What's difficult about skydiving

[jimmytavino 16]

wow..
Mad Skilz


.....BEFORE ever making a jump


ding ding ding ... we have a winner!!!!

love the part about "i watched some videos on Utube"

hell brother You're Good to GO !!!!!!!!

only you must learn to Yell "Geronimo"!!!!! as you exit..... the rest is Simple......... ANYbody can do it...

good luck

jmy

[BIGUN 1,048]

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I want to start skydiving and looked some around on youtube and forums like this and it all looks super easy.. basically you just jump out of a plane, fly some around, have a very great time and open your parachute in time?

Im pretty sure I already understand the steering and landing part by just using logical reasoning and experience from kitesurfing.

I understand you need to discuss some with your co-jumpers so you dont crash on each other etc..

So im just like give me a parachute, tell me how i fold it, tell me how it opens, tell me how my reserve opens, and let me jump?

Please explain me why I need to pay a huge amount of cash for instructors, theoretical course etc.

The course is not theoretical; it is performance-oriented. The Instructor will demonstrate by the numbers, teach you by the numbers and make any corrective training on the spot as well as flight debriefings after you've completed a dive.

You'll be taught about your equipment
How to exit that DZ's particular aircraft (there are some you do NOT want to exit too high out of).
How to fly/control your body in freefall.
Increasing the complexities of each dive to make you more proficient and placing you on the path of skydiving safely with others.
Landing patterns specific to that DZ.

AND...

While there are those with experience in other extreme/sports that will give them _some_ frame of reference for varying components of skydiving; there is no experience in other sports on dealing with the varying types of malfunctions and the proper procedures in dealing with each one (For example, you have two canopies out.. they can be one in front of the other or side-by-side. If the main canopy is in the front of the reserve canopy ... "What do you do now, Jack? W H A T do you do?!?!?" What if it's the other way around?) That's just one catch me fuck me malfunction... the scariest being the horseshoe malfunction. Scariest to even those with tens of thousands of jumps.

You're always more than welcome to review the classroom instruction manuals that all USPA DZ's use... (ya know, so you can move from one DZ to another - anywhere in the country... if your job changes, etc. and pick up right where you left off at your old DZ)

http://www.uspa.org/SIM.aspx

The bottom line here is.... While you may think it's an inordinate amount of cash for instruction; that's not all the money is for... there are a lot of hidden costs you'll never see broken out by line itemization in an invoice: Gear, land, taxes, insurance, light bills, phone bills, student jumpsuits, student gear maintenance, aircraft, pilots, aircraft fuel, aircraft maintenance, advertising, websites, etc. Oh Yeah... and training materials.

If I may suggest that future inquiries be more respectful. You've made yourself sound like that student we've all had that showed up at the DZ as an "extreme sport junkie" with a resume of extreme accomplishments from MMA to sky-sailing, to being pilots, to motocross and my personal favorite - the extreme skateboarder... some whom have done well, but there's always the one who shits his pants while exiting the plane, only to run off after the dive, never to be seen again... BUT, we always have video of those. Always. And, we know how to post to Utube also.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[Austintxflight 0]

I assume you know how to open the door of a skyvan?

[beowulf 1]

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Finding time and money....to skydive!

Diffiuclt....wow....let me see....packing....not that hard really! I mean it's just some folds and what not stuffed into a lunch box.

the flying thing is rather easy, look left go left look right go right. pull left go left pull right go right.

and don't worry about pulling anything there is this thing called an AAD that will do all that work for you.

And landings....sure they are hard to figure out....but you stick a few computers in your lid and tehy will beep and buzz and tell you what to do.

Not hard at all! Hell I can even do it!

Did you do it with out any instruction or instructors to help you? If so then maybe it was easy for you.

[Divalent 89]

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I assume you know how to open the door of a skyvan?

We've all seen the video, so everyone know how to do that now.

[CSpenceFLY 1]

You fucking people don't even make the trolls work at all around here any more.

[mrubin 0]

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I want to start skydiving and looked some around on youtube and forums like this and it all looks super easy.. basically you just jump out of a plane, fly some around, have a very great time and open your parachute in time?

It is super easy. My buddy Johnny Utah did great on his first jump without any training and he didn't even get to watch any youTube videos.

"I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

[Hellis 0]

Maybe you should look at the videos called AFF on youtube instead?

[Remster 24]

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I assume you know how to open the door of a skyvan?

Opening it is the easy bit. Not losing it is the more technical task...

Remster

[CrazyL 0]

Not much is difficult skydiving besides when close friends die, but that's goes with life, and the inability to learn from unexplainable accidents. The 7P's Proper Prior Preparedness Prevents Piss Poor Performance. I had a pretty good instructors. Still after over 7,000 jumps and 4 reserve rides, one being a high speed mal. I can say that the training I recieved in the first jump course, the basics, the fundamentals and the performance training with the instructors way back then, over 20 years ago, helped me immensely during malfunctions, partly because in an emergency I reverted right back to my training from the first day in the skydiving school to help me survive. Skydiving accidents happen, over simple issues to deal with. Thing is, it is f'ing 'game on' each and every time I launch out of an airplane at altitude. No taking a break for assessing shit.

[mr2mk1g 10]

It's all a con - the full first jump course is available on youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J6UgV_ZzJQ

[pchapman 261]

There are plenty of reasons why it costs.

But you have a point, in some sense, skydiving is very simple. Fall out, pull, steer, flare. Pull a couple handles if there's a malfunction.

Skydiving is super easy if you want to treat it like an emergency procedure. A pilot can bail out and make it down alive without training. And that would still apply if you give him a big square parachute not a round parachute. But in skydiving we train for all the little details to reduce the chance of not finding the handle, tumbling in freefall, not flaring right, malfunctions, etc.

Nowadays we know more about falling out of airplanes, so we teach the little details, and it isn't OK to have a first time jumper death once every thousand jumps, or break ankles on 5% of them. Those are great statistics if you are a pilot of a burning airplane, but lousy for the sport of skydiving.

Skydiving like other sports has its rules. We don't have complete freedom to do whatever we want. Part of that is because of the flying part of it all -- there are plenty of rules in aviation, we use the national airspace system, etc. It differs country to country. So our activities are often partially regulated by national laws.

It is true that in some countries, if you did find equipment, and just found a pilot who you weren't paying (so that he wouldn't in effect have to have a business license for dropping skydivers), you could go jump into a friend's field with no training. You probably still have to follow some airspace rules about where and how the drops would be made. In some countries like the US and Canada, the sports organizations running skydiving are voluntary, so technically if you stayed off of dropzones owned by members, you could go learn on your own. But in the end, people go to where the infrastructure already exists and join national organizations and play by their rules.

Since we integrate into national aviation & airspace laws, it isn't like rock climbing where you could hike into the back country and do whatever you want, live or die. (Yes there are land use regulations that can affect climbing, but I'm talking in general.)

There are a lot of things in skydiving that aren't particularly "difficult" -- but there still are an awful lot of them to learn. And like many physical things, it is hard to learn out of a book or even youtube due to the lack of feedback in the learning cycle.

You probably could learn a lot online, but when you come to a dropzone, they still have the standard packages for a standard price. You wouldn't go for a scuba course and say, "can you give me 30% off, because I've read every book I can on scuba and a buddy showed me some stuff."

You'll probably end up paying the same as everyone else, just that you may progress faster and need less instruction down the road. But you still have to be tested and evaluated on your knowledge. The caveat is that without feedback while learning on your own, you can get all sorts of things slightly wrong -- so you end up taking as long to retrain and get the wrong ideas out of your head.

While there is a lot of info online on particular skydiving skills, it would be rarer for there to be any complete first jump course from A to Z. While there are national organizations, every skydiving program is slightly different and suited to different equipment, aircraft, drop zones, and instructor preferences. So there is no such thing as a single book for a standardized national course, whether you pay for it or not.

To have a big piece of land, parachute equipment, and aircraft, costs a lot of money. Somebody's gotta pay for that, and a lot fewer people want to skydive than want to go to an amusement park. The costs are spread over fewer people. You can pay about $300 for a first jump course, and only a small fraction of that goes to the instructor. As you make more jumps, the cost goes down and you contribute to the overhead costs a bit at a time as you are not just there for one jump.

So the the huge amounts of money sure aren't going to the instructors. They're working for their money just like the guy who offers kitesurfing courses. I don't know about kitesurfing, but skydiving instructors do need to get various certifications for coaching and instructing depending on their role.

Planes are very expensive to a significant extent because they are built in tiny numbers compared to say cars. And there are more rules about maintenance, than even a school bus I bet.

Another thing you'll pay money for is to learn the techniques to jump with others in the sky, to learn the fine maneuvering skills required to dock on each other, and the safety procedures not to crash into each other in freefall and under canopy. (Aside: Skydivers know we're still working on that last one.) It isn't just about falling out on your own.

In the end, pay to go through the system like everyone else. If one is a diligent student, that can speed one's progress a little and keep costs down in the number of jumps needed to get licensed. But there are no guarantees.

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Edit:
I gave a serious reply but there are some good humorous replies in the thread too.

shah wrote:

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the flying thing is rather easy, look left go left look right go right. pull left go left pull right go right.

Skydiving is even easier once you find the cheat code. Pull down, down, left, right, left, right to get unlimited lives!

[Amazon 7]

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wow..
Mad Skilz


.....BEFORE ever making a jump


ding ding ding ... we have a winner!!!!

love the part about "i watched some videos on Utube"

hell brother You're Good to GO !!!!!!!!

only you must learn to Yell "Geronimo"!!!!! as you exit..... the rest is Simple......... Any idiot can do it...

good luck

jmy

DuUuUuUuDe

LeT tHe LeEt Be

bRiNg DeM mAd SkIlZzZ

[jlmiracle 7]

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It is super easy and generally accepted as a scam to get money so that instructors can maintain their high lifestyle.

There is a little known secret, though. If you go through a FJC, ace the test and then do the jump perfect and land standing up in the middle of the peas, then you get to do the rest of your required license jumps for half-price (and you get a refund of part of your first jump money).

So get signed up and go do it. You'll do great.

Damn it Dave, now they all are gonna want it 1/2 off or free because it is soooo easy. How am I gonna pay for that new porche now?

j

Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

[spikes2020 0]

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Maybe you should look at the videos called AFF on youtube instead?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNBks3nUv0w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exmZkwSAJxc

This one is a good example of a pro on 4th jump! Look how great his dive went!

Cheers

Jon W

[jimmytavino 16]

Amazon

i would have figured you to also key in on the "geronimo" part of my earlier post...... can't get much more authentic! than THAT...

i mostly posted 'tongue in check ' to the OP . hopefully any serious kitesurfer has at least a little respect for such sports...

CSpenceFLY is right on top of it though....

the title alone.. just begs for replies.. some of them here are Good... some silly... some smart-ass (mine)
and most ,,, well worth reading....if ya' have nuthin' ELSE to do !!!
right now though... i have to GO>!~!!

carry on.

jt
o[:-)

[grimmie 173]

Nothing at all...on the internet.

[Tuna-Salad 0]

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I assume you know how to open the door of a skyvan?

Who needs to know how to open it? Just stand on it till it comes off..

Millions of my potential children died on your daughters' face last night.

[Tuna-Salad 0]

I learned to skydive on youtube too.. It really was easy.. seriously how hard can falling out of the sky be?

If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say skydiving was easy.. I would be jumping something other than my dolphin

Millions of my potential children died on your daughters' face last night.

[Amazon 7]

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Amazon

i would have figured you to also key in on the "geronimo" part of my earlier post...... can't get much more authentic! than THAT...

i mostly posted 'tongue in check ' to the OP . hopefully any serious kitesurfer has at least a little respect for such sports...

CSpenceFly is right on top of it though....

the title alone.. just begs for replies.. some of them here are Good... some silly... some smart-ass (mine)
and most ,,, well worth reading....if ya' have nuthin' ELSE to do !!!
right now though... i have to GO>!~!!

carry on.

jt
o[:-)

Hell most peeps have forgotten all about how to yell ge ronnnni mooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

[piisfish 135]

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If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say skydiving was easy.. I would be jumping something other than my dolphin

a bluefin tuna ?

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[Sjaak 0]

thanks a lot for all the replies!! Really appreciate it :)

Learned a lot from the serious replies and had a good laugh at the less serious ones

Especially the aff movies on youtube showed me it can be pretty hard to 'just fly'

All this talking/reading/watching about skydiving makes me even more excited and i really want to get into this sport. Must be so frking amazing to freefall through the air.. beyond imagination.. can't wait..

need moneyz

[Sjaak 0]

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If it's highly recommended to get training for kite boarding don't you think it would be even more so for skydiving?

I'm hoping to get into kite boarding in the next month or two if I have time. I'll be finding me some instructors over in St. Pete, preferably with jet skis for retrieval.

Oh I learned kiteboarding totally by myself, doing fine now for almost 4 years, no injuries and kiteboarding in the most extreme conditions. But yes I know, this doesn't apply to skydiving :) (Had some sailing and landkiting experience before I started)

But I definitely recommend you take a lesson first, because the first lesson you'll get is to not kiteboard with offshore winds, so you don't need a jet ski for retrieval :)

Have fun kiteboarding, don't wait too long with starting it, you'll regret that you didn't start this amazing sport earlier.. but be warned, its highly addictive

[sundevil777 93]

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Especially the aff movies on youtube showed me it can be pretty hard to 'just fly'

Exactly, because nobody knows how to 'just fly'. It is a skill that can't be had just by watching others do it. Just as the simple skill of riding a bicycle cannot be obtained by watching others, your brain has to be trained to do something new. A lot of people don't realize that when turning left on a bicycle, you first turn the front wheel to the right, which causes you to lean to the left, and then you bring the wheel back to the left. To come out of the turn, you turn more left to bring you out of being leaned over. People learn how to ride a bike without this knowledge, but it takes a bunch of practice and failures. Even with the knowledge of how you at first steer the opposite of how you want to go, it still is not possible for your brain to do it without repeated training, but before too long, you can ride no-hands and eat at the same time it becomes so easy.

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[Austintxflight 0]

get to a wind tunnel, book 10 minutes, post the videos here afterwards to receive your accolades.