Recreational Sky Diving Requires Trust

Possibly the hardest part of sky diving is getting over the notion of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. There is also a lot of trust involved of leaving the perceived safety of a plane and trusting your life to a nylon canopy that a stranger folded into a backpack that is supposed to allow you to drift to the ground. Knowing that if something went wrong in the packing of the chute, your drift to the ground could be at about 120 miles per hour, requires a lot of blind faith.

Sky diving was originally used by the military for troop deployment in the first two World Wars, and later as a protection for pilots and crew for wartime aviators in event of the aircraft being unable to fly. In the 1950’s it caught on for recreational jumpers, although still used for military deployment and fire fighting and in many other situations in which sky diving is the most viable means of inserting personnel.

Today’s sky diving teams carry two parachutes along with additional safety devices, such as altimeters to tell them when it is time to open the parachutes. The main chute is activated by what is called a ripcord, which can be pulled by hand at an altitude decided upon by the jumper, or by a static line connected to the aircraft, automatically deploying the canopy as the jumper exits the plane.

Speeds Vary By Jumper’s Position

When sky diving, how fast a person plummets to Earth is determined by their position as they fall. Traditionally, the belly-down, or spread eagle position, offers the most wind resistance and the jumper will free-fall at about 120 miles per hour. A head-long dive can generate falling speeds of up to 200 miles per hour and most canopy deployments are effected while in the spread eagle position.

The first time a person willing jumps out of an airplane is while attached to an experienced sky diving jumper in what is called a tandem jump. The instructor is in control of safely exiting the aircraft, opening the parachute and landing safely. Usually, only one tandem jump is required before a person can take the next step to a single jump using a static line deployment system.

A reserve chute, used when the main chute fails to open, can be deployed by hand or in many cases attached to the main chute, which has to be released before opening the reserve, and once it is released it automatically pulls the release on the reserve chute. Most agree that sky diving is about as close to individual flight as they will ever get and is an experience that everyone should realize at least once.