Did my 1st parachute jump yesterday!

Zefan said:
What sort of course are you on/did you go on and how much has it all cost you so far/going to cost you?
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It's the first part of what's called RAPS.

Ram Air Progression System. It's a series of lesson designed to slowly take you from novice to qualified skydiver.

Not decided wether to carry on with it or go direct to the AFF (Accelerated Free-Fall) course instead but that costs approx £1300 to do.

My jump was a gift from my girlfriend a year or so ago & the training took all day as you learn how to exit the plane, deal with emergencies if your canopy doesn't open etc and also land yourself as it's all solo.

There was 10 of us in the class and after we all successfully passed the tests, we were allowed to gear up & go jump. Unfortunately for us the jump didn't go to plan. 3 of the students jumped, but the wind at altitude picked up and the safety laws don't allow students to jump in wind over 15mph, so we had to land again.

So I went back the next day to do the jump & was onboard with another student, who's further along in the course (bored looking guy in the video with his hand on his chin) and about 5 people doing tandem skydives with instructors.

Approx cost about £170 for the course & jump iirc

I went with Skydive Northwest, in Cark, Cumbria & they're a great bunch tbh.
 
Paul11 said:
if you can , do the AFF

totall brilliant experience and no messing about , straight to maximum freefall height :)
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Oh I would Paul if the funds could stretch as I live about 5 miles away from a drop zone at Grindale, near Bridlington in East Yorkshire.

Seen people dropping there since I was little and made me always want to have a go. Taken 37 years to do it though :D
 
£170 to go from novice to having a solo jump? That seems madly cheap! Edit - Just checked, £160 locally to me. Might see if my pals fancy this. 14st or under, I better wear some light shoes!

Good on you, the putting total faith in a bit of cotton would be the most nerveracking part for me.
 
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Ahleckz said:
£170 to go from novice to having a solo jump? That seems madly cheap! Edit - Just checked, £160 locally to me. Might see if my pals fancy this. 14st or under, I better wear some light shoes!

Good on you, the putting total faith in a bit of cotton would be the most nerveracking part for me.
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Good price & depending upon where you go, the weight limit is different.

TBH a lot of the scariness about parachuting is blown out of all proportion. I was just as guilty with my thoughts about it being nuts. But with all the safety equipment and rigorous checks that have to be done, it's no wonder the fatality rate is so low. 1 fatality for every 100,000 jumps.

Better odds than driving your car :D
 
It's under investigation as what went wrong. Details are really sketchy atm

There's 3 things that stop you from hitting the earth with a splat. Your main canopy, your reserve and the AAD which will deploy the reserve if it sees you are descending too quick below approx 2,500-1,000ft should your main fail.

There must have been some serious issue if all those 3 things didn't work, but the investigation should find out hopefully.

(reading a report from an eye-witness it seems his main was tangled, but tried to untangle it and couldn't and left it too late to cut away his main and deploy his reserve, or his AAD did it for him if his descent was too fast. Which could have been a BIG problem if he'd not cut away his main).
 
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See, I'm saying i would love to do this. But then up there id **** myself. I don't think i would be able to actually do it solo. I think i would have to go tandem a few times first.

The way you just tossed out.... Sca-rew that lol.
 
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