What Your First Skydive: Tandem Or Free Fall?

It can be a bit nerve wracking to take on any new sport, but there is perhaps no athletic activity that intimidates beginners quite as much as skydiving. Since the majority of people who are interested in skydiving have never jumped out of a plane before, it makes plenty of sense that skydiving can cause even the most experienced and courageous athletes to come down with a sudden case of the jitters. The fact that many people find their first jump so difficult makes the initial fall all the more important. If your first skydiving experience is positive, you will feel more confident about your ability to learn skydiving technique. If you don't enjoy your first jump for any reason, you are unlikely to try again. In some sense, the first jump can make or break a skydiver.

There are two common methods for taking on your very first dive: tandem jumping or accelerated free fall. In a tandem jump, you share a harness with an experienced skydiving instructor who has total control of the fall and landing. In an accelerated free fall, instructors help to guide you during your time in the air, but you are in your own harness, open your own parachute, and control your own landing. Each of these methods has some advantages and some disadvantages, and deciding which one is right for you depends largely on what you think your future as a skydiver will be.

Photo by Grayson - http://www.skydiveorange.com/Got-Balls-Skydive.htm

Tandem jumping can be less frightening than an accelerated free fall, and many people opt to start out with a tandem jump in order to get a taste of what skydiving is like without having the responsibility of controlling any portion of their fall. Often, people who only plan to skydive once choose to take a tandem jump because it allows them to relax and enjoy the ride while their jumping partner worries about the altitude, the parachute, and the landing. This gives you the opportunity to experience the thrill of skydiving while knowing that your safety is in very capable hands.

In an accelerated free fall, you exit the plane with two instructors, one on either side of you, who maintain a grip on your harness for the duration of the fall, controlling your speed, helping you improve your position, and assisting you with stability. When you reach four thousand feet above the ground, you open your own parachute and pilot yourself down to the landing target. An accelerated free fall costs more than a tandem jump because it requires two guides instead of one, but unlike the tandem jump it can count as the first leg of your training course towards eventual certification. This makes it a good option as a first jump for people who are serious about continuing with their skydiving training.

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Parachutes - Choosing Your First 'Chute'

Whatever extreme sport you participate in, the strength and quality of the equipment you use is clearly of the up most importance. However, never is this more obvious than with regards to parachutes. Parachutes symbolize the return of safety, after the eye watering, visceral thrill of descent - and are now used as the basis for more activities than just skydiving. For beginners it can be difficult to judge which type is needed, and which design is the most likely to keep them safe.

Therefore, it is important to consult experts, preferably in person, before deciding to purchase a parachute. They should be able to give you a checklist of some features that are vital, and others that are simply beneficial to your experience of the sport. Talk to as many people who are not trying to sell you anything as possible before looking online or in extreme sports stores. Start by finding more help at http://www.parachute-services.info.

However, it would be wrong to dismiss websites selling this equipment. Often they have a greater opportunity to specialize than small town stores, giving them a sound knowledge of the ins and outs of parachutes. Some also have strong links with sports such as skydiving, water skiing and BASE jumping - and their enthusiasm is reflected in the way they communicate with customers and seek out the very best products.

The two components of a parachute, the glider and the harness can be bought together or separately. You are likely to keep your harness for longer than the glider, as the glider is more easily damaged and difficult to repair.

Harnesses should come equipped with some kind of body protection - this can consist of mousse, foam or air. Check the quality of material and stitching on your harness, in addition to the parachute. Experts have discouraged "cross straps" in favour of other forms of restraint, as these could make a skydiving jump more dangerous.

Self-inflating "Ram air" airfoils are the most commonly used parachutes for sky diving today. These provide an amount of control over the speed and direction of the fall.

The technology works by having two different layers of fabric joined by fabric ribs. Vents allow the space in-between the layers to fill with high-pressure air, and the fabric and ribs are designed so that the ballooning parachutes changes to an airfoil shape.

When they were first developed, a concern about the Ram Air designs was that they deployed far too suddenly. However, modern models are generally fitted with a small rectangle of material with a grommet at each corner, called a slider. This attracts air resistance and reduces the speed at which the parachute can spread, resulting in a smooth fall.

If you buy your skydiving equipment from a reputable business, they should inform you of the safety features included in the parachute several times. You should check that you have the equipment needed in case of a parachute malfunction - in addition to the ultimate necessity of a reserve parachute; it is good to have a small computerized Automatic Activation Device that instantly deploys the reserve parachute if the main one fails.

Article Source: http://www.articlesphere.com/Article/Parachutes---Choosing-Your-First--Chute-/41907

What is a Tandem Skydive?

Most people are already familiar with tandem skydiving but for those that have never heard of it or know very little about it we will discuss it in more detail. For, those new to skydiving,tandem skydives are really the easiest way to make your first adventure.

To get a complete understanding of what tandem skydiving is, it is best to take a look at what the definition of the word “tandem” means. Tandem, by definition, is the arrangement of two or more persons, or objects, behind each other. So in essence, tandem skydiving is arrangement of two skydivers, the student and the instructor, where the instructor’s harness attaches them to each other.

Tandem skydiving or tandem parachuting refers to a type of skydiving where a student skydiver is connected via a harness to a tandem instructor. The instructor guides the student through the whole jump from exit through freefall, piloting the canopy, and landing. The student needs only minimal instruction before making a tandem jump. This is one of three commonly used training methods for beginning skydivers; the others being static line and Accelerated Freefall (known as Progressive Freefall in Canada).

Tandem skydiving is a very popular training method for first time skydivers, but it is more expensive than a static line skydive. It exposes first-time jumpers to skydiving with minimal expectations from the student. The training may consist of many of the activities performed by any skydiving student, for example, how to exit the aircraft, how to do maneuvers in freefall, and how to deploy the main canopy themselves. However, the tandem master remains primarily responsible for safe and timely parachute deployment.

Equipment

Tandem skydiving requires equipment with several differences from normal sport skydiving rigs. All modern tandem skydiving systems use a drogue parachute, which is deployed shortly after leaving the plane in order to decrease the skydivers' terminal velocity. This is necessary for proper parachute deployment, lengthening the duration of the skydive, and allowing the skydivers to fall at the same speed as videographers. Tandem skydiving systems also use larger main parachutes (360 square feet and larger) to support the additional weight of two passengers. The FAA requires tandem parachute rigs to be equipped with a main and reserve parachute, as well as an automatic activation device (AAD), a safety device that automatically deploys the reserve parachute if it detects that the skydivers are still at freefall speed below a certain altitude.

Instructor certification

Most countries have varying laws or regulations regarding who may skydive with a passenger or student. In the United States, the FAA requires every potential instructor to have at least 3 years of experience skydiving, 500 skydives, and a master parachute license issued by an FAA-recognized organization (for the USPA, this is equivalent to a D license). Instructors are also required to pass a certification course given by the manufacturer of the tandem parachute system to be jumped.[1] The USPA also requires potential instructors to possess a current FAA Class III Medical Certificate, and complete a USPA Tandem Instructor Rating Course.