A need to know...

[nate_1979 9]

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1) what made you start jumping / how you became interested?

Parents came to town for a visit, I remembered a long time ago my mother saying something about it and I saw a brocure for Skydive San Diego... So, I took my mom there and we both did our rist jumps. I was back in less then a week for my second...

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2) How long have you been jumping? How many jumps do you have?

Since the end of May this year (2004) I have 30 jumps. (which is about to start going up a bit faster now that I just got my own gear )

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3)What method of training did you do?

7 Level AFF.

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4) how has skydiving changed you life?

Ok, you asked for it... I've always been afraid of heights, edges, whatever.. It took me 19 jumps to conqure my fear, but I finally did it. ) It has also costs me a bit of money, since starting in May I have spent around $10,000 on gear, training, and FUN jumps! (2 hours 15 minutes wind tunnel, AFF, my new rig, other skydiving toys!) Now that I dont goto wind tunnel as much, dont need to rent gear, expect that number to now grow at much smaller rate..

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Thanks in advance for your help!

It was fun writing about it

FGF #???
I miss the sky...
There are 10 types of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.

[Evelyn 0]

Decided to celebrate my 50th birthday with a tandem jump, since skydiving was something I'd always wanted to do. It was supposed to be a one time thing, but loved the tandem jump so much decided to do an AFF jump. It obviously didn't turn out to be a one time thing. I've been jumping for a year and a half, 230 jumps. Before I started skydiving my life had become pretty dull and routine. Felt like I was just kind of cruising through life in a fog, going through the motions but without much enthusiasm. Now that I've found something I'm passionate about I am a much happier person, and as a result all aspects of my life have improved. Although I no longer talk about skydiving 24/7 I still think about it 24/7 and cannot imagine a life without skydiving.

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing ~ Helen Keller

[whiterabbit 0]

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>bunch of new, lifelong friends

Don't count on it. If you or your new friends suddenly decide to either stop jumping or take some time off from the sport you'll quickly see who is and who is'nt a friend since most people will quit talking to you if you are gone from the DZ for too long. I used to talk/email some jumpers from my DZ all the time.. then they quit jumping and the communication trickled to 0 in no time.

Look at the experience levels of the people replying. I hate to be so blunt but... at the start almost all jumpers are giddy and all they can think of is jumping. After putting in a few years and a couple hundred jumps it tends to change most jumpers view of the sport. The rose colored glasses come off and you see the bad side of the sport as well as the good. I used to talk 24/7 about jumping to anyone that would listen (and sometimes to those that would'nt). Now you have to drag it out of me that I jump. New jumpers tend to wear clothes that scream "I'M A SKYDIVER!!!" to the general population where those with thousands of jumps in my experience tend not to play it up so much. I'd never try and get anyone I know into the sport anymore.

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....But... where will you find me and Eric this weekend, neither of us can find any place better to be......

Chris, Deland bigways... I owe you a beer

If you could do it all over again, would you choose not to become a skydiver?

Put another way, has skydiving enhanced your life or detracted from it?

[jose 0]

Totally agreed Phreezone, blunt is the only way it should be. But I find it interesting that none of the post that are of reality are replied to..... kinda like no one new either wants to hear that side of the sport, or just doesn't believe it, due to the new viel of gravity.

The reality of it all is that you will put more effort into your endeavor than any possible benefit that comes of it. In fact, I believe mass or spam type advertising for skydiving creates more of a liability that we, the skydiving industry, don't need.

I really don't believe that 99% of people that are in the sport are here because the sport found them, its because they went looking for the sport. Not literally, but figuratively.

[jose 0]

Sure, I'd do it again.

Both.

[mjosparky 3]

1) what made you start jumping / how you became interested?

Nothing made me do it, I wanted to. A co-worker set it up for several of us from a local Fire Dept.

2) How long have you been jumping? How many jumps do you have?

First jump in 1976, 2,500 jumps to date.

3)What method of training did you do?

Static line with old surplus military gear.

4) how has skydiving changed you life?

Through skydiving I have met some great people and formed life long friendships. I have been able to travel to many places in the US and some foreign countries. (Demos)
Collected some of the best memories a person could wish for.

Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[ZoneRat 0]

1. A while back I was crewing a sailboat for my oldest friend who was going around the world in it. In the middle of the Indian Ocean, late at night, I did something stupid that he had expressly trained me not to do. It resulted in wrapping a floatline around the prop shaft. Someone had to swim down and cut the rope. My mistake, so I took the first crack at it. I tried, but I couldn't shake the idea that I might be concked in the head by the boat and float off unconscious into the darkness. There were maybe 5' swells... nothing insane... and I'm a decent swimmer, but I just couldn't shake the fear. I KNEW intellectually that I was physically capable of the task, that the same forces that were causing the boat to go up and down would do the same to me... but I just couldn't make my body stay under that boat for more than a couple seconds. I tried for about 45 minutes, but just couldn't do it. Once I finally admitted I couldn't do it, he got it done in about ten. I was ashamed.

No man wants to think himself a coward. But you just can't set something like that up to try again... so for years I kinda kept a thought in the back of my head that I would like to set up a some kind of situation where I could again test my resolve. The guy that installed my cable internet had a Skydive sticker on the back of his clipboard. It caught my eye.

Could I make myself jump from an airplane? I didn't know. But it seemed to be as equivallent a test as I was likely to find. I thought it over for a couple months and eventually convinced myself to try it.

I was, at the time, critically bored with my life. Bored and sad. Marriage had failed about a year earlier. Mom died about that time as well. Bored with my job. Stuck in a rut. Etc. Seemed like a good time to shake things up a little.

I went to the DZ alone. If I failed to jump, I didn't want anyone to know. I was scared, but I jumped.

I realized that I was very overwhelmed by it all. I could tell there was a lot of cool stuff going on that I was unaware. I wondered if I could get to a point where I could actually be relaxed in freefall so I continued the student progression. Then I wondered if I could maybe become good at this skydiving thing so I bought gear joined a couple rookie teams and later an intermediate team and continued on.

Now I enjoy watching new jumpers face their fears. Some remind me of me, some don't. But it's facinating to watch how their lives change as they grow in the sport. I'm tired of the team belly thing, so I'm toying with the idea of going for my I next season. Maybe dabble in Crew rotation. See what I can learn there.

2. 2.5 years. Just a pup.

3. AFF seemed to fit my little test thingy better, so I chose that. I've never done a tandem.

4. More confidence. More friends. More pleasant memories. Less money.

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophies.”

[Merkur 1]

1) what made you start jumping / how you became interested?
In the first place - I had to (Army)

2) How long have you been jumping? How many jumps do you have?
First static line round 1991, 60 jumps w/ rounds
First freefall 2002, 643 freefall

3)What method of training did you do?
static line for the rounds (obviously)
the freefall program continued w/ accepting the static line stuff, first jump from about 5000 on my own, 5sec to pull, then continuously increasing altitude and freefall-time (don't know how to call that)

4) how has skydiving changed you life?
keeps my savings down, reduced the number of skydiving friends remarkably and once in a while causes arguing in my relationship

vSCR No.94
Don't dream your life - live your dream!

[Icon134 0]

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Don't count on it. If you or your new friends suddenly decide to either stop jumping or take some time off from the sport you'll quickly see who is and who is'nt a friend since most people will quit talking to you if you are gone from the DZ for too long. I used to talk/email some jumpers from my DZ all the time.. then they quit jumping and the communication trickled to 0 in no time.

Look at the experience levels of the people replying. I hate to be so blunt but... at the start almost all jumpers are giddy and all they can think of is jumping. After putting in a few years and a couple hundred jumps it tends to change most jumpers view of the sport. The rose colored glasses come off and you see the bad side of the sport as well as the good. I used to talk 24/7 about jumping to anyone that would listen (and sometimes to those that would'nt). Now you have to drag it out of me that I jump. New jumpers tend to wear clothes that scream "I'M A SKYDIVER!!!" to the general population where those with thousands of jumps in my experience tend not to play it up so much. I'd never try and get anyone I know into the sport anymore.

PhreeZone,

I agree with you... but I would argue that this happens with nearly every activity that you might find yourself in and is not limited to skydivers and skydiving.

I've moved around a lot in the past 10 years or so... and unlike my older brother who has been in the cincinnati area for most of the past 12 years and Ohio for most of his life who has several close friends... I don't... when I move on (which I will, since I'm acitive duty military) I would guess that I will fall out of touch with most of the "friends" I've made where I am currently stationed. If only one of them ends up a close friend I'll count myself a lucky man.

Just my 0.02 cents.

To answer the questions:

1. I started because someone brought it up at a party and when I commented that I'd always wanted to try it... the person who brought it up said "You should!" so I did.

2. Still a baby, started in march '04, just completed my A. 32 jumps.

3. AFF... no one but me gets to drive...

4. More confidence (or so I'm told.) I'm gone more on the weekends but since I didn't do anything on the weekends before it doesn't really change anything.

Scott

Livin' on the Edge... sleeping with my rigger's wife...

[RogerRamjet 0]

1) what made you start jumping / how you became interested?
My parents took me to an air show when I was 6 where the (now defunct) Navy Shooting Stars did their demo jumps. I made chutes from sheets, got hold of a 24' reserve a friends dad brought home from WW2 and finally made my first jump at Z-Hills in 1973 (not with the sheet or WW2 reserve).

2) How long have you been jumping? How many jumps do you have?
I jumped for 8 years from 1973 through 1980. I made 1000 jumps in that time.

3)What method of training did you do?
Static line, nothing else was available at Z-Hills then. There were a few dropzones doing "buddy jumps" which would be AFF today.

4) how has skydiving changed you life?
In the same ways as most other replies here, some life long friends, great experiences, etc. I worked for Bill Booth for the first 100+ Wonderhogs and was therefor directly involved with helping to make the sport safer (hand deploy, 3-ring, etc.).

Downside
Not asked, but there are downsides too. Losing friends to skydiving. If you jump long enough, you will lose a friend or someone you've met to skydiving. I have lost a few and it still happens that someone is killed that I knew even though I've been out of the sport for so many years (Roger Nelson most recently) .

I wouldn't trade those times for anything though!

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Roger "Ramjet" Clark
FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519