Not exactly "skydiving" in the truest sense, but I have done this a few times...

 

I am oddly afraid of falling. Give me a parachute and a plane and I am jumping. But put me on top of a tall building with heavy winds and even with a 4 foot wall I am not going near the edge.

I know it doesn't make sense but I don't fear heights I feel heights while unsafe. I consider a parachute a safety device when falling from the sky.

 

I used to be very into skydiving, have about 100 freefall jumps and my B licence... If you have any specific questions shoot me a PM. If you are doing the one-time jump, then I 100% agree with whats been said, do the tandom. The freefall is the best part of it, and unless you do AFF you won't get freefall doing it solo until you've had a few jumps. Even then they start you out with little 5 sec then pull.

Something else to watch, if you are doing tandom make sure you go somewhere with a plane bigger then a cessna. In the little cessnas they will normally only take you to about 10-11k feet. Where in the bigger planes you are looking at 14.5k'ish. Single jumper at 14.5k, pulling around 2.5-3 you get over a minute of freefall. Tandom has to pull sooner, but still much more worth it to find the bigger plane.

good luck! have fun!

-Chris

(what area are you looking to do this at?)

 

I agree - do it. I had a killer headache for 2 days afterward, but it was definitely worth it. Of course I got the dvd too.

 

Hopefully, I'll be going for the first time tomorrow. I should have gone a few weeks ago, but we've had bad weather here for the past few weekends and I've been rained or clouded out three times so far. Anyway, tomorrow's forcast is clear and sunny so hopfully I'll get to go. I'm really pumped about it.

I have a friend who's owns a newspaper and is doing an article for the skydive place I'm going and they're giving me a free jump in exchange for the publicity. Win/win

 

Thanks for your responses.
I want to do it for my 18th birthday later this month, I found 2 places in miami I need to call them both and see

 

Accelerated Freefall Course = FUN.


Jumped at 12k, pulled at 2.8k (should have been 3k but I was having so much fun), floated down and missed my target by 15'.

 

So how hard is the landing on the knees when you do a tandem, first-ever jump? Skydiving is something I've always wanted to do but I'm worried about re-injuring a knee. Suppose I should just go and find a place that does this sort of thing and watch 'em come in for landing...

 

I'd do it if I did not have 5 lbs of steel and titainium holding my back together!

 

Just did my first jump yesterday. Man was that a rush. Tandem of course, but it was still loads of fun. A camera guy went down with us and got great video of the whole thing. Went up to 14k feet and pulled the chute at just under 4k feet. It was kinda hard to breath at altitude, but that's probably b/c I'm out of shape My mouth definitely dried up pretty fast with the wind and all. There was cloud cover so I didn't get to see the ground as I was falling, just blue above and white below. We plunged through the clouds and opened the chute right in them. Really cool! The harness was a bit tight around my legs but my instructor loosened my straps in air to give me some room. made me kind of uneasy

For the landing, he told me that we would slide in. I just stuck my feet out and we coasted to a stop on our butts. Very gentle and not hard at all. It's a definite must do and I plan on doing it again soon.