Olympic A-340 From United States of America, joined Apr 2000, 780 posts, RR: 11 Posted (9 years 5 months 3 weeks 1 day 2 hours ago) and read 644 times:
I've decided to go skydiving down here in FL for my 18th birthday with my best friend, and I was wondering if people could tell me the logistics involved with my first "tandem jump." Also, feel free to write about experiences
I'm a little nervous, but I suppose you would have to be a little batty in the cerebral cortex to not have any qualms about jumping out of a perfectly good aeroplane eh?
Pilotpip From United States of America, joined Sep 2003, 3082 posts, RR: 12 Reply 2, posted (9 years 5 months 3 weeks 18 hours ago) and read 595 times:
People keep trying to get me to go skydiving. I can't see the point of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.
I have looked into it and tandem is much less expensive. I guess having somebody strapped to you that knows what they're doing is better in the eyes of the insurance guy.
IndianFlyboy From India, joined Sep 2003, 294 posts, RR: 7 Reply 4, posted (9 years 5 months 3 weeks 16 hours ago) and read 587 times:
Ok here goes , The first jump is always a tandem atleast if you are doing it for fun , with the instructor behind you. You are strapped to the instructor with the parachute strapped to the instructor , it is supposed to be with dual controls but I always feel that the controls in your hands are just for the sake of it, to make you think that you are in control, the damn contraption never moves when you want it to.
Where I jumped , not at the liberty to say where and when, it was 5 hours of jumping from a 30 feet wall strapped to a damn steel cable to simulate the jump and then straight from a helicopter , no tandem jumps. You are extremely enthusiastic and actually look forward to the jump while on your way up , then it hits you , WTF why the heck am I jumping from solid metal below my feet to nothing at all. Nearly crapped myself when I looked out of the back of the chopper at the ground , the lakes looked like puddles and the trees looked like spinach on my dinner plate. Then you slowly move towards the exit , take a deeeeeep breath , look down , look at the instructor staring at you and thinking "you bloody big baby " , look down again and before you can look back at the instructor he has pushed you out . Free fall , and everthing going round you , look up and the previously massive chopper looks like a model then you look down and realize that those puddles are slowly growing bigger and that the spinach is also growing into trees. Pull the rip cord and after about 15 secs your speed reduces drastically , its as if someone hit the brakes after driving at top speed. You slow down and start enjoying the scenery around you , gradually float down till you hit the ground , believe me the first time you actually do HIT the ground and not land like you see on TV , even with the parachute open you travel pretty fast .
After my first jump I was lucky to land on solid ground,actually not land fall , I spent about an hour after that hunting for some blokes who jumped with me , 2 were hanging on trees and one was trying to swim back when he fell into the puddle I described earlier.
The apprehension is there only on the first jump , after that you will actually look forward to future jumps , its a feeling of complete freedom , you actually fly , its an absolutely wonderful feeling.Go for it Olympic , you wont regret it. If possible try to go for a single jump it beats everything you would have done in the world.
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