skadyver

Members
  • Content

    8
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Feedback

    0%

Community Reputation

0 Neutral

Jump Profile

  • Home DZ
    Skydive Elsinore
  • Number of Jumps
    483
  • Years in Sport
    10
  1. BS... Very few people are cut out to be a skydiver. Doing a tandem here and there is not what I mean.. I did a tandem as a gift to someone else last December, its all I could think about till I had the cash for my A license 2 months later... Since March I have jumped alot but not as much as I would like to, the only reason I have been able to afford to jump and buy my own rig (a killer deal for a 3 year old setup for 2 grand) is because MY PRIORITES HAVE CHANGED! It's the same reason so many instructors live at the dropzone or stay in the bunkhouse. Before my tandem jump I wanted a new truck (mine has 190,000 miles on it) a new TV, upgrade my PC, etc.... but my biggest concern now is my RW suit... Let jumps go up to 50 bux and rigs to 8 grand I will never stop jumping...less jumps for sure but never regretting any of it at any time... That tandem jump I did 6 months ago changed my life forever...I honestly feel like I won the lottery....but without the actual $$$$$ I finally understand its not what you have but what you do!!
  2. Skydiving is a remarkably popular sport. The United States Parachuting Association has 34,000 members. It estimates that about 350,000 people complete more than 3 million jumps in a typical year. The big question is always, "How dangerous is skydiving?" Each year, about 30 people die in parachuting accidents in the United States, or roughly one person per 100,000 jumps. Look at the US Skydiving Incident Reports to get an idea of the types of problems that lead to fatalities. If you make one jump in a year, your chance of dying is 1 in 100,000. How does the fatality rate in skydiving compare to other common activities? Since most adults in America drive cars, let's compare skydiving to driving. Roughly 40,000 people die each year in traffic accidents in the United States [ref]. That's 1.7 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles. Therefore, if you drive 10,000 miles per year, your chance of dying in a car wreck in any given year is something like 1 in 6,000. In other words, we accept a higher level of risk by getting into our cars every day than people do by occasionally skydiving. You would have to jump 17 times per year for your risk of dying in a skydiving accident to equal your risk of dying in a car accident if you drive 10,000 miles per year. A logical question to ask here is this: Given these statistics, why do we think of skydiving as dangerous and driving a car as safe? The first reason has to do with frequency. At 30 per year, fatal skydiving accidents are infrequent. That tends to make each one newsworthy, so you are likely to hear about them. On the other hand, there are about 110 fatal car accidents every day in the United States. In a city of one million people, 160 people die every year in car accidents. If you heard about every car accident, you would go insane, so you only hear about a few of them. That leaves you with the impression that car accidents are infrequent even though they happen constantly. The second reason has to do with familiarity. Most people drive every day and nothing bad happens. So our personal experience leads us to believe that driving is safe. It is only when you look at the aggregated statistics that you realize how dangerous driving really is. For more information on skydiving and related topics, check out the links on the next page. http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/skydiving8.htm Keep in mind my suggestion for non-jumpers was never to become a licensend skydiver, but to try a tandem, regardless of the personal "fears" let's see you defend that.. or most likely just delete my post since that what this forums likes to do to any messages they dont agree wtih COMMUNISM ROX!
  3. Well thats just silly , your friends are more dramatic then me if they thought that. Honestly to me I think its a given though, if you stay long enough either you will get hurt or someone you care about does, and well thats hard as and in some respects harder. lol at least my frends dont claim to be a skydiver but are too scared to jump...imo you should just lurk until u deal with your fear....I have only been jumping since march of this year....also didnt realize I was posting in the BASE forums.I am assuming u BASE jump along with your extensive skydiving experience? btw, one of my instructors passed away yesterday, for no apparent good reason, very similar to my sister getting ran over on her front lawn by a drunk driver....neither HAD to happen.. personally I cannot imagine jumping till I deal with this horrible and entirely preventable tragedy.... My heart goes out to Ricks wife and sons... blue skies to all, Steve
  4. Lisa, I met you the night before at Elsinore...I also saw you the next morning when I was picking up my truck and later that day... I did not know Rick well but he seemed like a very nice guy and I KNOW he was one hell of a skydiver!! My heart goes out to his wife and kids..... Sincerely, Steve
  5. Judging by portions of my post you quoted you did not understand my point. Before I started to jump (which has only been a few months) my friends at the time acted like getting seriously hurt or killed is not a possibity in skydiving but a given. Most people that don't jump feel the same way from what I have seen. The truth of the matter is using good judgement & being safe in sky can equal lots of fun with no injuries. Statistically, skydiving is safer than driving a car, and I have had two siblings killed in car accidents (each in seperate accidents) in the last 3 years. I also dont see how encouraging people to try a tandem is doing a dis-service to anyone.
  6. wtf? anyone who wants to jump should be able to jump provided they have the cash and the desire. no offense but please dont compare a real sport with a fad...... skydiving compared to paintball....?? again wtf? even if you begged them how many of your family or friends would jump out of a plane? so far 0 for me.. I guess you could tell peeps that jumpers bounce on a regular basis....a friend told me that when I mentioned I was interested in jumping... Personally, I try and educate non-jumpers as to how safe skydiving really is every chance I get to encourage them to try it! one more question: how does a new jumper declining to jump with me hurt me? also what if the sport decided to quit accepting new members 6 months ago or 6 years ago?? r u familar with the term "elitist" I dont mean to be insulting but I have yet to feel skydiving is on the verge of becoming to popular...I never even met a skydiver in my life till I recently started to jump... THE MORE THE MERRIER!! in my book