In It Together:
An Introduction to SPORT SKYDIVING
1485
Da Vinci designs a parachute with wooden bits
2008
Someone brave jumps Da Vinci's designs (sans wood)
Spud Manning
Inventor of doing stuff whilst falling really fast
WW2
Parachutes used for not stupid stuff
LEO valentin
Rediscovers doing stuff while falling fast
Only this time the country had 1000s of spare parachutes!
Custom sport parachutes
Late 50s sees parachute clubs spread across the USA
Parachutes designed for sport use are invented
Para Commander in 1962
Major risks
- Opening shock of early square parachutes
- Lack of steering control of round parachutes
- Deployment problems of main parachutes
- Ease of cut-away in case of malfunction
- Reserve deployment in unforeseen circumstances
Bill & Ted
Skydiving pioneers
Oops
BiLL & Ted
Inventors of tandem skydiving, piggy back parachutes, the hand deployed pilot chute, the 3-ring release system and pretty much everything else cool in skydiving
Seriously, these two were awesome.
Performance Designs
Making sure we don't hit the ground too hard
Automatic activation device
Fighting natural selection since 1959
Camera
Advancing the sport and wasting hours on YouTube
Competitions
Early contests took the obvious route of "accuracy" of landing
Landing within 100 ft of a target was a competition winner
Today the overall targets are just 16cm in diameter!
Technology drives competition disciplines
Advent of video dramatically altered where competition can be held
Review of aerial footage has pushed "air work" competitions
Formation Skydiving involves forming "shapes" with a group
Free Fly involves more difficult head-up (sit) and head down positions
Formation Skydiving
Fame and fortune for sexy sky shapes
Freefly
The art of being upside down
Canopy piloting
You thought parachutes were there to slow us down?
Preventing impact
A look over the features of a modern sport parachute
A "rig" is made up of the following components:
- Container (harness, container, risers)
- Main parachute (parachute, bag, pilot chute)
- Reserve parachute (parachute, free bag, spring pilot chute)
- Automatic Activation Device (optional)
Accelerated Free Fall
"If you got the money..." The fastest way to learn to fly
RAm Air Progression system
Real skydivers get out low
Tandem
Join us, 7th September, to experience this!
The Next level
Mankind can fall very fast & not be dead. What's next?
thanks for listening
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Join the event. 7th September. Skydive Northwest
Introduction to skydiving
By Mike Lehan
