Sky Diving
ThrillaGorilla
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm thinking about going sky diving with my girlfriend as part of her Christmas present, but I have no experience in this field. Can anyone point me to some good first time sites, or give me some information about hurling myself out of a plane? Mostly I'm interested in prices and what to expect as a first time diver. On the off chance you live in the Dallas area and know of a reputable place that would be even better. Thanks in advance!
ThrillaGorilla on
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When I went, I wasn't nervous at all until the first person jumped out and the plane gained like 20 feet in elevation due to the sudden weight loss. Also, it was weird to see people jump out and fucking instantly disappear. Once you are falling, you are so overwhelmed by everything that it's hard to be nervous or scared. Once the parachute opens, it's pretty weird to be hanging there surrounded by nothing but air for thousands of feet in every direction.
There is no doubt in my mind that skydiving would be awesomeness squared when done at an advanced level, with a minute and a half of freefall instead of 1.5 seconds, and a manoeuvrable chute instead of the enormous stodgy newbie version. But you can't get into that stuff until you've put in your time with the boring, safe, repetitive jumps.
If you want to do something thrilling and fun with a low (but exciting!) possibility of getting yourselves killed, I would highly recommend bungy jumping instead, if there's anywhere near you that does it. It doesn't last long, but it is non-stop WHEEEEE while you're doing it. You can do tandem bungy jumps, too. Sometimes out of helicopters!
I showed up to the place, we sat in a room for about 15 minutes while an instructor pretty much told us make sure you have ball space in your harness, keep your head back, and arms out. After that we went outside and he told us to get in the plane; no practice jumps, no wasted time, no nothing really. We went up, my instructor strapped us together, and we jumped out. It's a pretty awesome feeling, you get that crazy roller-coaster stomach feeling for about 10 seconds as you pick up speed, and the whole time the plane actually looks like it is rising away from you really quickly, there's nothing for your brain to reference with up there so it just looks like you're staying still and the plane is moving instead. There's about 30 seconds of freefall, and then you pull the chute and coast for about 5 minutes. The view is amazing, the adrenaline rush is unmatched, and if you get a good instructor, you can, and should, ask them to do some flips when you jump out of the plane, as well as some spins and other moves during freefall.
Skydiving is awesome, I don't feel that your experience is diminished at all as a first timer, and jumping with another person strapped to your back in no way reduces the awesomeness of the fact that you are jumping out of an airplane.
Like Doc mentioned, the ride up is kind of strange. It's really kind of nerve wracking to see someone in front of you just fling themselves out of a moving plane! I imagined it to be like an extended first drop over a roller coaster. It's like that maybe, except much much better.
For what it's worth, My jump was about 200 dollars, with a bit taken off for being a student.
Was like 150 for the jump (student discount) and like another 50 for the video.
So, I'm assuming you're doing tandem. That's where you're strapped to a trained pro (they're behind you, and they have the parachute) when you jump, so basically your only job is to relax and have fun. It's really easy; when we did it, we had to sign 14 pages of liability forms, watch a stupid 15 minute video, learn in ~2 minutes what's involved when you jump (the proper body position, how to land, etc...), then we got on the plane.
We both loved it, and were it not kind of pricey I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I'm tempted to do all the training to become licensed, but that's actually really expensive.
And have fun! Don't worry about having to know anything - it's almost like a really, really expensive, and utterly unbelievable ride, and your instructor will pretty much take care of everything. You just need to supply the nerve to jump! Trust me, you'll love it.
Yup! My experience was almost exactly like this, except they tossed us out at around 18,000 feet, and I was the first one out the door.
It's the flight up that's the worst part. Once you're falling through the air, your adrenaline will be spiking so high you won't even have time to be scared. And definitely get the video - it's worth every single penny.
Video's cool, but I have to say I think the still photos are the best! If possible, have them use a real camera, not just frame grabs from video. Totally worth it to have photos - they make a great enduring conversation piece, whereas you'll probably show the video to a few people and then forget about it.
:P
I got both! The dude had a helmet retrofitted with both a video cam and a regular high def camera, so the pictures came out [awesome.