the landing.

Annular & pull down apex parachutes

A variation on the round parachute is the pull down apex parachute - invented by a Frenchman named LeMoigne - referred to as a Para-Commander-type canopy in some circles, after the first model of the type. It is a round parachute, but with suspension lines to the canopy apex that applies load there and pulls the apex closer to the load distorting the round shape into a somewhat flattened or lenticular shape.

Often these designs have the fabric removed from the apex to open a hole through which air can exit, giving the canopy an annular geometry. They also have decreased horizontal drag due to their flatter shape, and when combined with rear-facing vents, can have considerable forward speed around 10 mph (15 km/h).

Ribbon and ring parachutes

Ribbon and ring parachutes have similarities to annular designs, they can be designed to open at speeds as high as Mach 2 (two times the speed of sound). These have a ring-shaped canopy, often with a large hole in the center to release the pressure. Sometimes the ring is broken into ribbons connected by ropes to leak air even more. The large leaks lower the stress on the parachute so it does not burst when it opens.

Often a high speed parachute slows a load down and then pulls out a lower speed parachute. The mechanism to sequence the parachutes is called a "delayed release" or "pressure detent release" depending on whether it releases based on time, or the reduction in pressure as the load slows down.

Ram-air parachutes

Most modern parachutes are self-inflating "ram-air" airfoils known as a parafoil that provide control of speed and direction similar to paragliders. Paragliders have much greater lift and range, but parachutes are designed to handle, spread and mitigate the stresses of deployment at terminal velocity.

All ram-air parafoils have two layers of fabric; top and bottom, connected by airfoil-shaped fabric ribs. The space between the two fabric layers fills with high pressure air from vents that face forward on the leading edge of the airfoil. The fabric is shaped and the parachute lines trimmed under load such that the ballooning fabric inflates into an airfoil shape.

Varieties of personal ram-airs

Personal ram-air parachutes are loosely divided into two varieties: rectangular or tapered commonly referred to as 'squares' or 'ellipticals' respectively. Medium-performance canopies (reserves, BASE, canopy formation and accuracy) are usually rectangular. High performance ram-air parachutes have a slightly tapered shape to their leading and/or trailing edges when viewed in plan form and are known as ellipticals. Sometimes all the taper is in the leading edge (front). Sometimes all the taper is in the trailing edge (tail). These are usually only used by sports parachutists. Ellipticals often have smaller, more numerous fabric cells and are shallower in profile. Elliptical canopies can be anywhere from slightly elliptical to highly elliptical indicating the amount of taper in the canopy design and this is often an indicator of the responsiveness of the canopy to control input for a given wing loading and the level of experience required to pilot the canopy safely.

Technicalities of Parachutes

The rectangular parachute designs tend to look like square inflatable air-mattresses with open front ends. They are generally safer to operate because they are less prone to dive rapidly with relatively small control inputs and they are usually flown with lower wing loadings per square foot of area, and glide more slowly. They typically have a less-efficient glide ratio.

Wing-loading of parachutes is measured the same way as aircraft: comparing the number of pounds (exit weight)to square footage of parachute fabric. Typical wing-loadings for students, accuracy competitors and BASE jumpers are less than one pound per square foot (i.e. 0.7 pounds per square foot). Most Student skydivers fly with wing-loadings below one pound per square foot.

Most sport jumpers fly with wing loadings between 1.0 and 1.4 pounds per square foot, but many interested in performance landings exceed this wing loading. Professional Canopy pilots compete at wing-loadings of 2 to 2.6 pounds per square foot. While ram-air parachutes with wing loadings higher than four pounds per square foot have been landed, this is strictly the realm of professional test jumpers.

Speed of Parachutes

Smaller parachutes tend to fly faster for the same load and ellipticals respond faster to control input. Therefore, small elliptical designs are often chosen by experienced canopy pilots for the thrilling flying they provide. Flying a fast elliptical requires much more skill and experience.

Fast ellipticals are also considerably more dangerous to land. With high-performance elliptical canopies, nuisance malfunctions can be much more serious than with a square design and may quickly escalate into emergencies. Flying highly loaded elliptical canopies is a major contributing factor in many skydiving accidents

Parachute Aspect Ratio

Aspect ratio is another way to measure ram-air parachutes. Aspect ratios of parachutes are measured the same way as aircraft wings, by comparing span with chord. Low aspect ratio parachutes (i.e. span 1.8 times the chord) are now limited to precision landig competitions.

Popular precision landing parachutes include Jalbert (now NAA) Para-Foils and John Eiff's series of Challenger Classics. While low aspect ratio parachutes tend to be extremely stable - with gentle stall characteristics - they suffer from steep glide ratios and small "sweet spots" for timing the landing flare.

Medium aspect ratio (i.e. 2.1) parachutes are widely used for: reserves, BASE and canopy formation competition because of their predictable opening characteristics. Most medium aspect ratio parachutes have seven cells.

High aspect ratio parachutes have the flattest glide and the largest "sweet spots" (for timing the landing flare) but the least predictable openings. 2.7 is about the upper limit for parachute aspect ratios. High aspect ratio canopies typically have nine or more cells. All reserve ram-air parachutes are of the square variety because of the greater reliability and less-demanding handling characteristics.

General characteristics of ram-airs

Main parachutes used by skydivers today are designed to open softly. Rapid deployment was an early problem with ram-air designs. The primary innovation that slows the deployment of a ram-air canopy is the slider; a small rectangular piece of fabric with a grommet near each corner. Four collections of lines go through the grommets to the risers. During deployment, the slider slides down from the canopy to just above the risers. The slider is slowed by air resistance as it descends and reduces the rate at which the lines can spread. This reduces the speed at which the canopy can open and inflate.

The overall design of a parachute still has a significant influence on the deployment speed. Modern sport parachutes' deployment speeds vary considerably. Most modern parachutes open comfortably, but individual skydivers prefer different deployment speeds.

Details of Deployments

The deployment process is inherently chaotic. Rapid deployments can still occur even with well-behaved canopies. On rare occasions deployment can even be so rapid that the jumper suffers bruising, injury, or death.

Emergency and reserve parachutes by design tend to deploy more rapidly than sports main canopies. They still have sliders, but the sliders descend rapidly, and are constructed with less air-resistance than a sports canopy's slider. For example, one method of reducing the air-resistance of a reserve's slider is to make it of open-mesh fabric.

Safety in Skydiving

A parachute is carefully folded, or "packed" to ensure that it will open reliably. In the U.S. and many developed countries, emergency and reserve parachutes are packed by "riggers" who must be trained and certified according to legal standards. Sport skydivers are always trained to pack their own primary "main" parachutes.

Parachutes can malfunction in several ways. Malfunctions can range from minor problems that can be corrected in-flight and still be landed to catastrophic malfunctions that require the main parachute to be cut away using a modern 3-ring release system and the reserve be deployed.

Most skydivers are also equipped with small barometric computers (known as an AAD or Automatic Activation Device like Cypres, FXC or Vigil) that will automatically deploy the reserve parachute if the skydiver himself has not deployed a parachute to reduce his rate of descent by a preset altitude.

Are You Among the "One in Eighty-thousand" UnLucky Ones?

Exact numbers are difficult to estimate but approximately one in a thousand sports main parachute openings malfunction and must be cut away, although some skydivers have many thousands of jumps and never cut away, (either they pack their mains more carefully than average or they are just lucky).

Reserve parachutes are packed and deployed differently, they are also designed more conservatively and built & tested to more exacting standards so they are more reliable than main parachutes, but the real safety advantage comes from the probability of an unlikely main malfunction multiplied by the even less likely probability of a reserve malfunction.

This yields an even smaller probability of a double malfunction although the possibility of a main malfunction that cannot be cutaway causing a reserve malfunction is a very real risk. In the U.S., the average fatality rate is considered to be about 1 in 80,000 jumps.

How To Get Hurt

Most injuries and fatalities in sport skydiving occur under a fully functional main parachute either due to turbulence or because the skydiver made an error in judgement while flying their canopy, resulting in a high speed impact with the ground, hazards on the ground or with another skydiver under canopy.The average skydiver in the U.S. makes about 150 jumps per year and will leave the sport before the 5th year.

 Incidents

• Walter E. Lees, a US pilot, escaped from a faulty German warplane he had been testing in 1924 by standing on his seat and diving out. He had never used a parachute before but remained calm and successfully pulled the ring.
• Lieutenant Charles Williams, of the Irish Guards, survived falling 3,500 feet in Kenya in 1994 when his feet got caught in the cords of his tangled parachute. His fall was broken by the roof of a shack and he escaped with three cracked vertebrae and a dislocated finger.
• Bear Grylls broke his back in three places in a parachuting accident in Africa. Three years later he became the youngest British mountaineer to reach the top of Mount Everest.
• Rudolf Hess parachuted out of airplane over Scotland in May 1941 and broke his ankle. He recovered but spent the rest of his life in Spandau prison.

Procedure

Typically, a trained skydiver (or jumper) and a group of associates meet at an isolated airport. A fixed base operator at that airport usually operates one or more light cargo aircraft, and takes groups of skydivers up for a fee. In the earlier days of the sport, it was common for an individual jumper to go up in a Beech 18 or Douglas DC-3 aircraft for reasons of economy.

Typical Jump

A typical jump involves individuals jumping out of aircraft (usually an airplane, but sometimes a helicopter or even the gondola of a balloon), travelling at approximately 4000 metres (around 12,000 feet) altitude, and free-falling for a period of time before activating a parachute to slow the landing down to safe speeds.

Top Four Skils

Parachuting has complex skills that can take thousands of jumps to master, but the basics are often fully understood and useful during the first few jumps. There are four basic areas of skill: basic safety, free fall maneuvers, parachute operation, and landing.

Safety First

Basic safety includes knowing how and when to: do a gear check, exit normally, react in an emergency, deploy a parachute, handle common malfunctions, pick a landing area, and set up and execute a landing. Most national sport organizations certify instructors, most operators who fly skydivers retain an instructor, and all certified instructors can teach the basics well enough for a student to be licensed by the national sport organization.

Freefall

In freefall most skydivers start by learning to maintain a stable belly to earth "box" position. In this position the average fallrate is around 120 mph. Learning a stable box position is a basic skill essential for a reliable parachute deployment.

Next, jumpers learn to move or turn in any direction while remaining belly to earth. Using these skills a group of jumpers can create sequences of formations on a single jump, a discipline known as relative work (RW).

In the late 1980s more experienced jumpers started experimenting with freeflying, falling in any orientation other than belly to earth. Today many jumpers start freeflying soon after they earn their license, bypassing the RW stepping stone.

Control of Jump

Once the parachute is opened, (usually around 2,500 feet.) the jumper can control his or her direction and speed with cords called "steering lines," with hand grips called "toggles" that are attached to the parachute, and so he or she can aim for the landing site and come to a relatively gentle stop in a safe landing environment.

Most modern sport parachutes are self-inflating "ram-air" wings that provide control of speed and direction similar to the related paragliders. (Purists in either sport would note that paragliders have much greater lift and range, but that parachutes are designed to absorb the stresses of deployment at terminal velocity.)

When to Deploy Parachute

Choosing when to deploy the parachute is a matter of safety. A parachute should be deployed high enough to give the parachutist time to handle a malfunction should one occur. Two thousand feet is the practical minimum for advanced skydivers. In freefall, skydivers monitor their altitude meters to decide when to break off from the formation (if applicable) and when to open their parachutes. Many skydivers open higher to practice flying their parachute. On a "hop-and-pop," a jump in which the parachute is immediately deployed upon exiting the aircraft, it is not uncommon for a skydiver to be under canopy as high as 4000 or 5000 feet.

Why Skydive?

Many skydivers skydive because it is the closest one can get to the dream of flying. Experienced skydivers will tell someone that in freefall, one can do anything a bird can do, except go back up.

Skydivers generally do not experience a "falling" sensation due to the fact that they reach terminal velocity (around 120 mph) and are no longer accelerating towards the ground. Acceleration is what causes the "stomach in your throat" feeling on a roller-coaster or other amusement park ride.

Skydiving is the only aerial activity where the body is the flying instrument instead of a machine, however simple. Some people explain the attraction to skydiving by adrenaline addiction while others suggest a suicidal disposition, but these people are usually not skydivers.

Flying the Parachute

Flying the parachute has two basic challenges: to land where planned, often on a target; and to avoid injury. On a more advanced note, some skydivers enjoy performing aerobatic maneuvers with parachutes. An example of this would be the "Swoop", an extremely exciting, but dangerous skill which entails a fast speed approach towards the ground, and then levelling off a couple of feet above the ground to cover as much distance as possible (as much as 600 feet), in a fast horizontal swoop.

A modern parachute or canopy "wing" can glide substantial distances. Elliptical canopies go faster and farther, and some small, highly loaded canopies glide faster than a man can run, which can make them very challenging to land. A highly experienced skydiver using a very small canopy can achieve over 60 mph horizontal speeds in landing.

A good landing will not have any discomfort at all, and will land the skydiver within a few feet of his intended location. In competitions, champion accuracy skydivers routinely land less than two inches from the center of a target.

Nowadays, most of the skydiving related injuries happen under a fully opened and functioning parachute, the most common reasons for these injuries are badly-executed, radical maneuvers near to the ground, like hook turns, or too-low or too-high landing flares.

Skydiving Training

Most skydivers make their first jump with an experienced and trained instructor (this type of skydive may be in the form of a tandem skydive). During the tandem jump the jumpmaster is responsible for the stable exit, maintaining a proper stable freefall position, and activating and controlling the parachute.

With training and experience, the fear of the first few jumps is supplanted by the tact of controlling fear so that one may come to experience the satisfaction of mastering aerial skills and performing increasingly complicated maneuvers in the sky with friends. Other training methods include static line, IAD (Instructor Assisted Deployment), and AFF (Accelerated Free-Fall) aka Progressive Free-Fall (PFF) in Canada. See below.

Safety

Despite the seeming danger of the leap, fatalities are rare. However, each year a number of people are hurt or killed parachuting world-wide^. About 30 skydivers are killed each year in the US, which works out roughly to one death out of every 166,000 jumps.

In the US and in most of the western world skydivers are required to carry a second, reserve parachute which has been inspected and packed by a certified parachute rigger (in the US, an FAA certified parachute rigger), and many now use an altitude-sensitive automatic activation device (AAD) that activates the reserve parachute at a safe altitude if the skydiver somehow fails to activate the main canopy on their own. They also routinely carry both visual and audible altimeters to help maintain altitude awareness.

Parachute Dangers In The Air

Inexperienced skydivers are a substantial hazard in the air. Even newly-licensed skydivers sometimes are shunned by groups until they've completed fifty to a hundred jumps, and their experience is personally known to a number of people on the field. For many skydivers this is not nastiness, or elitism, but a simple desire not to have anything broken.

The most dangerous period for a skydiver used to be between 100 and 500 jumps (known as hundred jump wonders), where the jumper has jumped enough to get over the initial fear factor, but has not yet learned all the skills for handling bad situations. Often jumpers with jump numbers in this range are over-confident and somewhat gung-ho.

But in recent years, one of the most common sources of injury is the (mis)use of high-performance parachutes. Since these parachutes are generally used by more experienced jumpers, the average number of jumps for those who die while skydiving has increased. Experienced skydivers may perform dangerous maneuvers at high speeds and low altitudes, resulting in increased risk and subsequently thrill.

Changing wind conditions are another risk factor. In strong wind conditions and hot days with turbulence the parachutist can be caught in downdrafts near the ground. Shifting winds causing a crosswind or downwind landing which have a high potential for injury due to the air speed and wind speed adding to give the landing speed.

It Is Not Usually The Equipment

Equipment failure only very rarely causes fatalities and injuries. While approximately one in 400 jumps results in a primary parachute malfunction and cut away, reserve chutes are professionally packed and are designed to be highly reliable, and while a reserve ride is a rather unnerving experience, it does not cause injury.

Some skydiving disciplines are notably more dangerous than others. BASE jumping has many times a greater risk than high altitude jumps. Skydive disciplines involving equipment such as wing suit flying and sky surfing have a higher risk factor due to the lower mobility of the jumper and the greater risk of entanglement. For this reason these disciplines are generally restricted to experienced jumpers.

Types of Events

Once individuals have mastered the basic jump, there are several different disciplines to embrace within parachuting. Each of these is enjoyed by both the recreational (weekend) and the competitive participants. There is even a small group of professionals who earn their living with parachuting. They win competitions having cash prizes or are employed or sponsored by skydiving related manufacturers.

Parachutists can participate both in competitive and in purely recreational skydiving events. World championships are held regularly in locations offering flat terrain and clear skies. An exception is Paraski, where winter weather and ski-hill terrain are required.

Types of parachuting include:

• Accuracy landing - Landing as close as possible to a target.
• BASE jumping - From buildings, antennas, bridges (spans) and cliffs (earth).
• Blade running - A kind of slalom with parachute.
• Big-ways - Formation skydiving with many people.
• Canopy formation - Making formations with other parachutists while under canopies. (Known also as canopy relative work or simply CRW)
• Canopy piloting - Also known as 'swooping'.
• Formation skydiving - Making formations during freefall. (Known also as relative work or simply RW)

• Freefall cinematography
• Freefall style
• Freeflying
• Freestyle skydiving
• Military Parachuting
  • HALO/HAHO
  • Treejumping
• Para-ski
• Skysurfing - Skydiving with a board strapped to your feet.
• Wingsuit flying - Skydiving with a suit which provides extra lift.

Hollywood Parachuting

It is worth noting that what is depicted in commercial films — notably Hollywood action movies — usually exaggerates the dangers of the sport. Often, the characters in such films are depicted performing feats that are physically impossible without special effects assistance. In other cases, their practices would cause them to be grounded or shunned at any safety-conscious drop zone or club. Drop zones in the US and Canada are required to have an experienced jumper act as a "safety officer" (in Canada DSO - Drop Zone Safety Officer; in the U.S. S&TA - Safety and Training Advisor) who are responsible for dealing with the jumpers who violate rules, regulations, or otherwise act in a fashion deemed unsafe by the appointed individual.

In many countries, either the local regulations or the liability-conscious prudence of the dropzone owners require that parachutists must have attained the age of majority before engaging in the sport.

Competitive accuracy landing

Competitive accuracy landing is a team event with 5 persons on each team that takes place over 8 rounds. The team jumps together, generally from an altitude of 900 meters (2700 feet), although sometimes as high as 1100 meters (3300 feet). The score is measured in meters from "dead center".

The best score for each round is 0,00 meters (meaning you hit dead center) and the worst score for a round is 0,16 meter (16 centimeters or 6 inches). Scores for each round are added together, and the scores count both as individual scores and as part of the team score. In some competitions only the four best scores count in the team competition.

The target

The target, known as "dead center" is a circle with a diameter of 3 centimeters (a little over an inch).

The disk measures the distance from the edge of the dead center circle to the point you touch the disk, in increments of 1 centimeter (0,01 meters). The accompanying picture shows the electronic disk with the yellow dead center.

Technique

Because jumpers usually land on their feet, most try to touch the dead center mark with the heel of their shoe. After the first 8 rounds are completed, the team competition ends and winners are declared.

Based on the individual results, the best half of the skydivers do one individual semifinal jump where the score is added to the individual score. Based on this score the best half of the remaining skydivers make it to the last and final round.

If the 3 first places are shared between skydivers with the same score, there are re-jumps to "sudden death". This means that different scores separate the skydiver for each of the first 3 places. In some competitions the organizers choose to use the skydiver with the most dead centers as the better skydiver.

Legal issues of BASE Jumps

In the United States, skydiving from an airplane involves regulations set by the FAA, notably the requirement of an airplane jumper to carry two parachutes. Since BASE jumping does not involve an airplane, the FAA has no jurisdiction.

The legal issues that a BASE jumper must consider concern permissions to use the object that is being jumped, and the area used for landing.

Covert BASE jumps are often made from tall buildings and antenna towers. The general reluctance of the owners of these objects to allow their object to be used as a platform leads many BASE jumpers to covertly attempt jumps.

While BASE jumping itself is not illegal, the covert nature of accessing objects usually necessitates trespassing on an object. Jumpers who are caught can expect to be charged with trespassing, as well as having other charges like breaking and entering, reckless endangerment, vandalism, or other such charges pressed against them. Other people accompanying the jumper, such as ground crew, may also face charges.

Idaho--Go There To BASE Jump

In some jurisdictions it may be permissible to use land until specifically told not to. Perrine Bridge in Twin Falls, Idaho, is the only manmade structure in the United States where BASE jumping is allowed year-round without a permit.

Once a year, on the third Saturday in October ('Bridge Day') at the New River Gorge Bridge in Fayetteville, West Virginia, permission to BASE jump has explicitly been granted. The New River Gorge Bridge deck is 876 feet (267 m) above the river.

A human dropped from the deck will hit the water in 8.8 seconds. This annual event attracts about 450 BASE jumpers, and nearly 200,000 spectators. If the conditions are good, in the 6 hours that it is legal, there may be over 800 jumps at Bridge Day. For many skydivers who would like to try BASE jumping, this will be the only fixed object from which they ever jump.

On Oct. 21, 2006, veteran BASE jumper Brian Lee Schubert (Alta Loma, CA) was killed jumping from the New River Gorge Bridge. Apparently his chute opened late and he plummeted to his death in the waters below. Shubert died attempting a BASE jump during the Bridge Day activities. Jumps continued following the removal of his body. He and a friend were the first to make a BASE jump from El Capitan in 1966.

Banning BASE Jumping?

However the National Park Service has the authority to ban specific activities in US National Parks, and has done so for BASE jumping. The authority comes from 36 CFR 2.17(3), which prohibits, "Delivering or retrieving a person or object by parachute, helicopter, or other airborne means, except in emergencies involving public safety or serious property loss, or pursuant to the terms and conditions of a permit."

Get A Permit to BASE Jump

Under that Regulation, BASE is not banned, but is allowable if a permit is issued by the Superintendent, which means that a mechanism to allow BASE in National Parks was always in place. However, National Park Service Management Policies have stated that BASE "is not an appropriate public use activity within national park areas..." (2001 Management Policy 8.2.2.7.) This meant that there could be no permitted air delivery. It is noted, however, that this policy has a proposed change that strikes the language banning it outright and replacing it with a different test. Whether this will be approved, and whether this will make the granting of permits easier, is open to speculation.

Illegal Jumping

In the early days of BASE jumping, the Service ran a permit scheme under which jumpers could get authorisation to jump El Capitan. This scheme ran for 3 months in 1980 and then collapsed amid allegations of abuse by unauthorised jumpers.

Since then, the Service has vigorously enforced the ban, charging jumpers with "aerial delivery into a National Park". One jumper drowned in the Merced river while being chased by Park Rangers intent on arresting him. Despite this, illegal jumps continue in Yosemite at a rate estimated at a few hundred per year, often at night or dawn. El Capitan, Half Dome and Glacier Point are all used as jump sites.

BASE ethics

A Team Sport

Respect for others, both jumpers and observers, is especially important in BASE. Jumpers depend on each other for instruction, assistance and aid. While this is most obvious in simple things, like carpooling to a jump site, it also applies to opening and maintaining site access, avoiding arrest, and providing medical assistance to injured jumpers.

In the most extreme, jumpers rely on each other for emotional support when tragedy occurs. While they sometimes like to think of themselves as rugged individualists, in the end, BASE is a team sport.

Not All People Parachute

BASE ethics also demands that jumpers should respect the non-jumping people who live or work around BASE sites. Many jumpers travel to jump, and it is important to understand and respect the culture and wishes of the local people.

For example, at some popular cliffs in Europe, jumpers are asked to land in specific areas so as not to disrupt local agriculture. The popular legal span in the Western US is located in a small, conservative, rural community, which has little tolerance for public nudity or profanity.

Understanding and respecting the culture of local residents helps protect site access, as well as conveying a positive image of BASE jumpers to the general public.

BASE jumping today

When a jumper completes a jump from each of the four categories of objects, they may choose to apply for a "BASE number". These are awarded sequentially. In 1981, Phil Smith of Houston, Texas, was awarded BASE-1. In March 2005 the 1000th application for a BASE number had been filed by Matt Moilanen of Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Parachuting In the Movies

BASE jumping is often featured in action movies, like the 2002 Vin Diesel film xXx where Diesel's character catapults himself off a bridge in an open-topped car, landing safely as the car crashes on the ground.

After the 1976 Mount Asgard jump featured in the pre-credits sequence to The Spy Who Loved Me, the James Bond movies continued to feature BASE jumps, including one from the Eiffel Tower in 1985's A View to a Kill, the Rock of Gibraltar in 1987's The Living Daylights, and in Die Another Day, 2002, Pierce Brosnan as James Bond jumps from a melting iceberg.

Of the James Bond jumps, though, only the Mt Asgard and Eiffel Tower jumps were filmed in reality; the rest were special effects.

BASE Acronym

The 1990s surge of interest in extreme sports saw many developments in BASE jumping and increasing acceptance of it generally, though it is still widely seen as a daredevil stunt rather than a sport.

Even though it is a highly skilled activity, the lack of an objective way to measure skill as the basis for records and competitions, hinders acceptance as a true sport; and it remains as dangerous as it looks, prompting some, with typically black humor, to say that BASE stands for "Bones And Shit Everywhere".

Through the availability of specialised equipment and wider knowledge of techniques, it is safer today than in the early days, though the occasional fatalities and injuries occur.

Ouch!

Some deaths through ground impact in freefall or object strike do occur, but most incidents are due to hazardous landing sites or other problems which develop after the parachute has opened. Because of the covert nature of much of BASE jumping, no reliable figures are available to assess the statistical risks of the activity.

Record Skydiving

The Guinness Book of Records first listed a BASE jumping record with Carl Boenish's 1984 leap from Trollveggen (Troll Wall) in Norway. It was described as the highest BASE jump.^[1] (The jump was made two days before Boenish's death at the same site.)

This record category is still in the Guinness book and is currently held by Nic Feteris and Glenn Singleman with a jump from the 19,000 ft Trango cliff in Pakistan. However, Singleman and partner Heather Swan claimed a new record for highest starting elevation on 23 May 2006^[2] by jumping from Meru Peak in northern India at an elevation of 6,604 metres (21,667 ft)

Comparisons of Jumps

The sheer variety of the nature of the challenge at different jump sites means that direct comparisons of different jumps are often meaningless. As a result, some of the claimed records in the field may seem spurious. There is another Guinness entry for "oldest BASE jumper" which is clearly nothing to do with sporting skill. Even more contentious are claims sometimes made (although not recognised by Guinness) for the lowest jump. Given that a static-lined parachute can be made to open in little more than the length of its suspension lines, jumps can actually be performed at practically any altitude right down to the point at which a parachute is not necessary for survival.

Who Controls Skydiving?

Inquiries about sites serve as the primary gatekeeper of the BASE community. If a prospective jumper has to locate experienced jumpers to learn about sites, there is a far greater chance that he/she will receive instruction (of any kind) and use appropriate gear.

If a site is publicized, pretty much anyone can run out and throw himself off of it. He can jump with no training, with improper equipment and with no supervision. This is a recipe for disaster, and has resulted in multiple accidents, including more than one fatality.

Sites Labelling

Any discussion of a site can easily be held by referring to the site descriptively, rather than by name or location.

It is easy to discuss "the Bridge Day site" or "the popular terminal wall in Northern Italy" for example, and using such labels detracts nothing from a technical discussion.

BASE Fatalities

Accidents occur at legal sites, as well as illegal ones, and this reasoning applies equally to either. In fact, the majority of BASE fatalities have occurred at legal sites. The ease of access to these sites, as well as the frequency of accidents, argues, if anything, for greater site secrecy at legal sites.

Stop Accidents!

Some BASE jumpers feel that preventing accidents is important because it keeps sites open for jumping (whether legal or illegal). This concern is a distant second to preventing injury.

Fatalities of Skydiving / Parachuting

Between 1981 and 2004 there have been at least 81 fatalites within the sport. Notable events include:

• On October 21, 2006 Brian Lee Schubert died after jumping off the New River Gorge Bridge during the annual "Bridge Day festival".

Not all paratroopers used parachutes during a drop, but flew in on gliders. This enabled larger equipment (vehicles, cannons, etc.) to support the assault.

Today, paratroopers still use round parachutes, or round parachutes modified as to be more fully controlled with toggles. The parachutes are usually deployed by a Static line. Mobility of the parachutes is often deliberately limited to prevent scattering of the troops when a large number parachute together. Some military exhibition units, but most often special forces units, use "ram-air" paragliders which offer higher ability to turn and maneuver and are deployed without a static line from high altitude.

Four Series of Freefall

Generic freefall and the dicipline of freefall style are very different and should remain separate catagories. Freefall style is a very specific series of turns and loops performed in sequence. There are 4 series that are performed in competions. they are left, right, left cross, and right cross. Each consists of 4 360 degree level turns and 2 back loops.

How Done?

Each series is done in this sequence: turn, turn, loop, turn, turn, loop. The direction of the turns varies with the series being performed.

This dicipline is very demanding in terms of body tension and strength due to the fact that you are working into wind velocities upwards of 150 mph, depending on the steepness and the length of the dive prior to initiating the first turn.

Think!

While being physically prepared for style is important, many of the world's top stylists will tell you that there is a very important mental component to the competitors preparation as well, and to ignore it is to risk failure at the highest competitive levels.

The boards used are generally smaller than actual surfboards, and look more like snowboards or large skateboards. The attachment to the feet is normally made removable, so that if the skydiver loses control or has difficulty opening their parachute, the board can be jettisoned.

What's So Hard About Skysurfing?

Skysurfing is a distinct skill requiring considerable practise. The simplest skysurfing technique is to stand upright on the board during freefall, and tilt the nose of the board down to generate forward movement. However even this basic technique is a balancing act which experienced skydivers find tricky to learn.

The extra drag of the board tends to upset the balance and make the skydiver flip over. The jumper must also learn to control the board and their body position so as to open the parachute in a stable configuration. More advanced aerobatics such as loops, rolls and helicopter spins, are more difficult still and are tackled once the basics have been mastered.

Because of the possibility of dropping the board, not every skydiving club permits skysurfing, and only a minority of skydivers have attempted this recent specialisation in the sport.

Like A Seasurfer

When a skysurfer is filmed by another skydiver falling alongside them, the resulting film gives the appearance that the skysurfer is riding on the air in the same way a surfer rides on a wave.

The downward motion is not very apparent and this creates the illusion that a skysurfer is gliding on air currents like a sailplane or hang glider. In fact a skysurfer always falls at a high speed comparable to any other freefalling parachutist.

The competitive discipline of skysurfing is a team sport consisting of a skysurfer and a camera flyer with a video camera.

How Skysurfing Came to Be

There are examples of early experiments in skysurfing going back to the 1980s, but it became popular and gained recognition during the 1990s thanks to the efforts of the first few exponents to master the more complex aerobatics, such as the late Patrick de Gayardon.

The rise of skysurfing coincided with other new-age disciplines in skydiving, such as freestyle and freeflying. Freestyle skydiving is a balletic, mostly individual style which seeks to extend the sport beyond the traditional belly-to-earth flat position used by most skydivers who make formations with their bodies.

Freeflying is also a form of skydiving using a variety of body positions, such as head-down or feet-to-earth, while still building formations with others. These evolutions in skydiving have widened the appeal of parachuting in general and given it a refreshed image of fun, youth, and vitality, taking it further away from the traditional image of a daredevil stunt.

Decline of Skysurfing

After reaching its peak in the middle to late 1990s, skysurfing has become relatively rare among the skydiving community in recent years.

Reasons for the decline include the rise in popularity of freeflying and wingsuit flying, the hazards associated with flying and releasing the board, and the dwindling number of experienced skysurfers to train new pilots. It is unknown at this time whether this trend will be reversed.

History of Wings

Freefallers first started using wings in the 1930s as an attempt to increase horizontal movement. These early wingsuits were made of materials such as canvas, wood, silk, steel, and even whale bone.

These wings often sealed the fate of those who donned them. According to wingsuit lore between 1930 and 1961, 72 of the 75 original birdmen died trying their wingsuits.

Some of these birdmen, most notably Clem Sohn and Leo Valentin, claimed to have glided for miles and inspired dozens of imitators.

Wingsail

In the mid 1990s, French skydiver Patrick de Gayardon (nicknamed "DeG") developed a wingsuit that had unparalleled safety and performance. Unfortunately, Patrick died on April 13, 1998 while testing a new modification to his parachute container in Hawaii; his death is attributed to a rigging error which was part of the new modification. However, Patrick planted the seed that grew a new generation of birdmen.

Birdman

In 1998, Jari Kuosma of Finland and Robert Pecnik of Croatia teamed up to fulfill their dream of creating a wingsuit that was safe and accessible for all skydivers when they established BirdMan, Inc. BirdMan's Classic was the first wingsuit offered to the general public.

BirdMan was also the first manufacturer to advocate the safe use of wingsuits by creating an Instructor program. Created by Jari Kuosma, the instructor program's aim was to remove the stigma that wingsuits were dangerous and to provide beginners with a way to safely enjoy what was once considered dangerous in the skydiving world.

With the help of Birdman Chief Instructors Scott Campos, Chuck Blue and Kim Griffin, a standardized program of instruction was developed that not only allowed people to experience the joys of flight safely, it also allowed for the creation of more instructors who would be able to carry on BirdMan's high standard of training beginners all over the skydiving world. Following BirdMan's lead, Phoenix-Fly and Fly Your Body have also instituted an instructor program aimed at training new comers to the wingsuit discipline.

One-Wing Design

Loïc Jean-Albert developed a one-wing design which was manufactured and marketed by Parasport Italia as the Crossbow in 2000 Loic has since set up the wingsuit company Fly Your Body.

In 2004 Robert Pecnik launched his own wingsuit company, Phoenix-Fly. With a new level of safety and performance, the wingsuit pilots are back and rapidly growing.

BirdMan Rocket Team Success

On October 25th of 2005 in Lahti Finland, the BirdMan Rocket Team successfully experimented with small jet engines attached to the feet of BirdMan Visa Parviainen. The rockets used provided approximately 16 kgf of thrust each and ran on kerosene (JetA-1) fuel.

Visa was able to achieve approximately 30 seconds of horizontal flight with no noticeable loss of altitude. Once the fuel ran out, Visa continued to fly in normal Birdman flight until deployment altitude. Deployment and landing were uneventful.

The flight was considered a success as it proved that level human flight was not only possible but sustainable with the use of rockets and a Birdman suit. Similarly successful experiments have also been undertaken with the SkyRay wing system.

Webbies

In 2006 Tony Uragallo of Tony Suits in Zephyrhills Florida, developed a new generation of wingsuits that feature easy donning (very much like camera suits) and "webbies" that are integrated webbed gloves.

Operation

The wings on a wingsuit are fairly similar to a modern ram air parachute. They are equipped with crossported cells that inflate with air through inlets in the front of the wings, allowing them to become rigid and aerodynamic.

Some wingsuits use airlocks or deflectors to help maintain pressurization and airflow while minimizing turbulence. The surface area of the wing causes drag vertically, while the shape of the wings and the jumpers body position causes the wingsuit pilot to move across the sky at very high speeds.

The resulting forward speed translates into lift potential and creates a slow fall rate which gives the pilot a relatively high glide ratio.

Popularity

A skydiver flying a wingsuit has an average vertical fall rate of 50 - 60 mph, which can easily increase freefall time from the average 60 second skydive up to 3 minutes of freefall time.

Experienced wingsuit pilots with more advanced suits can maintain fall rates under or around 30 mph. Wingsuit pilots are constantly trying to lower their vertical speeds via different flying techniques.

Glide Ratio

Flying a wingsuit is the closest thing to pure human flight. When wearing a wingsuit, the pilot is able to fly horizontally across the sky.

Due to the slower fall rate and greater forward speed a good wingsuit pilot can cover five to six miles from 13,500 feet and achieve a glide ratio of over 2.5:1. Forwards speeds are believed to be between 90 and 120 mph without wind assistance.

Talk and Fall

Wingsuit flying is one of the few skydiving disciplines that allows skydivers to hear each other talk in freefall.

Because of the slow fall rate, there is less noise from the passing air and wingsuit pilots can actually talk to other wingsuit pilots when flying next to each other.

Parachute Deployment

At a skydiver's designated deployment-altitude; the individual throws the pilotchute from a pocket at the bottom of the rig (the backpack-like container holding both parachutes a.k.a., canopies).

This is known as a bottom of container (B.O.C.) deployment system. This small parachute is connected to the main parachute by a cord known as the "bridle" which feeds through a grommet on a small black bag which has the carefully folded parachute inside and the lines stowed through rubber bands across the top.

At the bottom of the container's tray which holds the main parachute is a loop which, in the closing sequence of the parachute system, is fed through grommets on each of four flaps that closes the container.

Deployment Details

Attached to the bridle is a curved pin through which the closing loop is put after it has been fed through each of these grommets. When the pilotchute is thrown out, it catches the wind and pulls the pin out of the closing loop, releasing the black bag off the back of the individual (who is in the stable belly-towards-earth arched position).

The lines are pulled loose from the rubber bands and extend as the canopy starts to open. To reduce the risk of injury, A piece of fabric called the "slider" (which has the lines separated into four main groups fed through grommets in the four respective corners) slows the opening of the parachute and works its way down until the canopy is fully open and the slider is just above the head of the skydiver.

During a normal deployment, a skydiver will generally experience a few seconds of G-force in the realm of 3 to 4 G's while the parachute slows the descent from 120 mph to around 12 mph.

Other Deployment Details

If a skydiver experiences a malfunction with their main parachute which they cannot correct, they have a "cut-away" handle on the front right-hand side of their container (on the chest) which will release the main canopy after which they can activate a reserve handle on the front left (sometimes triggered by a RSL or Reserve Static Line which, if connected, will deploy the spring loaded Reserve Canopy located in the top of the container upon cutting away the main).

Recently, a new type of RSL has been developed called the Skyhook. This new system uses the "cut-away" canopy as a super-sized pilotchute to deploy the spring loaded reserve canopy. The sky hook is an incredibly fast system that has the jumper under the reserve canopy and flying within 2 seconds (compared to the 5-10 seconds of the old system).

Variations

In addition to the various "disciplines", for which people actually train and purchase specialized equipment and get coaching, the recreational skydiver finds ways to just have fun.

Hit and Rock

One example of this is "Hit and Rock", which is a variant of Accuracy landing devised to let people of varying skill-levels "compete" for fun, while spoofing the age and abilities of some participants. "Hit and Rock" is originally from POPS (Parachutists Over Phorty Society). See the POPS Main site

Parachute Landing

The object now becomes: to land as close as possible to the chair, doff the parachute harness, sprint to the chair, sit fully in the chair and rock back and forth at least one time. The contestant is timed from the moment that feet touch the ground until that first rock is completed.

Swoop and Chug

Very similar to Hit and Rock, except the target is replaced by a case of beer. Jumpers are timed from the moment their feet touch the ground until they chug the can of beer and place the empty can upside-down.

Of course, it must be mentioned that dropzones enforce strict rules prohibiting anyone from jumping any more that day once alcohol has been consumed.

Cross-Country

A cross-country jump refers to a skydive where the participants open their parachutes immediately after jumping, with the intention of covering as much ground under canopy as possible. Usual distance from Jump Run to the DZ is 10 miles.

Tracking jump

Tracking is assuming a body position that maximizes horizontal speed while minimising vertical speed. It is most commonly used at the end of freefall to gain enough separation from other skydivers for a safe parachute deployment.

A tracking dive is a skydive where the intention is to track for the entire duration of freefall. One person, usually the most experienced tracker, is designated the leader (or "rabbit"). The rabbit directs the direction of the group and maintains the group's tracking speed. Other participants chase the rabbit and try to maintain a relative position.

Pond Swooping

Pond swooping is a form of competitive parachuting wherein canopy pilots attempt to touch down at a glide across a small body of water, and onto the shore. Events provide lighthearted competition rating accuracy, speed, distance and style. Points and peer approval are reduced when a participant "chows", or fails to reach shore and sinks into the water.

Camera Flying

In camera flying, a cameraman (or camerawoman) jumps with other skydivers and films them. The camera flyer often wears specialized equipment, such as a winged jumpsuit to provide a greater range of fallrates, helmet-mounted video and still cameras, mouth operated camera switches, and special optical sights. Some skydivers specialize in camera flying and a few earn significant fees for filming students on coached jumps or tandem-jumpers, or producing professional footage and photographs for the media.

There is always a demand for good camera flyers in the skydiving community, as many of the competitive skydiving disciplines are judged from a video record.

Night Jumps

Skydiving is not always restricted to daytime hours. Experienced skydivers sometimes perform night jumps. For obvious safety reasons, this requires more equipment than a usual daytime jump and in most jurisdictions requires both an advanced skydiving license (at least a B-License in the U.S.) and specialized training (night rating). A lighted altimeter (preferably accompanied with an audible altimeter) is a must. Skydivers performing night jumps often take flashlights up with them so that they can check their canopies once they deploy, so they can be assured that the canopy has opened correctly and is safe to fly and land. Visibility to other skydivers and other aircraft is also a consideration; FAA regulations require skydivers jumping at night to be wearing a light visible for three miles in every direction, and to turn it on once they are under canopy.

 Stuff Jumps

Parachuting organizations

National parachuting associations exist in many countries (many affiliated with the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI)), to promote their sport. In most cases, national representative bodies, as well as prudent local dropzone operators, require that participants carry certification, attesting to their training, their level of experience in the sport, and their proven competence. Anyone who cannot produce such bona-fides is treated as a student, requiring close supervision.

Safety

Within the sport, associations promote safety, technical advances, training-and-certification, competition and other interests of their members. Outside their respective communities, they promote their sport to the public, and often intercede with government regulators.

Competitions are organized at regional, national and international levels in most these disciplines. Some of them offer amateur competition. Many of the more photogenic/videogenic variants also enjoy sponsored events with prize money for the winners.

Parachuting Friends

The majority of jumpers tend to be non-competitive, enjoying the opportunity to "get some air" with their friends on weekends and holidays. The atmosphere of their gatherings is relaxed, sociable and welcoming to newcomers.

Party events, called "boogies" are arranged at local, national and international scale, each year, attracting both the enthusiatic young jumpers and many of their elders -- Parachutists Over Phorty (POPs), Skydivers Over Sixty (SOS) and even older groups who have yet to choose a catchy name for themselves.

Famous people associated with this sport include Valery Rozov who is a gold medalist from the 1998 X Games, who has had more than 1,500 jumps. Also, the is Georgia Thompson("Tiny") Broadwick who is one of the first American skydivers, and she made the first freefall.

Commercial parachuting services vs. parachuting clubs

At larger centers, mostly in the "Sun Belt" region of the United States, training in the sport is often conducted by professional instructors and coaches at commercial establishments.

The advantages to the newcomer are year-round availability, larger aircraft (which translates to greater comfort, higher jump altitudes, and more frequent jumping), and staff who are very current in both their sport and their instructional skills.

It is also common for instructors and newcomers to jump while strapped together (see picture). For the newcomer, this gives an added measure of safety should something go wrong.

Club Skydiving Stuff

In the other latitudes, where winter (or monsoon) gets in the way of year-round operation, commercial skydiving centers are less prevalent and much of the parachuting activity is carried on by clubs.

Most clubs cannot support larger aircraft. Training may be offered (by volunteer instructors who, nevertheless, are rigorously tested and certified) only in occasional classes as demand warrants. These clubs are usually weekend only operations as the volunteers have full-time jobs during the week. The entire experience tends to be informal and surrounded by a lot of socializing.