Parachuting is an exciting recreational activity. Apart from that there are also courses to enable you to engage in different parachute sports. There are many parachute schools in the world. Most of them have state of the art facilities, equipments and licensed trainers that will be there when you make your first jump. There are different course available for newcomers. The courses will depend on levels of difficulty.
Newcomers can choose to enroll in different courses. Graduate students can then decide if they ant to pursue skydiving more seriously and compete in a sport. Most of the time graduates become enamored with the activity and become competitors or instructors. Other people who wish to just experience the thrill of it can book for tandem jumping.
Parachute school
Parachuting became a popular sport when parachutes became safer for public use. Many enthusiasts would meet in a drop zone and later on skydive. Due to the thrill and excitement it provides it gained popularity among the masses. Enthusiasts who wish to push the limits of extreme sports created skydiving, along with its many variants.
Parachute organizations would host events and competitions which were held in local, national and international levels. This in turn initiated the start of parachute schools who offer training and courses.
There are many parachute schools scattered all over the globe. Their courses are pretty much the same. There are courses available for serious skydivers who want to pursue a sport or want to get a license as an instructor.
These schools are popular for thrill seekers. It’s not an intensive course but you will still receive lessons from your instructor that could take 30 minutes to 1 hour. This course is called tandem jumping. You will be jumping with your instructor in a dual harness. The whole jump, from take off to landing takes about 25 minutes.
You will free fall in 40 seconds and 5 minutes under the parachute. Your instructor will deploy and control the parachute for a safe landing. The student doesn’t really need to do anything except enjoy the scenery.
Other courses are accelerated free fall and static line jump. In static line jump the trainee jumps from 3,500 feet and their parachute is automatically opened. Trainees will have plenty of time to enjoy the scenery and provide light landings. The accelerated free fall is much more intensive than the first two. The ground training takes up to 6 hours. Trainees have to go through 6 levels.
A trainee will jump out of a plane from 13,000 feet with two instructors. Unlike tandem jumping the instructor will be by your side and you have your own parachute. The instructors then will use hand signals to communicate with you that was taught during ground training. After 4 or 5 minutes you will deploy your own parachute and land with radio assistance.
Both of these courses serve as an entry to a progression system. This system classifies trainees according to their experience. These categories have 8 levels. The first one is completing a basic training course and the last is becoming a qualified solo skydiver. The duration of free falls and altitude gets higher as trainees progress.
These levels are different from accelerated free falling though so you must take that course first. Trainees may also have to make consolidation jumps before entering category 8.