You are probably thinking how safe is tandem skydiving really?
Well… Generally Tandem Masters (TM) have to have a minimum of 500 personal skydives and a instructors rating, some DZ’s will not even let someone go through a TM rating exam until they have at least 1000 skydives.
Personally I think TM exams should be offered to skydivers on their personal performance, but in general I think between 500-1000 skydives is enough to look after someone that has not experienced it before and would like to try this thrill of a life time.
You might also like to know that all tandem equipment has Automatic Activating Devices (AAD) attached to the reserve.
For example if the Tandem Master passed out, I have never heard of this happening before, but for an example if the TM passed out, a ADD will open the reserve parachute by itself. Pretty cool, huh.
So in general Tandem Skydiving is really safe. I personally have been a TM for 8yrs with close to 3000 Tandem Skydives and have never hurt anyone (touch wood). I have seen tens of thousands of skydives and have only ever seen a tandem passenger crack an ankle once, and this only happened because he did not lift up his feet like he was trained to do. I know out of all the extreme sports skydiving is considered the safest.
So the question is asked… How do I go about finding a place to skydive? Well there are so many skydiving centers around the world you would probably find one within an hour’s drive of you. Have fun :) Blue Skies & 5 knots ;)
Monday, April 14, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Freefall
Freefall has to be one of the most amazing experiences in the whole world. If you have never thought of doing it, it probably is not for you, don’t do it. But if you have, just do it! It truly is a once in a life time experience. I must warn you though it is highly addictive. Believe it or not in freefall you feel like you are floating, you see you are so high up the ground does not rush up towards you like you might think and the parachute is open well and truly before you are anywhere near the ground due to the extra safety guidelines for tandem skydiving.
Now I can hear some of you saying right now, “what fun is that, I want to get as close to the ground as I can”. Well there are different horses for different courses, and if that is your buzz I would recommend jumping off Buildings, Antenna’s, Structures, or the Earth, also known as B.A.S.E jumping. But I can tell you right now jumping out of an aero plane is definitely a buzz without pushing the limits, and if B.A.S.E is something you would like to take up as a sport, skydiving is definitely a safe stepping stone towards it.
Now I can hear some of you saying right now, “what fun is that, I want to get as close to the ground as I can”. Well there are different horses for different courses, and if that is your buzz I would recommend jumping off Buildings, Antenna’s, Structures, or the Earth, also known as B.A.S.E jumping. But I can tell you right now jumping out of an aero plane is definitely a buzz without pushing the limits, and if B.A.S.E is something you would like to take up as a sport, skydiving is definitely a safe stepping stone towards it.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
The Beginning
I started skydiving in 1997, it was something I always wanted to do but just never got around to it until one day a friend of mine showed me his tandem skydiving video from his skydive at Ramblers Drop Zone in Toogoolawah Brisbane Queensland Australia.
At the time I had been going from job to job looking for something I would actually enjoy doing for the rest of my life. As soon as I arrived at the Drop Zone (DZ) I was asking every question under the sun about what it would be like to do for a career, how much do you get paid, is it dangerous, how often do you need to use the reserve parachute, is it easy to pack them and so on.
When it became time to go for the skydive my girl friend said I want to jump before you because if I see you scared I will not jump. So when the time came we were at 14,000 feet and my girl friend went first, now I must admit when I seen the fear on her face I did not want to go either, but I figured if something happened to her and I did not jump her mum was going to kill me anyway, so off I went.
To tell you the truth I still do not know what happened the first few seconds out of that door my mind just shut down, I had a sensory overload which basically means when your brain has to process a whole bunch of information that it has never processed before, it shuts down and takes a few seconds or more for it to start coming back to it's senses. So a few seconds or so of tumbling around or not I came to my senses and had one of the best experiences of my life.
At the time I had been going from job to job looking for something I would actually enjoy doing for the rest of my life. As soon as I arrived at the Drop Zone (DZ) I was asking every question under the sun about what it would be like to do for a career, how much do you get paid, is it dangerous, how often do you need to use the reserve parachute, is it easy to pack them and so on.
When it became time to go for the skydive my girl friend said I want to jump before you because if I see you scared I will not jump. So when the time came we were at 14,000 feet and my girl friend went first, now I must admit when I seen the fear on her face I did not want to go either, but I figured if something happened to her and I did not jump her mum was going to kill me anyway, so off I went.
To tell you the truth I still do not know what happened the first few seconds out of that door my mind just shut down, I had a sensory overload which basically means when your brain has to process a whole bunch of information that it has never processed before, it shuts down and takes a few seconds or more for it to start coming back to it's senses. So a few seconds or so of tumbling around or not I came to my senses and had one of the best experiences of my life.
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