Did my 1st parachute jump yesterday!
- Thread starter Gazanimal
- Start date
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.
if you can , do the AFF
totall brilliant experience and no messing about , straight to maximum freefall height
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
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
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).
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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LOL
Admittedly the 1st few seconds were a total blur & I forgot to count the drop etc, but we were warned it may happen. As long as you remember to check your canopy & make sure it's (A) There (B) Open (C) Working etc then you can start to relax and do the checks you need to.
True, it's the same for me. It's a feat just to go past that fear point.
There was one refusal on a tandem on the Saturday & one girl in our class nearly refused, but she eventually went. With having to push yourself out (you don't get pushed) it's having that self-control & determination to do it & trust the gear to do it's job.
What made me laugh was there were a couple of young girls, really small who were both jumping for charity, yet one of them had never even been in a plane before in her life!
She only mentioned this when we took off.
I was a RAPS instructor about 10 years ago now.
When I started jumping I went and did it via the RAPS course, was far more affordable to me back then.
Onwards and upwards!Even after 507 jumps.
Blue skies!
Roughly how many jumps does it take to get a Cat A licence using RAPS?
Looking forwards to my next jump, even though I'm not sure exactly when it'll be as I'd love to do all my training at Cark, but live so bloody far away
Good job on your first jump! It's an awesome experience. I remember my first static line jump - complete mental overload!
Number of jumps to Cat A varies depending on how well you do at each stage of the progression which depends on you and how good your coaches are. It took me 23 jumps to qualify.
I've almost clocked up 100 jumps, but have pretty much given up the sport since moving to Central London.
Rock climbing and cycling are my hobbies now, but I'd love to jump again. There is nothing more awesome than diving head first out of a plane into the blue void at 13,000FT.
Thanks for that info Shamrock. Sounds just like the same scenario as learning to drive
Also, if I could get to Cark & train with Dan he's a Head Teacher at a school in Manchester so he's good at getting his point over