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Parachute Schools and Courses Ideal for Experienced and Novice Skydivers
from: Maxx Sports GuidesWhether you're an experienced skydiver, or a novice, you can learn more about this extreme sport at a variety of parachuting schools and courses.
Most of the schools around the world have state of the art facilities, equipment and licensed trainers. The trainers will be available when you make your first jump.
Newcomers can choose to enrol in a number of different courses, depending on different levels of difficulty.
Graduate students can decide if they want to pursue skydiving more seriously and compete in a particular sport. Graduates often enjoy skydiving so much that they become competitors or instructors.
Others who just want to experience the thrill of skydiving can arrange for tandem jumping. In tandem jumping, individuals are connected with lines and everything is done for them by an instructor or trained jumper.
Enthusiats Create Skydiving
Parachuting became a popular sport when parachutes became safer for public use. Many enthusiasts would meet in a drop zone and later on went skydiving. The thrill and excitement that the sport provides contributed greatly to its public popularity.
Enthusiasts who wanted to push the limits of extreme sports created skydiving, along with its many variations.
Parachute organizations hosted events and competitions at local, national and international levels. This led to the start of parachute schools which offered courses and training.
Many parachute schools scattered over the globe have courses that are largely similar in content. Courses are available for serious skydivers who want to pursue a sport or get a license as an instructor.
These schools are popular with thrill seekers. Although not an intensive course, tandem jumping involves jumping with your instructor in a dual harness. Your lessons will last 30 minutes to one hour with your instructor. The entire jump, from take off to landing, will take about twenty-five minutes.
You'll free fall in forty seconds and for five 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.
Accelerated Free Fall
Other courses are accelerated free fall and static line jump. In static line jump trainees jump 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 six hours. Trainees have to go through six 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 will have your own parachute.
The instructors use hand signals to communicate with you (as you were taught during ground training). After four or five minutes you'll deploy your own parachute and land with radio assistance.
Both of these courses serve as an entry to a progression system, which classifies trainees according to their experience. These categories have eight levels. The first one is completing a basic training course and the last is becoming a qualified solo skydiver. As trainees progress, the length of free falls increases and altitude gets higher.
These levels are different from accelerated free falling, although you must take the latter course first. Trainees may also have to make consolidation jumps before entering category eight.
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