Skydiving & Parachuting Training Stories

Hi, my name is Shmuel and I will be sharing my skydiving experiences here.

My first skydive was about 10 years ago, when i was around 20 years old. That would make the year about 2002. I did the jumps in a dropzone and school called Sky’s The Limit. At the time, they were located in New Jersey, however, they are now in Pennsylvania.

My first jump over there was a tandem jump, where I was attached to an instructor. We jumped out of the plane at 13,500 feet. The instructor did not ask me to do anything more than the basics at the time. I just arched and enjoyed the view, and the  instructor might have done a 360 degree turn, and then at some point, I lifted my feet and we landed.

The next jump that I recall was with my own parachute, the first one of my AFF training jumps. I jumped with two instructors, one man and one woman, each one holding onto one side of me, hanging on to my hand and foot. I waved to them to go off at 5,500 ft but I did not try to pull the parachute right away, because I got confused, since they were still hanging onto me. They were waiting for me to pull before they let go, while I was waiting for them to let go before I pull.

We were losing altitude fast, and they were not allowed to let go until my parachute was pulled. Therefore, they pulled the parachute for me, and then they let go. After my parachute had opened, they landed on their own, before me. I had a radio in the pocket on my left shoulder, so that when they got to the ground, they communicated with me through the radio. They guided me where to go from the ground.  The landing was a little hard, it was a running landing.

That was my second jump ever, and my first jump with my own parachute. Again, that was in 2002, when I was around 20 years old. After that, I stopped jumping for a long time, because it was very expensive. At the time, they charged $300 for each training jump. I was 20 years old and using my money for other things. 

Later on, I took my wife on a tandem jump on our last date before we got engaged. She jumped out on a tandem jump. We have a video of it. We should have either 2 or 3 skydiving videos, one of her tandem, one of my tandem, and i think another one of my training jump. I will have to find them to post here :)

There might have been more than one training jump, I don’t remember clearly, it was ten years ago.

Scroll down to read about my recent skydiving experiences and training jumps in another skydive center.

^{Photo of Tandem Skydive (Credit: SkydiveAndes on Flickr.com) Source}

Fast forward ten years. I am now 30 years old, it’s 2012, and I recently decided that I’m going to continue my training to try to get my Class A License through the United States Parachuting Association. That way, drop-zones around the world could recognize me, and I could use my license in the future to pay between $15-30 to jump from any drop zone.

This time, I went to a skydiving place in Long Island, known as Skydive Long Island. It's off exit 68, near the Brookhaven National Laboratories, in Long Island, New York. I called them up and told them that ten years ago I had done some jumps, and they said that I have to restart my training from scratch. I called up Sky’s The Limit and told them that ten years ago I had done jumps with them, and they said the same thing, that I have to restart. So I went down to Long Island and I did two tandem jumps, paying $255 for each jump.

I did my tandem jumps with a senior instructor over there called Eric. He’s about 5’7’, solid build, and he told me that he had already done about 27,000 jumps, and that he’s been doing this for about 20 years.

The tandem jumps went pretty well. We jumped out both jumps at 11,500 ft, he had me do a 360 degree right turn and a 360 left. I did those two turns, and then he had me do 3 practice touches, which I did. This means that I practiced touching the handle, which is attached to the pilot chute, that’s attached to the bridle of the D-bag (deployment bag), that ultimately deploys the parachute, with the help of G-d.

I also pulled the parachute, which he had me pull at 5,500 ft. I believe I pulled the parachute on both jumps, but it's possible that he pulled on one of them.

He had me flare the parachute, steer the parachute left, and then steer right.

When we got to about 1,000 feet, he took over and he landed us. He passed me immediately on those two jumps, since there were no problems. My feet were not perfect on one of them, they were going inwards a little, but we discussed it and he passed me on both jumps.

Later, I went back again and I did my first AFP level 1 training jump. Follow this link to read the details about the AFF jumps.

^{Photo of Tandem Skydive (Credit: SkydiveAndes on Flickr.com) Source}