Sky Diving...

I made 96 jumps from 1983 - 1986, 7 static lines and 89 free falls. I regret giving it up as it was a blast and have been thinking recently more than ever of giving it another go.
 
I taught just over 500 first jump students. Only had 2 that balked, and I never would have guessed the two that did. It's something that you will remember your whole life, there is a sense of speed in freefall like you have never experienced, and a sense of peace under canopy that is surreal.

Couple thoughts.

Get the video. They will try to up-sell you with editing and putting it too music. Do it!

Eloy is a great drop done. Very well run. Hang around and watch some of the experienced jumpers. Literally, world champions in those parts.

Just be careful, it's kinda addicting....
 
Definitely do it and don't be surprised that you love it. I got hooked quick - did 250 jumps in my first 18 months as a skydiver then moved and haven't jumped in about 3 years. It's very regional - Eloy is an excellent place to jump though. If I lived somewhere with a good DZ I wouldn't have quit.
 
Definitely do it and don't be surprised that you love it. I got hooked quick - did 250 jumps in my first 18 months as a skydiver then moved and haven't jumped in about 3 years. It's very regional - Eloy is an excellent place to jump though. If I lived somewhere with a good DZ I wouldn't have quit.

About $3600 for your license there...how much is good gear?
 
I’ve been considering a tandem jump for awhile. There’s a place not far from here that does it.

My vote says to go for it!

Be sure to give us a PIREP!
 
Just remember, it doesn't necessarily have to be an airplane...

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I had just under 600 jumps before I stopped. Still miss it.

BTW... The picture was taken at Eloy.
 
Kinda like avgas, prices all over the place. You can get a rig for $2000 and you can spend $6000

Not too bad compared to aviation lol. Did you ever do any wing suiting?
 
Not too bad compared to aviation lol. Did you ever do any wing suiting?

No, no wingsuits. I was more in the instruction side. When I fun-jumped, I usually did small formation jumps, 15-20 people or so. Not large groups, but big enough that you had to do your job for it to go right.
 
Can I have your airplane if you die? The answer to this question will determine my excitement and enthusiasm level for your possible skydiving adventure. :)

Well my dad isn’t going so he will still own it haha...but my plane isn’t nearly as nice as your 182 anyhow
 
Well my dad isn’t going so he will still own it haha...but my plane isn’t nearly as nice as your 182 anyhow

Aww your airplane is good too.

Plus, free airplane! :)

Owned outright I’d probably lease that puppy to a school and then teach some folks in it!
 
I was wondering who stole the altimeter out of my plane! Give it back, a**hole!!! ;)
 
My highest jump was 2000'. My lowest about 700' with under canopy ride less than 45 seconds. My last jump only lasted about 10-11 seconds. The recovery lasted a couple of years. All round canopy military static line jumps.
 
I've got some gear I need to offload. If you get the bug let me know and I'll cut you a deal.
 
“C-130 rolling down the strip Airborne Daddy gonna take a little trip . . .” Go for it - greatest thrill you can have with your pants on. And as we used to say during training, if your main fails to open, you got the rest of your life to figure out how to open your reserve. Unless of course you don’t have one which happened to the 82d Airborne Division kids who jumped into Grenada at 500ft. Anyway if you pay attention, jumping is pretty safe and a lot of fun.
 
He's saying that if you do nothing after jumping out you will die. Even sitting in a plane and doing nothing, there is some reasonable chance the plane could land in a field and not kill you.

Same is true for swimming underwater though, and few people avoid it for that reason.
Yes that is what I meant. :)
 
“C-130 rolling down the strip Airborne Daddy gonna take a little trip . . .” Go for it - greatest thrill you can have with your pants on. And as we used to say during training, if your main fails to open, you got the rest of your life to figure out how to open your reserve. Unless of course you don’t have one which happened to the 82d Airborne Division kids who jumped into Grenada at 500ft. Anyway if you pay attention, jumping is pretty safe and a lot of fun.

Wasn't that the 75th Ranger Regiment? I recall talking to some of them afterwards. Due to poor communications, they derigged for landing then were told the airfield wasn't secure so they rerigged quickly...so quickly some didn't get their reserves put on. Still, from 500', it wouldn't have been much use. I thought the 82nd follow-on folks all landed in the a/c after Ranger's secured airfield. It has been a few decades though. My memory is a bit fuzzy, especially after my own lawn dart imitation.
 
I say go for it.

Most important, take streaming video so we can all nit pick your mistakes in real time. :p:p:D
 
I did a tandem once and had a blast! I flew for a drop zone back in the summer of 2010 when I graduated college and was building time for the airlines.

The boss said if I flew all summer I could have a free tandem. I went back and forth but decided to do it and I’m so glad I did! My favorite part was actually being under canopy; I liken it to a cross between flying an ultralight and glider. You’re exposed like an ultralight and it is so quiet and peaceful like a glider. You won’t regret it!
 
OK, we're signed up too. My daughter seems to want to pack as much as possible into her 18th birthday, so we're signed up for dawn patrol, have to be at Skydive Spaceland Atlanta at 7:30 on May 19th.

Way back when I was in college, when we still used pterodactyls to haul us aloft, i did 7 jumps, six static lines and a hop and pop. Actually the DZ where I went used Cessna 180s, modified with a top hinged door on the right side of the airplane. We'd pile one jumpmaster and three students in the 180, and head off to 2800 feet for the static line jumps. We had a belly mounted reserve, and we were instructed to guard our reserve ripcords, as an accidental deployment within the airplane could be a disaster. When it was each of our turns, the jumpmaster would attach our static line to a D ring on the airplane, after which you'd pull on the static line about 20 times to make sure it really was attached to the airplane. The pilot would start the drop run, the jumpmaster would open the door, and you'd get the command, "Sit in the door", and you wiggled out until your feet were outside the airplane. Second command was "Out on the step", where you put your left foot on the boarding step and both hands on the wing strut, at which time you were committed to jump. The final command was "Go!", which was accompanied by a tap on the leg, since at that point you couldn't hear your jumpmaster because of the wind noise. If you did it right and got a good arch, you'd be looking up at your jumpmaster looking down at you, then almost immediately your 'chute opened, at which time you'd look up to check your canopy. I always got a lovely round olive drab canopy, since they were using T-10 canopies, which were reliable enough to where the Army used them for dropping cargo.

I also remembering that the ride down was spoiled by how uncomfortable the harness was. I hope the new ones are better. Under a T-10, we were instructed to do a parachute landing fall, T-10s don't flare. For guidance, there was someone on the ground with a big arrow on a swivel instructing us which direction to steer the canopy. It was always pointing directly into the wind, a T-10 has a forward speed of about 5 mph, and the wind at altitude was usually more than that.

I also recall being there all day and getting one or two jumps. That plus the discomfort of it all convinced me to stop. Much later in life I found hang gliding, which I MUCH preferred. My daughter has been on two hang gliding tandem flights with an instructor, but that was many years ago.
AllisonInTheAir.jpg
 
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OK, we're signed up too. My daughter seems to want to pack as much as possible into her 18th birthday, so we're signed up for dawn patrol, have to be at Skydive Spaceland Atlanta at 7:30 on May 19th.

Way back when I was in college, when we still used pterodactyls to haul us aloft, i did 7 jumps, six static lines and a hop and pop. Actually the DZ where I went used Cessna 180s, modified with a top hinged door on the right side of the airplane. We'd pile one jumpmaster and three students in the 180, and head off to 2800 feet for the static line jumps. We had a belly mounted reserve, and we were instructed to guard our reserve ripcords, as an accidental deployment within the airplane could be a disaster. When it was each of our turns, the jumpmaster would attach our static line to a D ring on the airplane, after which you'd pull on the static line about 20 times to make sure it really was attached to the airplane. The pilot would start the drop run, the jumpmaster would open the door, and you'd get the command, "Sit in the door", and you wiggled out until your feet were outside the airplane. Second command was "Out on the step", where you put your left foot on the boarding step and both hands on the wing strut, at which time you were committed to jump. The final command was "Go!", which was accompanied by a tap on the leg, since at that point you couldn't hear your jumpmaster because of the wind noise. If you did it right and got a good arch, you'd be looking up at your jumpmaster looking down at you, then almost immediately your 'chute opened, at which time you'd look up to check your canopy. I always got a lovely round olive drab canopy, since they were using T-10 canopies, which were reliable enough to where the Army used them for dropping cargo.

I also remembering that the ride down was spoiled by how uncomfortable the harness was. I hope the new ones are better. Under a T-10, we were instructed to do a parachute landing fall, T-10s don't flare. For guidance, there was someone on the ground with a big arrow on a swivel instructing us which direction to steer the canopy. It was always pointing directly into the wind, a T-10 has a forward speed of about 5 mph, and the wind at altitude was usually more than that.

I also recall being there all day and getting one or two jumps. That plus the discomfort of it all convinced me to stop. Much later in life I found hang gliding, which I MUCH preferred. My daughter has been on two hang gliding tandem flights with an instructor, but that was many years ago.
AllisonInTheAir.jpg

I hope my experience is much more pleasant than yours lol. I'm pretty nervous about it. Were doing 7:30AM as well...May 5th. I wonder what time we will actually be jumping. It's gonna be warm down on the ground...but I think I will wear jeans and a t shirt...
 
I hope my experience is much more pleasant than yours lol. I'm pretty nervous about it. Were doing 7:30AM as well...May 5th. I wonder what time we will actually be jumping. It's gonna be warm down on the ground...but I think I will wear jeans and a t shirt...

I have to think things have improved over the last 40 years. They used to give us a jump suit to wear, but in keeping with the low budget kind of place it was, it wasn't a skydiving jump suit, it was like one a uniform company would provide to a janitorial service. I think maybe that the extra layer was causing things to bunch up in the nether regions. I don't know if that's the policy where we're going, I see first jump videos of people in jumpsuits and others in their street clothes. In any case, It's going to be cold at altitude, and I'm wearing long sleeves and long pants, but maybe not jeans.
 
Cant wait to hear about your experience! My wife and I have been contemplating jumping over at skydive AL and if I can get @mscard88 to join us in the jump that would be cool.
 
Cant wait to hear about your experience! My wife and I have been contemplating jumping over at skydive AL and if I can get @mscard88 to join us in the jump that would be cool.

**** that! Lived this long, ain't ending it now. :eek: :cryin:
 
you only live once....go jump from a plane! haha

I was looking at their web site, wife says you wimp, even Pres Bush has jumped! Then she's says we ought to do it on our 50th! See what you did Simtech! :mad:
 
I was looking at their web site, wife says you wimp, even Pres Bush has jumped! Then she's says we ought to do it on our 50th! See what you did Simtech! :mad:

hahaha sorry. Lets go, we will jump with you guys. My wife wants a group to go so we dont die alone. hahahaha
 
Remember, most drop zones put the chick out first. That way the guys are less likely to back out.

Are you allowed to backout once your up there? I figure once you go up you don’t have a choice but to jump
 
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