Variations of Skydiving

Variations of Skydiving

In addition to disciplines for which people train, purchase equipment and get coaching/lessons, the recreational skydiver finds ways to just have fun. Today, there are twelve Variations of Skydiving:

1. Hit and Rock. "Hit and Rock" is a variant of Accuracy landing devised to let people of varying skill levels compete for fun. "Hit and Rock" is originally from POPS (Parachutists Over Phorty Society). The object is to land as close as possible to the chair, remove the parachute harness, sprint to the chair, sit fully in the chair and rock back and forth at least one time. The contestant is timed from the moment that feet touch the ground until that first rock is completed. This event is considered a race.

2. Freeflying

3. Tracking. Tracking is where skydivers take a body position to achieve a high forward speed, flying their body to achieve separation from other jumpers and cover distance over the ground.

4. Formation skydiving

5. Pond swooping. "Pond swooping" is a form of competitive parachuting wherein canopy pilots attempt to touch down at a glide across a small body of water, and onto the shore. Events provide lighthearted competition, rating accuracy, speed, distance and style. Points and peer approval are reduced when a participant "chows", or fails to reach shore and sinks into the water. Some danger involved with pond swooping is when pilots "chow" they land in the water and then the parachute slowly begins to sink. Some divers get tangled in the cord and are dragged to the bottom and drown. To avoid being dragged down, some divers will cut the cord if they sense that they cannot make it across to the shore.

6. Cross-country. A cross-country jump is a skydive where the participants open their parachutes immediately after jumping, with the intention of covering as much ground under canopy as possible. Usual distance from Jump Run to the dropzone can be as much as several miles.

7. Camera flying. In "camera flying", a camera person jumps with other skydivers and films them. The camera flier often wears specialized equipment, such as a winged jumpsuit to provide a greater range of fall rates, helmet-mounted video and still cameras, mouth operated camera switches, and optical sights. Some skydivers specialize in camera flying and a few earn fees for filming students on coached jumps or tandem-jumpers, or producing professional footage and photographs for the media. There is always a demand for good camera fliers in the skydiving community, as many of the competitive skydiving disciplines are judged from a video record.

8. Night jumps. Parachuting is not always restricted to daytime hours; experienced skydivers sometimes perform night jumps. For safety reasons, this requires more equipment than a usual daytime jump and in most jurisdictions requires both an advanced skydiving license (at least a B-License in the U.S.) and a meeting with the local safety official covering who will be doing what on the load. A lighted altimeter (preferably accompanied with an audible altimeter) is a must. Skydivers performing night jumps often take flashlights up with them so that they can check their canopies have properly deployed.

Visibility to other skydivers and other aircraft is also a consideration; FAA regulations require skydivers jumping at night to be wearing a light visible for three miles (5 km) in every direction, and to turn it on once they are under canopy. A chemlight(glowstick) is a good idea on a night jump.

Night jumpers should be made aware of the Dark Zone, when landing at night. Above 100 feet jumpers flying their canopy have a good view of the landing zone normally because of reflected ambient light/moon light. Once they get close to the ground, this ambient light source is lost, because of the low angle of reflection. The lower they get, the darker the ground looks. At about 100 feet and below it may seem that they are landing in a black hole. Suddenly it becomes very dark, and the jumper hits the ground soon after. This ground rush should be explained and anticipated for the first time night jumper.

9. Stuff jumps. With the availability of a rear door aircraft and a large, unpopulated space to jump over, 'stuff' jumps become possible. In these jumps the skydivers jump out with some object. Rubber raft jumps are popular, where the jumpers sit in a rubber raft. Cars, bicycles, motorcycles, vacuum cleaners, water tanks and inflatable companions have also been thrown out the back of an aircraft. At a certain height the jumpers break off from the object and deploy their parachutes, leaving it to smash into the ground at terminal velocity.

10. Skysurfing

11. Base Jumping

12. Wingsuit flying

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachuting

Parachute deployment

Parachute deployment

At a skydiver's deployment altitude, the individual manually deploys a small pilot-chute which acts as a drogue, catching air and pulling out the main parachute or the main canopy. There are two principal systems in use : the "throw-out", where the skydiver pulls a toggle attached to the top of the pilot-chute stowed in a small pocket outside the main container : and the "pull-out", where the skydiver pulls a small pad attached to the pilot-chute which is stowed inside the container.

Throw-out pilot-chute pouches are usually positioned at the bottom of the container – the B.O.C. deployment system – but older harnesses often have leg-mounted pouches. The latter are safe for flat-flying, but often unsuitable for freestyle or head-down flying.

In a typical non-military parachute system, such as the throw-out, the pilot-chute is connected to a line known as the "bridle", which is in turn attached to a small deployment bag that contains the folded parachute, with the suspension lines stowed in rubber bands. At the bottom of the container that holds the deployment bag is a closing loop which, during packing, is fed through the grommets of the four flaps that are used to close the container. At that point, a curved pin that is attached to the bridle is inserted through the closing loop. The next step involves folding the pilot-chute and placing it in a pouch (e.g. B.O.C pouch).

Activation begins when the pilot chute is thrown out. It inflates and creates drag, pulling the pin out of the closing loop and allowing the pilot-chute to pull the deployment bag from the container. The parachute lines are pulled loose from the rubber bands and extend as the canopy starts to open. A rectangular piece of fabric called the "slider" (which separates the parachute lines into four main groups fed through grommets in the four respective corners of the slider) slows the opening of the parachute and works its way down until the canopy is fully open and the slider is just above the head of the skydiver. The slider slows and controls the deployment of the parachute. Without a slider, the parachute would inflate fast, potentially damaging the parachute fabric and/or suspension lines. During a normal deployment, a skydiver will generally experience a few seconds of intense deceleration, in the realm of 3 to 4 G, while the parachute slows the descent from 120 mph (190 km/h) to approximately 18 mph.

If a skydiver experiences a malfunction of their main parachute which they cannot correct, they pull a "cut-away" handle on the front right-hand side of their harness (on the chest) which will release the main canopy from the harness/container. Once free from the malfunctioning main canopy, the reserve canopy can be activated manually by pulling a second handle on the front left harness. Some containers are fitted with a connecting line from the main to reserve parachutes – known as a reserve static line (RSL) – which pulls opens the reserve container faster than a manual release could. Whichever method is used, a spring-loaded pilotchute then extracts the reserve parachute from the upper half of the container.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachuting

Skydiving in Indonesia

Skydiving in Indonesia

Skydiving is an air sport is very popular because it is challenging society. Humans have long wanted to make the jump, but can not be implemented because at that time there has been no proper equipment. In 1617, Fausto Veranzio became the first man to make the jump from a tower in Venice, Italy, and landed safely use tools like a parachute. While the jump from a flying object, has been implemented for the first time in 1797, namely by Andre Jacques Garnerin in Paris, France from a hot air balloon. Leslie Irvin who was saved by a parachute in an accident in England, feels indebted to the kit. Since the events that occurred in 1919, he devoted the rest of his life to develop and refine the technology and the parachute system.

But skydiving as a sport, was introduced in Indonesia for the first time in 1962 by Mladen Milicevic (Mica), a Yugoslav, who was then conjunct in the School of the Army Command in Batujajar. Since then, skydiving evolved into a more popular sport. Society's first parachute jump was Aves. Aves was established in Bandung by the ITB students with Trisnoyuwono reporters on July 29, 1969. And since then parachuting sport continues to grow in all regions in Indonesia. On January 17, 1972, parachuting clubs are located in Indonesia there are 62 clubs, they agreed to join the parent organization of FASI.

Even this sport can not be separated from technological advances, which are able to create new devices that are increasingly sophisticated. The use of new equipment by skydiving lets athletes do new maneuvers in the air is hard to do with the old type equipment. Even using the new equipment, skydiving athletes capable of making a record, a new record in a variety of race numbers.

Skydiving hold a variety of numbers including the precision landing, air cooperation, cooperation between the canopy and free style. Other numbers are formation skydiving and skysurfing. Types of parachutes used in skydiving competitions such as the type DC-5 for the precision landing, PD-150 for cooperation in the air. Achievements at the national level has been achieved is in the class co-operation in the air as much as 23 peterjun are recorded in Bali on the sidelines of the World Parachute Championships in 1989.