Flamingo Sky Diving Plane

Facts about skydiving

A few interesting facts I wrote about skydiving. It shows how safe skydiving is and just how fun it can be.

Skydiving

Skydiving is becoming more popular around the world every year. This is because people hear about others experiences, and this is making others want to get involved. In this guide, we will investigate into all aspects of skydiving, including its history, what a typical jump involves, why skydiving is popular, what types of dive are there, things you did not know about regular diving, is skydiving dangerous and fun facts about skydiving.

History

Skydiving has been around since 1979. The first skydive took place from a hot-air balloon. Past this skydiving was used in the military, and then became a sport' in the early 1950's. Nowadays thousands of people per year skydive in the United Kingdom for both pleasure and fun.

A Typical Jump

A regular jump involves a jump from an aircraft at a distance of around 13, 000 feet. There will then be around a minutes worth of free falling followed by 5 - 7 minutes of floating down attached to a parachute. The parachute is usually deployed at around 2600 feet to avoid any problems. Once deployed, you can then control the parachute to move you around the sky, and this allows you to control your landing. Upon exit of the aircraft, balloon or helicopter, divers will initially reach speeds of around 90MPH accelerating to anywhere up to 200MPH.

Your first jumps will always be with a trained specialist/instructor and will more than likely be in the form of a tandem skydive. This is to ensure that in the unlikely event that there is a problem there will be an expert to try and deal with this problem. While tandem skydiving students' will go through on ground training, alongside training in the air by the instructor.

Parachuting is seasonal, many skydiving centres will not run in winter months, or days when there are weather hazards. sky diving centres are usually only open on weekends, because there is not enough demand for people that want to learn all employees generally have full-time jobs.

Why Is Skydiving Popular?

The main reason why parachuting is so popular is because of the danger associated with the sport. It goes without saying that the adrenaline rush is one that is rarely met by any other sports or hobbies. Even though there are plenty of extreme sports, many say that you will never match the feeling of a perfect skydive in terms of adrenaline and experience.

Another reason why it is extremely popular is because it is now much more accessible than before. People sky dive for a number of reasons today, to be sociable, to earn money for charity, or just for fun. The price is not as much as it once was due to the accessibility. You can skydive in a tandem from around 150, which is much less than many think.

Skydiving is a fantastic memory to keep for the rest of your life. You can now relive your memories with DVD's, certificates and photographs, and the majority if not all of the centres provide this service for an additional cost.

As skydiving becomes more and more common, word of mouth surrounding the successes of parachuting starts to spread. As many will no doubt realise there is no better promotion then word of mouth, so it is expected that the popularity of skydiving will increase from year to year.

What Types Of Dive Are There?

Static Line Parachuting

Static line parachuting ensures that when you leave the plane a parachute is deployed after leaving the plane, and is commonly used for beginners training or for drops in the military.

Tandem

As mentioned before, a tandem jump is where you jump attached to a certified trainer. This usually only happens while you are learning, and it is expected that as soon as you are qualified you will jump alone.

Tandem jumping is the most common form of diving used in charity jumps, as the majority of people that jump for charity are jumping just for this one occasion.

Sports Diving

Sky diving has now become more than just a hobby. Sports' diving is now more common among experienced skydivers looking to get more of a thrill out of diving. Sports diving include elements such as speed diving, and other various performances, however, this should only be carried out by professionals as it is more dangerous than regular diving.

Regular Diving

Once you are experienced enough to jump from a plane without the aid of a teacher you will go out alone. This is simply known as a regular dive.

Things You Did Not Know About Regular and Sports Diving.

There are many different ways of enjoying skydiving. These features have been brought in to add more fun to skydiving.

Some of these methods are:

Pond Swooping - Upon landing, canopy pilots will try and glide across a small quantity of water. This is usually carried out in competitive diving, however, if you are experienced enough this can be carried out on a recreational level.

Cross Country - Upon exit of the plane, balloon or helicopter the parachute is deployed (when at a safe distance). This will allow you to travel several miles in the air, and is perfect for sightseeing.

Hit and Rock - Hit and rock is once preformed both recreational and as a sport. The object of the game' is to land closely to a preset chair, remove your gear, sit in the chair and rock back and forth once. This is timed, and considered a race too many.

Camera Flying - One thing that most tandem divers will be aware of is camera flying. Some divers become camera flyers in order to obtain extra money for professional footage. Camera flyers are used constantly in all forms of diving.

Night Jumps - Jumping at night time is popular among professional divers because it adds an extra element of danger to each jump. All jumpers must have advanced diving licences alongside lights which must be visible for 3 or so miles.

One intriguing thing about night jumps is when you are 100 foot above the ground you get a sizeable reflection from the moon which means you can see the ground, however, the lower you go the darker the earth appears. Every night time diver needs to know about this because it can be worrying the first time you night jump if it appears you are diving into nothingness.

Stuff Jumps - Stuff jumps are one of the extremely attractive dives. Stuff jumps are typically deployed from a large rear door an aircraft. Stuff jumps can be carried out with anything from a rubber raft (which is one of the more popular choices) to cars! Remember, you need to make sure it is legal to do this where you are jumping. Remember, you do break away from your object, leaving it to crash to the floor.

Is Skydiving Dangerous?

Skydiving is not as dangerous as you may think. To put this into prospective around 2.2 million jumps where carried out in the United States in 2007 and only 21 of them led to deaths. This leaves you with statistics of one death every 104, 000 jumps. To put this into perspective, this means you can jump every day for 300 years without any problems. 70% of all parachuting related deaths are due to downsizing too quickly, or making a mistake under canopy, usually from over confidence.

Remember, all centres are fully licensed and take every precaution to ensure that all safety aspects are looked at before every dive. Jumpers always dive with a conventional parachute and a backup for emergencies. The reserve parachute is inspected 3 times a year on average regardless of if it has been used or not. Many divers now also dive with an AAD (automatic activation device) which will utilize your backup if you cannot pull your first.

Skydiving is a sport where you throw yourself from the air, so saying that there is no risk is a lie, but every precaution is always taken to ensure a safe landing.

Fun Facts about Skydiving.

The highest ever jump was performed in 1960 at a remarkable 102, 000 feet, by Captain Kittinger. He free fell for a staggering 4 minutes, and his speed reached over 700MPH!

There have been times when parachutes have acted as life savers underwater. There have been documented cases of pilots deploying their shuts underwater with their life vests. A combination of the two has pulled them up to safety.

The lowest ever planned jump was from just 143 feet.

The oldest recorded Tandem diver was a man of 100 years old.

The youngest ever diver was a tandem dive and the child was just 4 years old.

In 2001 Michael Zang broke the record for most jumps in a day at 500 from 2, 100 feet.

Whatever your view on parachuting there is no doubt that it is one of the most popular extreme sports around today. Remember, if you are new to diving then always make sure you seek advice before diving from a local centre or from a professional who will take you through what to expect.

Written by the owners of cheap treadmills also copyright.