Blog:

SKYDIVING - How to have the thrill of your life!

Many people ask why do you jump out of a perfectly good aeroplane? Well theres several reasons why, I like the freedom that skydiving gives you, I like the RUSH you get from freefall but most of all I hate landing in planes, it scares me!!

If you want to experience the thrill of skydiving and experience one of the most adrenaline fueled sports around there are three main ways y ou can do it. These are Tandems, RAPS and AFF.

Tandem -
This is what the majority of people who want to do a one off, once in a lifetime experience plump for. Many people get sponsored and do these jumps for charity. Tandem gives the student a glimpse of the sport on their first jump, but without them having to do any input, apart from smile! They are strapped to an experienced instructor who controls the skydive from exit to freefall to canopy flight to the landing. These jumps tend to be fairly expensive at around £200 each.

RAPS -
Ram Air Progression System. This is a way for a person to become a licenced skydiver, if you think the sport is for you then RAPS or AFF is the way to go. Think of this method of learning in a similar way to learning to drive. You have various lessons, each time you get tought new skills by your instructor, for example firft you learn to use the clutch, before you can progress onto parrallel parking. RAPS is the same, you start off on a static line which physically connects you to the plane, then as you exit the plane your parachute is immediately deployed giving you time under canopy to reflect on the fact you just jumped out a plane! After that you can then progress onto freefall jumps of longer and longer duration, where you learn new skills each time. This method is much cheaper than tandems and costs approximately £35 a jump.

AFF -
Accelerated Freefall. This is the most intense way to becoming a licenced skydiver, and can be done in just a couple of days. Your very first jump is freefall where you are held onto by 2 instructors for the duration of the freefall, before flying your parachute to the ground. Each jump you practice different manouvres progressing in a similar way to RAPS. Aff is more costly per jump (depending on what level you are at can be as much as £400) and in total can cost around £1500.

This is a brief insight into learning to skydive, and there are various resources about to help you, there is much more information at www.bpa.org.uk which also has a map of UK helping you to find your nearest dropzone.

There is a video of me having fun over Portugal at http://youtube.com/watch?v=aYj-Amx52IM and you can visit the University of Strathclyde skydiving club at http://www.sportsunion.strath.ac.uk/parachuting/

Hope to see you in the skies soon!!

Chris

by The Stig on 15:15 on 9th June 2007