Types of Jumps
Tandem
- Very popular form of skydiving and for beginners
- Student skydiver is connected to a harness which is attached to a tandem instructor
- Instructor guides the student through the jump
- Skydiver can experience the thrill and adrenaline rush of the sport without having to commit excessively to the activity at hand.
- Skydiver only needs to know the basics about how you should position your body relative to your instructor
Indoor Skydiving
- Takes place in a vertical wind tunnel
- Flying and maneuvering the body in order to perform specific moves and practice skills relatable to the skydiving environment
- No jumping from airplane
- Perfect for those afraid of planes or heights
Accelerated Free Fall (AFF)
- Instituted in 1982 as an “accelerated” learning process, compared to the traditional static line progression
- True taste of modern sport skydiving
- 5 hour ground training course that is mandatory
- The first AFF jump: 50 second free fall at 10,000 - 12,500 feet AGL with two AFF assisting instructors. The instructors maintain grips on the student from the moment they leave the aircraft until opening, assisting the student as necessary. The student then pulls his/her own ripcord at about 4,000 ft.
Tracksuiting
- A track suit is an extremely baggy suit that is made out of similar material as that of a wingsuit (strong durable material known as parapak)
- The suit helps to give a skydiver more power when one is flying in a track position
- Track flying is a very elongated aerodynamic body position that increases your forward glide speed
- Different then wingsuit flying because you have all your limbs to work as steering and control mechanisms, with no material between the extremities
Wingsuiting
- Flier wears a high performance and advanced suit that is a very strong and aerodynamic material
- The flier can highly increase the time of flight when wingsuiting
- The wingsuit flier enters freefall wearing both a wingsuit and parachute equipment
- Exiting an aircraft in a wingsuit requires skilled techniques
- These techniques include the orientation relative to the aircraft and the airflow while exiting, and the way in which the flier spreads his legs and arms at the proper time so as not to hit the aircraft or become unstable
- 200 Jumps Required
Formation Skydiving
- Large numbers of skydivers exit multiple airplanes in order to form a large formation by gripping each other's hands, arms, and legs and forming a specific geometric pattern
Vertical Formation Skydiving
- A subcategory of formation skydiving
- Uses high speed body positions (sit flying or head down flying) normally associated with free flying.
- Competitors build pre-planned formations in free fall with multiple fliers gripped to each other (hand in hand or holding a gripper on a free fly suit).
- Extremely fast and advanced
Balloon Jumping
- When one jumps out of a hot air balloon at lower altitudes and flies away from the balloon
- Altitudes range from 3,000 ft. to 5,000 ft.
- Different than jumping from an airplane because you experience dead air which will feel like falling, which occurs when jumping off a very slow moving object.
- B License Required
Helicopter Jumping
- Very similar to that of a balloon all though you get less dead air
- The helicopter is similar to a mixture of balloon jumping and jumping out of an airplane
- You can get much more elevation than a balloon but still not as much as an airplane
- It’s a really exciting vehicle to jump out of!
- B License Required
Night Jumping
- Skydiving at any time approximately 30 minutes after sunset
- Skydivers wear flares and glow sticks for both a light show and in order to see each other in the sky and under canopy.
- B License required
Canopy Relative Work (CRW)
- Described as the intentional maneuvering of two or more open parachute canopies in close proximity to, or contact with one another during descent
- The most basic maneuver in CRW is the hooking up of two canopies, one below the other.
- Recommended: 20 Jumps before flying in a crew environment
B.A.S.E Jumping
- Stands for Building, Antenna, Span, and Earth
- This is NOT skydiving!
- Base jumping is a very advanced form of flying, where one jumps off objects that are very close to the ground and deploys a base canopy at very low altitudes
- If someone jumps off any of these objects with a parachute on their back then they are B.A.S.E jumping