Ever been skydiving?

[Amused]

<< "My brother took me to do Half Dome one year, and El Capitan the next"

Nice, that must have been a blast. Have you ever done any high altitude jumps, 20000 ft+? >>



Nope. I wanted to, and asked my brother to go. He had done them before and told me they were too much of a PITA ans not worth the extra trouble. So I never tried it. 15K has been my ceiling.

 

[Tiger]

As my sage old retired 82nd Airborn uncle used to say.


<< "There's only two thing that fall out of the sky. Birdsh!t and idiots." >>



I have a philosophical problem with jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft for giggles.

 

[StageLeft]

Yes. It's very scary the first time and i'm also extremely glad I did it. I did it at university and most of the pussies on my floor didn't have the balls to do it (stasticall it's pretty damn safe). BtW it cost me about $150 CAN for the day including the training...which of course I pretty well forgot. When you're hanging from the strut of a plane at 3000 feet for the first time the last thing you're thinking about is correct form.

 

[Frosty3799]

i wanna go.... whats the price range for first timers? anyone know?

 

[Martin]

<< i wanna go.... whats the price range for first timers? anyone know? >>



google is your friend


For me, it would be about $200 for training and short fall, or $400 for a more advanced jump , or $400 where you jump while strapped to an instructor.

 

[PullMyFinger]

"I have a philosophical problem with jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft for giggles"

Ok, here's a question, what does every single fighter pilot and stunt pilot wear just in case their "perfectly good airplanes" stop flying? A parachute. Like was stated previously, it is statistically extremely safe if you follow the rules. The ride to the dropzone is actually more dangerous than the jump. True it's not for everybody, but it is definitely one of those "must do" things for a lot of people. And don't let age be a limiting factor, I believe you can jump as early as 16 with a parent's authority and I've been jumping with people over 75 (wearing two knee braces and a back support, but he was still jumping).

AmusedOne, did you get a base rig just for those jumps or did you use your regular rig? I've done one high altitude jump, 22000 ft out of a King Air, close to 3 minutes of freefall. I may have to dust off the ol' rig and start up again because the closest dropzone to me is supposed to be getting a Super Otter this year, 9 minutes to 14,500 yeehaw.

 

[McPhreak]

I went skydiving a couple years ago... went up to about 13,000 feet.

While it is pretty extreme, I don't think it even compares to bungee jumping (I did this as well over in Thailand) in terms of sheer intensity. Once you fall out of the plane, you feel your stomach drop for a split second before you reach terminal velocity. Then it's just like you have a gigantic fan blowing in your face. And since you're so high up, there's not really a point of reference which you can use to gauge how fast you're going. I found the most intense part was simply trying to get myself to jump out of the airplane.

Bungee jumping, on the other hand, does have points of references which you can watch as you're screaming your lungs out. Even though it's only 50-150 meters off the ground, you feel yourself freefall the entire way down. And for me, seeing the ground right below you made it that much harder to jump than when I was in a plane and there wasn't anything at all for me to see. I was still shaking after I came down from bungee jumping.

While both of these are pretty fun, I prefer scuba diving over both sky diving and bungee jumping.

 

[eplebnista]

No.

 

[Jfrag Teh Foul]

My wife and I did a tandem jump in Las Vegas last July. We jumped at about 9500'. Loved it. It cost us about $200 or so apiece, but well worth it. Highly recommend it.

I thought it would be a bit more scary than it was... I have done that and repelled out of a helicopter and out of the two the repelling scared me more. I guess it was the hopping out on the skid at 100' that got me pumped.

 

[tcsenter]

If I want excitement and danger, I can just spend a few hours in downtown Flint, Michigan. It costs nothing, and is guaranteed not to disappoint. ;-)