Whoo hoo! 12,000 ft... no problem!

[StangFlyer]

Any sky divers in the house?

I was up in Grand Bend, Ontario, Canada on Thursday night and through Friday. One of my niece's, nephew's, and myself all went skydiving at the Grand Bend Parachute Center. This was my sixth jump, but the first for them. I had a great free fall from 12,000 ft. It went really smooth and I did really well seeing as I did my last jump six years ago.

Check out the video of my jump for all those who might be interested in giving it a try. I'd highly recommend taking the plunge at least once in life. There is no rush quite like it! You want to do an Accelerated Free fall course though, not a static or tandem jump.

My Skydiving Video and Photos

Grand Bend Parachute Center


The instructor on my left who is helping guide me through my refresher jump is Bob Wright. He is the jump center owner, as well.

[Crazy Horse GT]

too cool dan, i just could not jump out a perfectly good flying plane, lmao.

[bigred90gt]

That looks like a killer time!!! I have always wanted to do that, I just dont have the money or time to try it. Maybe one day I will.

[Mr 5 0]

Dan:

Congratulations on your successful and, no doubt, exhilarating jump! Looks like an awesome thrill.

Skydiving (once, anyway) is one of my "must do before I die" goals. My wife says: "sure" but wants to increase my life insurance (times five) before I jump. I think she is serious.

My best bud is a private pilot and I've been flying with him dozens of times over the past few years, including a nice flight from CT to English Town dragway in New Jersey, where they have a handy little airstrip right next to the track. Very cool to fly in, land and walk over to the track. The trip takes less than an hour and no traffic! Unfortunately, my pilot buddy thinks jumping out of a plane ("if you don't absolutely have to", as he puts it), is insane. Oh well. Some day. Meanwhile, I'll get a vicarious kick from viewing your jump.

Stay safe - and don't be trying any Spider Man stuff. It won't work without the parachute!

[drudis]

Its cool, and its nuts!

Kind'a like the guy riding his crotchrocket standing on the seat at 80mph with hands out like on Titanic...

[Stang_Crazy]

Congrats on the big jump!! I went skydiving a few years back and would love to do it again. My jump was a 3200ft. static line jump though Seeing that video makes me want to try an accelerated free fall jump next time!!

[StangFlyer]

Crazy Horse GT - Why... that's what a perfectly good airplane is great for... jumping out of!

Mr 5.0 - You should get up there and do it then. It blows a drag race away!! You'll be scared going up the first time (it's that un-known factor), but once you're in a freefall you'll love it and after you're back on the ground you'll be 100% pumped to go again.

drudis - Riding a crotchrocket standing on the seat at 80mph with your hands out is FAR more dangerous than a skydive jump when the proper safety procedures are taken, and the right equipment is used... to me. You have two parachutes (main and a reserve) also.

Stang_Crazy - doing a static line jump you miss the best part... the freefall! Get back there and do the AFF!

Any ways, I'm going back to jump again early in August. Hopefully I'll do several jumps in one day too. I want to get my class A license (first solo license) this year if possible. I'd like to get my own first rig and suit over the winter.

[Hethj7]

Kick ass! That is also on my to do list....I really need to get around to it.

[lx mike]

Dan glad you like it like you do. My brother goes jumping every sat and has close to 200 jumps! he's asked me a few time to go and one day i might surprize him and say yes. maybe for a b-day!

[StangFlyer]

Originally posted by lx mike
Dan glad you like it like you do. My brother goes jumping every sat and has close to 200 jumps! he's asked me a few time to go and one day i might surprize him and say yes. maybe for a b-day!

Once you do it... you'll love it.

[Crazy Horse GT]

Originally posted by Dan McClain
Once you do it... you'll love it.

lol, a bud of mine who was 82-nd airborne said it was so quite up there it's unreal, not for me, that's why, when i was in the naqvy i didnt go for submarines, --- what a ship that sink's on purpose, hell no, lol. glad you had a great time.

[StangFlyer]

Originally posted by Crazy Horse GT
lol, a bud of mine who was 82-nd airborne said it was so quite up there it's unreal, not for me, that's why, when i was in the naqvy i didnt go for submarines, --- what a ship that sink's on purpose, hell no, lol. glad you had a great time.

That's funny... you're falling at 120 mph which creates quite a bit of wind noise to me. I wouldn't exactly describe that as "quite". Now, once you deploy your shoot and you're just floating down... yeah... it's pretty quite and peaceful.

[Crazy Horse GT]

Originally posted by Dan McClain
That's funny... you're falling at 120 mph which creates quite a bit of wind noise to me. I wouldn't exactly describe that as "quite". Now, once you deploy your shoot and you're just floating down... yeah... it's pretty quite and peaceful.

lol, i meant navy, not whatever i hit the wrong key on, maybe, that was what he was talking about, after you deploy the chute. i guess i might try it, but, nah, i like being on the ground.

[srv1]

Your nukin futs Dan!!!

James

[RAGE_5.0]

When I was younger I always wanted to sky dive and still think it would be awesome but I'm pretty sure I could never bring myself to do it. I seem to have a fear of heights that would make it so that you'd have to just throw me out of the plane and hope I don't freeze up.
How close to the track is it that you guys skydive because when we sit in the stands at the motorplex you can see the skydivers up in the air.

[StangFlyer]

Originally posted by RAGE_5.0
I seem to have a fear of heights that would make it so that you'd have to just throw me out of the plane and hope I don't freeze up.
How close to the track is it that you guys skydive because when we sit in the stands at the motorplex you can see the skydivers up in the air.

Yup, that's the place... Grand Bend Sport Parachuting Center is right next to the drag strip... actually the landing area and then the jump center building is just behind the oval track. I've often said I need to tow my Mustang up there with me on a weekend so that I can jump one day and then race the next!

In any event, if you are afraid of heights it doesn't matter. It's not the same thing at all. It's not like standing on a latter or on your roof. The heights are so extreme that you won't experience that same feeling. It's like standing over the floor with a small model between your feet or something.

My friend Rick (Dr. Weir) went with me back in 1997 and we both did our first AFF jumps together. He did it because he is afraid of heights and he thought it would help him get over that fear. However, after he jumped I asked him about it and he said it wasn't the same thing and it was no big deal (from a heights perspective)... so, it didn't help him at all in that regard I guess.

[Dr. Weir]

Don't deprive yourselves of what could be a great experince!

As Dan said, I went and had a great time. I am afraid of heights as well. It would not be a factor. The guys at Grand Bend are real pro's, they are with you the whole way. You go over everything several times and they make sure you are prepared. The chances of something going wrong are near zero. They know what to do and make you feel comfortable. The only scary part is getting on the wing, and in the case you did fall off, so what? Your going to jump anyway!

As for getting killed, I don't have any numbers, but I would bet good money that the odds are far greater of you getting killed in your car. We all know there is a much greater risk driving the high performance cars we do.

I have only heard of two diving accidents since I went 7 years ago. One involved a student, who didn't listen to instructions, and hit a power line. The other was a plane accident. Had they jumped, they would all be alive today. Considering the thousands of jumps that happen every year, those are pretty good odds to me.

You guys who have considered it, go for it! It is an experince you will never forget.

[StangFlyer]

Here's some interesting factoids about Skydiving:

From HowStuffWorks.com:

How Dangerous is Skydiving?

Skydiving is a remarkably popular sport. The United States Parachuting Association has 34,000 members. It estimates that about 350,000 people complete more than 3 million jumps in a typical year.

The big question is always, "How dangerous is skydiving?" Each year, about 30 people die in parachuting accidents in the United States, or roughly one person per 100,000 jumps. Look at the US Skydiving Incident Reports to get an idea of the types of problems that lead to fatalities. If you make one jump in a year, your chance of dying is 1 in 100,000.

How does the fatality rate in skydiving compare to other common activities? Since most adults in America drive cars, let's compare skydiving to driving. Roughly 40,000 people die each year in traffic accidents in the United States [ref]. That's 1.7 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles. Therefore, if you drive 10,000 miles per year, your chance of dying in a car wreck in any given year is something like 1 in 6,000. In other words, we accept a higher level of risk by getting into our cars every day than people do by occasionally skydiving. You would have to jump 17 times per year for your risk of dying in a skydiving accident to equal your risk of dying in a car accident if you drive 10,000 miles per year.

A logical question to ask here is this: Given these statistics, why do we think of skydiving as dangerous and driving a car as safe?

* The first reason has to do with frequency. At 30 per year, fatal skydiving accidents are infrequent. That tends to make each one newsworthy, so you are likely to hear about them. On the other hand, there are about 110 fatal car accidents every day in the United States. In a city of one million people, 160 people die every year in car accidents. If you heard about every car accident, you would go insane, so you only hear about a few of them. That leaves you with the impression that car accidents are infrequent even though they happen constantly.

* The second reason has to do with familiarity. Most people drive every day and nothing bad happens. So our personal experience leads us to believe that driving is safe. It is only when you look at the aggregated statistics that you realize how dangerous driving really is.


Taken from Dan Poynter's Parachuting: A Skydiver's Handbook 6th edition.

1991
121,900 people made 2,440,000 civilian jumps in the US.
25,000 active skydivers average approx. 100 to 125 jumps/year.
Approx. 97,000 students graduate the First Jump Course and make a jump
each year.
Approx. 300,000 student jumps/year, 1.9 million experienced skydiver
jumps/year.

1987
29 fatal parachuting accidents in the US.
Yielding a fatality rate of 1/75,000 jumps, or 1/3,800 participants.
Comparisons
Hang Gliding: 1/2,308 hang gliding flights.
Accidental Deaths: 1/2,582 (91,000 out of total US pop. of 235 million in
1983)

In a recent year over 140 people died scuba diving, 856 bicycling, over 7,000 drowned, 1154 died of bee stings, and 80 by lightning. In 1982, 43,990 people were killed in highway accidents, 1,171 boating fatalities, 235 airline deaths, and 1,164 light aircraft general aviation fatalities.

Student injuries run about 2%. So out of 90,000 students, 1,800 can expect to be injured.

"Why we jump. The explanation use to be simple: jumpers were crazy! Some psychologists talked of Freudian death wishes while others believed in fear displacement or denying one fear in their lives by directing their attention to another more manageable one. Others theorized that participants in high risk sports were acting out psychopathic fantasies in an attempt to make up for feelings of inadequacy or to demonstrate omnipotence. So much for the non-jumping ground hog, whuffo head shrink community.

Fortunately, in the last 25 years, the shrinks have decided that pursuing a high risk sport is not all that bad. Perhaps more of them have tried skydiving. Bruce Ogilvie, professor emeritus of psychology at San Jose State University conducted a study of 293 high-risk competitors including skydivers, race car drivers, fencers and aerobatic pilots in 1973 using psychological batteries and personal interviews. Ogilvie found risk-takers to be success oriented, strongly extroverted, above average in abstract ability and superior in intelligence when compared to the general population. He found these athletes are rarely reckless in their risk taking; their risk-taking is cool and calculated. He estimates that 6% of the athletes compete out of anger or out of deep feelings of inferiority or because they are trying to prove something about themselves. The other 94% are emotionally stable."

[thdrcat]

is the owner wearing converse all-star shoes? if so, thats awsome!

[StangFlyer]

Originally posted by thdrcat
is the owner wearing converse all-star shoes? if so, thats awsome!

I actually have no idea... but, the next time I go up there I'll ask him (or look).