What's It Like To Skydive?

It's a question that can be best answered after you jump and is often difficult to put into words. Most people say that you can't describe the feeling. The skydiving sensation is difficult to duplicate on the ground. It’s not like a roller-coaster or like snow skiing. You don’t really feel like you are falling as many people believe. It’s been described that you are falling on an elevator of air that lowers you to the ground. They may not make sense but it helps to understand the science of falling 120 MPH.

People are often surprised at how soft the landing is. People have seen footage from the 1970's of jumpers crashing straight into the ground under a round parachute. Parachute technology has improved a lot since then. Most of the time, a parachute landing is similar to jumping off a chair. There are a lot of factors that come into play with soft landings. These include wind speed, parachute flight direction, air turbulence, and timing of the landing flare. If you make an AFF jump, you’ll learn how to make a Parachute Landing Fall (PLF), that will help reduce the risk of injury during landing. On tandem jumps, we train each student to lift his or her legs up to a sitting position and the instructor lands first.

So what is it like to skydive? It’s what every you want it to be. For some people, it marks an age milestone or a great accomplishment in their life. Most people find that after making a skydive, life's other challenges don’t seem so scary.