Everything you need to know about skydiving

Parachuting is a type of aviation sport. All types of parachuting involve free falling and planning (descent and landing) with a parachute. The speed reaches 50-60 meters per second or 180-200 kilometers per hour. Due to this speed, the parachutist can move freely in the air, using his or her body as rudders. The skydiver stays in a freefall for quite a short time. When jumping from 4000 thousand meters, this moment lasts for only 60 seconds. Let us take a closer look at this sport.

Types of skydiving

Today, many types of parachuting sports are recognized all over the world. What are they?

• Individual and group competitions on landing accuracy.
• Classic skydiving or biathlon, which includes a competition in the accuracy of landing and acrobatic elements in the air.
• Group acrobatics is a competition to build formations in freefall.
• Vertical acrobatics, where formations are built vertically.
• Formation building.
• Dome piloting or “swooping” with a high-speed parachute (in this case, the jump is performed near the surface of the ground or water and evaluated by speed, range and accuracy of flight).
• Athletic multiathlon, which includes elements of different disciplines of parachuting.
• Parasailing, in which athletes jump onto a slope with a parachute in their skis.
• Wingsuit piloting and wingsuit acrobatics are performed in a special suit with wings.
• Skysurfing involves jumping out of an airplane with a special ski and performs various shapes in the air.
• Freestyle or “high-altitude ballet” involves performing complexly coordinated movements in freefall.
• Freefall or “high-speed falling” allows to develop a higher free-fall speed (up to 270 km/h) by following a certain body position during the flight.
• Flights in an aerotube.
• Basejumping or BASE – parachute jumps from fixed objects (structures, buildings, bridges, ceilings, etc.).

Types of parachutes

There are many varieties of parachutes: braking, cargo, sport, landing, training, round, reserve, etc. It is possible to divide all parachutes according to their purpose and the shape of the canopy.

Parachutes for training have a canopy of spherical shape with special slots. They have higher maneuverability than ordinary parachutes with a round canopy and are mostly used for training beginners.

Spare parachute has a spherical canopy and is an obligatory part of any parachute system. It is fixed on the chest of athlete and is thrown in case the main canopy has not opened.

Sports parachutes have different shapes and characteristics determined by the discipline they are used for. According to the shape of the wing, sports parachutes can be divided into rectangular, elliptical and semi-elliptical models.

The most widely used type is rectangular parachutes, that are characterized by predictability and ease of handling. Parachutes with an elliptical wing are harder in operation, but at the same time they make it possible to reach higher speed, so they are often used by professional athletes.

Sports parachutes can also be divided by purpose:

• Classic ones are parachutes with a large and stable canopy. With the help of classic parachutes, it is easy to control the descent and make an accurate landing.
• Student parachutes are the safest and least mobile parachutes with a large canopy, which are suitable for training beginners.
• High-speed parachutes are professional parachutes with small canopy. These parachutes have high maneuverability and allow developing speed up to 18 m/sec.
• Transient ones are parachutes used for gradual transition from training models to high-speed devices.
• Tandem parachutes have a large canopy, high strength and resistance to wind gusts. They are used for tandem jumps and descent for two persons.

A parachute system consists of several main elements:

• The suspension system, which provides the link between the athlete and the parachute. With the help of a high-strength tape, which is fixed on the legs, chest and shoulders of the person, an even distribution of the load is ensured.
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• A knapsack carrying the main and reserve parachutes is responsible for opening the reserve parachute manually or automatically.
• A main parachute for controlled descent and landing of a sportsman is one of the most important elements. A skydiver starts opening the main parachute by dropping out the small extraction parachute. It inflates and pulls the main canopy.
• A reserve parachute is used for a successful landing in case the main canopy doesn’t work. To open the reserve canopy the parachutist should pull the ring. Sometimes it is necessary to unhook incorrectly opened main canopy beforehand.
• New predictions for soccer, tennis, hockey, basketball, etc. are created every hour.
• An insurance device for automatic ejection of reserve canopy on low altitude measures pressure and monitors altitude and speed. If the free fall continues at the minimum height, a signal is activated and the reserve dome is forcibly ejected.

Requirements for skydiving

Skydiving is a dangerous sport that is not available to every person. For example, people with mental illnesses, epilepsy, deafness, high blood pressure, diabetes and other diseases are not allowed to skydive. Pregnancy, recent fractures and surgeries may also prevent a person from skydiving.

There are some mandatory requirements for those who want to try parachuting:

• It is obligatory to have a medical certificate of health, as well as the certificates proving that a person does not suffer from mental illnesses and is not addicted to drugs.
• The weight of this person should not be less than 45 kilograms and should not exceed 100 kilograms.
• The age must be over 14 years (for those who are under 18 years old, parental consent is required).

Procedure

To make the first jump, you only need to come to the flying club, pay for the service, provide a certificate of health and take part in a short basic training.

Jump-tandem with an instructor is the most popular and safest choice for those who want to jump with a parachute for the first time. The instructor and the novice, strapped to each other, together jump out of the plane from 4000 meters. They fly freely for about a minute and then the instructor opens the tandem parachute in which they land together. This option is considered to be the safest as all key actions are performed by an experienced instructor, while the novice skydiver is free to enjoy the feeling of flying.

The first jump on your own can be a round parachute jump from 800 meters. Free flight will last only a few seconds in contrast to a jump together with an instructor. But all responsibility will rest directly on the novice skydiver. Instruction for a single jump lasts much longer as it requires a more thorough preparation of the athlete. A person passes a medical examination, theoretical training as well as learns how to jump from a high platform in order to perform a safe landing.

Dangers

You should not forget that skydiving is a dangerous activity. A person preparing for the jump must be ready for the jump both mentally and physically. According to statistics, fatal outcome ends in 0.03% of all jumps. This means that three parachutists die out of ten thousand people making a jump.

Getting injured is a more frequent result of skydiving. One skydiver out of thousand parachutists gets injured after jumping. What factors can lead to being injured?

• Improper landing of an athlete;
• Failure to open the reserve parachute;
• Disclosure of reserve parachute at the low level;
• Malfunction of the harness or other equipment;
• Loss of consciousness during the flight.

To make sure that the jump ends safely, it is necessary to take responsible approach to preparation, i.e. choose a verified and officially registered flying club, take the required theoretical and practical training, prepare physically and psychologically for the upcoming jump, and learn to land and manage parachute strings.

History

The author of the idea and the creator of the first parachute is considered to be a brilliant inventor of the Renaissance Leonardo da Vinci. In his manuscripts of 1485, he described in detail the safe descent from a great height on a “starched tent” measuring 6×6 meters.

The history of the parachute was continued by the Croatian scientist Faust Vrancic, who described a similar device. A French prisoner Lavin tried to use such a device in the early 17th century. He jumped out of a window and successfully glided into the water with the help of a tent sewn from sheets.

Further experiments were conducted by many scientists of the time. The main task for which they designed a parachute was an emergency descent from a balloon when it crashed. In 1797, the Frenchman Andre-Jacques Garnerin made the first successful jump with a parachute from a balloon.

Albert Berry made the first parachute jump from an airplane in 1912. It ended with a successful landing and gave a start to the active development of parachuting.

All in all, skydiving is an exciting activity that fascinates many people from all over the world. If you know how to get ready for the jump and take responsibility for your actions when jumping, it will end safely, and you will experience unforgettable emotions.