A friend of mine who happens to be a Francophone skydiver from Quebec only took up the sport a few years ago.

She’s someone who impresses me. She has her motorcycle license, she has her skydiving license and she’s just an overall “bad ass” woman.

She gave me permission to post an article that she wrote up for Canpara (Canadian version of Parachutist)

This is the article:

Skydiving in your early 50s?
Written by Normande Cournoyer
Translaled by Gaëlle Vercollier

Yes, it is possible. ln 2004, around the end of the summer, I was
looking for a special project to undertake the following year. As
I was reading the paper one morning, an article really caught
my attention. A woman in her eighties had done a tandem skydive.
Suddenly, I remembered I had been having a recurring dream for a very
long time. I was flying off into the sky and it was always very pleasant.
June 11,2005, was the first tandem, a memorable day spent in total
euphoria. While taking Lebeau Road in Farnham which leads to the
Nouvel Air site, a song by Natasha St-Pier was playing on the radio:
To each their own story (Chacun son histoire) with the following lyrics:
“Taking off, flying, Burning one’s wings, To go through the sky, To
write one’s story … )” What a coincidence! I was far from thinking it was
the beginning of a beautiful adventure.

Well, yes, five weeks later, I was in the air for a second tandem.
Believe me, a third one almost occurred.

Seeing my need for adrenaline, one of my close friends suggested I
take some skydiving lessons. This idea was eating at me because I was in
my early fifties. After some research, information given by people in the
circle and encouragement given by a person who started skydiving at
47, I decided to follow the PAC program in the summer of 2006. I told
myself that I would regret it if didn’t give it a try.

Unfortunately, I was unable to complete my training in 2006 for
various reasons: difficulties, lack of available time and whims of Mother
Nature. One Friday morning, my heart wasn’t really into skydiving.
While going to Nouvel Air, I made a stop to have coffee and think
about what was best for me. While looking at the paper, I read a quote
by Nicholas Macrozo who belongs to the world of Canadian athletics:
“Sornetimes, you have ta take a step back in order to take two forward.”
I had just found my answer. I was stopping everything for now. My
solution was to go to a vertical wind tunnel.

On three occasions I found myself in the New Hampshire wind
tunnel with amazing instructors from Nouvel Air (Martin and Vincent
Lemay and Mario Prévost). Results followed one progress after another.
This past 16th of July, Solo certified, I was flying on my own in
Farnham’s sky.
From the time I made the decision to go on a tandem up until my
Solo certification, my journey had faced obstacles. Fortunately, the main
difficulties were encountered during the winter. Before the tandem,
I had a crow’s-foot tendonitis, the following year, surgery on the big
toe, and to top it off, last winter, tendonitis in both shoulders, I didn ‘t
find that one funny… With perseverance and hard work, I was able to
get back into shape. What is marvelous is that my physical condition is
better than it ever was.

Skydiving for me is to be in a new dimension: feeling of freedom,
of space around oneself, feeling the control of my body on the air.
While being safe, it’s the search for new feats. To fly off into this bluish
dimension is pure pleasure.

Presently, my objective is to continue having fun while progressing.
Who knows, maybe the A license? Only the future will tell.
I am proud to be a new skydiver in her early fifties. It’s the
achievement of a dream and a big challenge. I just had to believe in it
and face the encountered obstacles and provide the necessary energies.
My motto: “The only challenges lost ahead of time are the ones not
taken up. There wouldn’t be anything worse than to resign to defeat
without finally having tempted to be victorious”.

Hey guys! Quick update while I have time between classes -

This weekend is quickly approaching, and I’m extremely excited about it. Basically the University of Minnesota Skydiving Club is headed out to Skydive Twin Cities in Baldwin, Wisconsin for a day like no other. We’ve succesfully signed up over 80 tandem first-jumpers from the U of M! We weren’t expecting this many people at all, but I’m super pumped.

This club has also afforded me the opportunity to meet some awesome new people. Kaleb Lommen, our club president, introduced me to a bunch of his friends (and coworkers) from Skydive Twin Cities – many of whom have thousands of jumps and hold high ratings within the USPA. Hopefully I’ll be able to probe their minds a bit and find some pieces of skydiving wisdom, as well as improve my overall skydiving career.

So I know it’s the end of the season for most of us. Anyone jumping during the winter? Making any trips to the tunnel or maybe a BASE expedition? I’d love to hear about it!

So it’s nearly the end of the season in Quebec and in most places actually…
Although there’s still a couple of weeks left to the season, it’s over for me at this point.

I ended it with a bang though, got my first helicopter jump done (4000 feet).
And yes, I bought beer… And rum actually haha.

To give some of you a quick description of what it’s like to do a heli jump as opposed to a normal skydive from a plane, when you jump from the chopper, you’re getting off out of a vehicle that’s barely moving, so you actually get that feeling that you’re falling at first. When you jump off a plane, the plane’s moving at about 80 mph, so when you jump, there’s wind pushing you in some direction, the wind you’re feeling (Called relative wind) starts off on the side (opposite direction that the plane is moving in) and ends up in front of you (you’re falling down, wind seems to be blowing up)

I don’t know why for certain, but, once you’re actually in the relative wind, you don’t feel yourself falling, you feel as if you’re static in one place.
With the helicopter jump, you feel yourself falling until you’ve accelerated enough to reach a speed at which you once again feel motionless.
It’s quite the similar feeling to a bungee jump.
Base jumping is also the same feeling as this.
It’s something I’d do again, but it’s not that high on my priority list…

Blue ones everyone!
-Adam

As a follow-up to my post My original plan for this year… My actual results

I’m now at 62 jumps, I’ve spent about 5000$ on the sport (not counting the 1750$ for the solo course, the 350$ for the jump suit, the 280$ for my protrack, 260$ for my full face, my 100$ for my Altimaster II or the 1200$ spent going to Florida to take that solo course)

I’ve just passed my B license, (Yes, Got my B 15 jumps after passing my A).
I’ve not only passed the B license exam… I got 96.25% on it… According to my DZO, it’s the highest grade he’s ever seen =D.

I now have an altimaster II galaxy altimeter, a tony suits jump suit, a protrack audible, a factory diver full face, a packing tool and a huge smile on my face.

I did however decide to slow down on the purchases and decided not to buy a rig this year.
I’m going to start paying off some debts for now and maybe buy one next year.

As it stands, I’ve now surpassed my 2 year goal on the sport haha.

Next step: Coach 1 lessons and maybe Rigger A.

Sydney, Ashley’s Life twin, and one of my recent new acquaintances wrote a letter to our beloved sport… I know exactly where she’s coming from, and I felt that this deserved a re-post… Check out her blog here

Dear Skydiving,

I’m going to tell you a little bit about me.

You know when you get to that place with something new in your life where you kinda shock yourself by how full-steam-ahead you’ve been approaching things? I’ve been there. A lot. It happened with rowing when I jacked up my hip flexor and was out for the rest of the season. It happened when I packed up my car to move to Chicago because, holy shit, this was actually happening. And it totally happened this weekend with us. I was sitting down at a picnic table and heard something about people going back to school. And then it hit me: um, hello August, nice to see you.

So after ground school in June, you took me by the hand and were all “hi Sydney, I’m your new life, let’s do this” and away we went. I haven’t really looked back since I started AFF. Cue my state of shock.

People are starting to talk about their plans for the winter. Which is totally exciting (for them) but makes me totally nervous about what’s going to happen in a couple months when season here wraps up. Nervous mostly because everything that every skydiver has said would happen once I decide that I’m straight up and down batshit crazy about this sport has happened. You’re addicting and I love pretty much everything about you. If it was actually possible, I’d just have my paycheck direct deposited into my account at the drop zone because that is where all of my money goes anyway. And, I’m okay with all of that. Every last bit of it.

But when we get back to the state of shock stuff, historically, in my little world, I’ve dealt with it in one of two ways.

One, I can keep going full steam ahead. In the instance of rowing, I didn’t have this option, my fate was decided for me. In the instance of skydiving, I can keep going. Keep jumping. Keep spending every waking minute between closing time on Friday and the morning drive on Monday at the drop zone, soaking it all in. Breathing in the culture, the people, the lifestyle, the group of people that have started to become my second family. I can keep going at the pace I have, try to turn off my brain about what happens in two months, and just LIVE. Continue to dive (ew, pun) head first into what is single-handedly the best thing to happen to me in a long time. Continue to fall in love with you, and do so with no reins, love this sport like I love anything that I really set my mind to, and figure out the rest when it happens.

Or, option two, I can start to reel it in. I hate this option. This turns into the battle of what my brain thinks is right vs. what my heart says is right. If I know that everything is going to shut down once the hangar closes for the winter, shouldn’t I start preparing myself for that? Shouldn’t I try to start weaning myself off of that lifestyle so it isn’t a complete and total shit show in my brain when I actually have to stay in Chicago on the weekends? Which, side note, I’m definitely not complaining about staying in Chicago, because it’s one of the greatest cities on the planet, but yeah, you know what I mean. The reeling it in option sucks because I’m cheating myself out of two months of awesome. The reeling it in option is usually the one I’ve gone with because I don’t want to deal with the aftermath.

So, skydiving, a couple questions. What do we do once things shut down? Do I chalk this up to the best summer ever and we’ll revisit when season rolls back around, rinse and repeat? Should I save money to plan winter skydiving trips so we can keep this thing alive? I’m new at this, fresh off of student status. What’s the procedure here?

hearts and sparkles,
Sydney

- Original post

5 dumb things every skydiver will do at least once, in absolutely no order whatsoever.

1. Go up without gear.

It’s gonna happen at some point or another. You’ll be rushing to get on the next load and then next thing you know, no altimeter, no gloves, no helmet or goggles. At this point you have two options. You can either ride the plane back down, and pay for a plane ride, or throw your ass outta the plane. Depending on what you forgot, it may or may not be a big issue. Key thought – take the plane ride option if you forgot your rig entirely, dumbass.

2. Walk over someone’s lines while they are packing.

Apologize profusely, and bring a case of beer next week.

3. Cutaway

Another fact of skydiving life. That’s why every time you go up in the load you should practice pulling your handles. Do it however you were taught, and never forget where your handles are. Remember in an emergency, there are only two things that will save your ass – yourself, and your AAD. Make sure both are in jumping condition BEFORE you go up. Hopefully, you have nice friends and they’ll spot your malfunctioned main for you. If not, it’s time to find some new friends. PS – buy your beer.

4. Make a bad spot.

There are two simple ways to tell if this has happened, first – “If the door is closed, you’re hosed.” Ever look back and see the door of the plane shut when you know jumpers haven’t gotten out yet? Yeah, nice spot Sherlock. Wave off ASAP, and limp back at half brakes.
Ever go out on an RW jump and see that it’s 7000 feet, and everybody is gone? Oops, hope you make it back… No? Oh well, at least you’ll never forget the feeling of corn cobs smashing into your face as you’re landing in a field. Trust me – that shit hurts.

5. Try to stand up a landing that you should just slide/PLF.

You know it’s coming, maybe you’re slightly crosswind on your landing, or maybe your swoop is just a little fast. Odds are you’re wearing your brand-new white jumpsuit too. You don’t want to get it dirty, so you decide to try and run it off. Bad choice. At best you trip and fall, and ride it out on your knees. At worst, you break a few bones. Either way – your new jumpsuit has grass stains, and you still look dumb. Save the trouble. “If you’re not going to stand it up, don’t try to stand it up.” is a quote from an instructor that comes to mind.

This is just a small list to get everyone started, what do you guys think? Any other dumb things that all skydivers will end up doing at least once?

Let’s get real here for a moment…like really, real.

I love skydiving – for obvious reasons.

I love social media – mostly because I work in this space all day and see the benefits, like keeping up on the latest information, staying in touch with friends, getting updates on products and services you enjoy.

I also hate social media. (Don’t worry, I’m not about to say I hate skydiving…not in the slightest. ) Social media has done things to our society that I fear can’t be undone. Sure, we’re more connected than ever before, but I also believe we’re more lonely than we’ve ever been. Our idea of “community” has been altered. We’re walking down a path that’s slowly putting us out of touch with our humanity (yes, Weeds fans, I did steal that line from the show, but it’s true)!

What’s more is that it’s making us passive aggressive individuals. Instead of talking to people in person or taking someone aside to chat about an issue, we’re publicly calling people out. I’m seeing this more and more with skydiving related topics as well.

In the last week I’ve seen skydivers who have posted about switching from RW to freefly, another who posted about downsizing (which is always a hot topic and everyone has their opinions), and subsequently, I’ve seen “friends” of theirs put them on the spot with things like “you shouldn’t do that, you’ll get hurt,” or “you’re too inexperienced,” or “are you sure about that?”

All this does is put people on the defensive – after all, they were just called out in front of their friends and families in one of the most populated social media communities.

Thing is, I really don’t believe the people who are making these passive attacks see it this way. It’s genuine concern most of the time – which we as skydivers truly love! But if you take a step back and look at how these very public comments come across, the potential outcome probably isn’t what was intended. Think about it, if you were at the DZ, instead of online, would you stand up on the picnic table and yell to the guy who is talking to his instructor about freeflying, “hey, you shouldn’t do that, you’re not proficient on your belly yet, you’ll get hurt, or worse, you’ll hurt someone else!”

Of course not! That would embarrass them, and possibly even make you look like a jerk. Instead, you’d have a personal conversation to express your concern for that person and those with whom they share the sky. That’s just common decency…isn’t it?

As a skydiver, I love having the ability to use social media (such as Facebook and Twitter) to keep up with things that are going on in the industry – updates from USPA, manufacturers like PD and Infinity, getting links to the latest blog posts – and staying updated on my jumping buddies, where they’re headed for the weekend, staying in touch with those I’ve met in my travels, but when I see skydivers who have to get defensive because of someone who didn’t stop to think of the outcomes of a comment they could have sent privately, that starts to make me question how great these tools are after all.

Now don’t get me wrong here, this isn’t an attack on anyone who may have done something similar in the past. I believe everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise, so I truly believe that most of these comments are not meant to publicly humiliate other jumpers, or to try to put someone in their place for the purpose of making them feel bad. That’s just not skydiver nature, as far as I’m concerned. We jump together, we beer together (yes, beer can be a verb), we chill around the bonfire together…hell, we do just about everything but sing Kumbaya together at the end of a great day of skydiving. Well, maybe if we’ve had enough of that beer I was referring to, but that’s an entirely different topic altogether.

Point being, I do honestly believe that everyone has the best of intentions in this sport, and those that don’t are quick to be outed by their own behavior. I blame social media for our ability to post anything and everything online and not think for a second that there’s anything wrong with that. But when it involves someone else, that’s when I think it’s time to take an extra second to review how your words could be perceived.

In the end, we’re all here to help each other out. So to the defenders: stop being so sensitive…they likely didn’t mean anything by it. It’s your decision if you want to freefly or downsize or BASE jump or whatever. Just make sure you’re being smart about it. To the antagonists: you’re probably not how your comments make you seem, you’re likely just concerned, but be sure it’s coming off that way, and not as “you’re an idiot, I’m smarter than you and a better skydiver than you so you better listen to me and so should all your friends who will see this post too.”

But then again, this is just my advice, which, given that this is a social media platform, could very well be taken as “skygod-ish” itself.  Though I promise you, that is not my intent. From one skydiving, social media user to another….

Blue skies!

Ashley

Well, as far as I’ve been able to read, as it stand, Lance has got it way better than I do in Canada…

A jump ticket here is 35$ Canadian (34$ us give or take)
Packing is only 6$ though. So if you have your own rig, it’s 41$ if you have your rig packed. Add another 30$ if you rent a rig.
It’s July, I’ve done 2 jumps this month so far, (Not kidding)
I’ve done 48 overall this year, 10 of which were my AFF, 10 were my RW course, 2 were with camera men to film my “flip” attempts and the rest fun jumps and have easily spent 6000$ so far… This doesn’t include buying a jumpsuit or helmet.

As it stands, my money can go much farther in Lodi California than it can here or in South Africa, but it’ll cost me a fortune to go there in the 1st place. (In Lodi it’s about 9$ a jump+ packing) But given the choice, I’d rather jump in South Africa… Lodi isn’t exactly the nicest looking part of the world.

As for wing loading, the DZs here don’t limit you with anything, they just want to make sure you’re comfortable jumping with whatever loading you choose.
Right now, I’m jumping a 1.16 loading and am looking at downsizing to 1.32 by the time I buy my rig next april (We can’t jump in the winter, so it’ll be the equivalent of downsizing in October).

So I stick to my grounds on saying that SA’s got it somewhat better

Then again, I’m not really sure of the average income/cost of living there though but judging from all the “sponsor a child in Africa” commercials, I guess I can see why it’s not affordable for most people.

Fill me in Lance!
- Adam

Right – I guess I should start off with describing how EXPENSIVE skydiving is here in relation to the general income (I’ll try make this as easy to understand as possible).

Skydiving in South Africa has unfortunately reached a point where it is reserved for professionals. I am sure not why this is, but it a major factor behind skydiving here not being as accessible as it is in the rest of the world.

To put it in context – A jump ticket cost me R200 (roughly $26.50), gear hire and packing – $9.90 each jump. Considering I normally take home around $2000 per month after TAX (Which in Rands is a fairly decent salary).

So – By the time I pay for my car, rent, food, cell phone  etc, I am usually left with around $260 to jump with

I can’t really compare the cost side of things to the US as I don’t know how much it costs relative to the average salary, however – In South Africa, jumping is out of reach for the general public

Other than the costs involved, Jumping in South Africa is pretty much the same as anywhere else in the world, just on a smaller scale. We only have about 6 Drop Zones in the whole country, but I plan to jump at all of them

As for BEER FINES, yes – we have them but on a smaller scale. For passing my AFF progression, I was rewarded with having to buy a case of beer, and while everyone sits around drinking my beer, they laugh at all my AFF videos. I then had to tell a story that begins with “Oh SHIT, there I was – I thought I was going to die…(insert story here )”  Then had to down a beer within 5 seconds, and if you don’t finish it – pour it on your head. Haha – Good Times!

For our “Firsts”, we have to do down-downs, not buy cases of beer – This suits me just fine because two cases of beer is equivalent to one jump ticket, and I’m sure everyone knows – when you first get into the sport, there are A LOT of firsts!

Things are looking very promising for the skydiving future of South Africa as; recently a very wealthy business man decided to invest in uplifting the sport. So far he has built and upgraded various drop zones around the country, bought 6 ex South African Air force planes (Previously known as Atlas Kudu’s) and is currently in the process of having them all converted to turbine engines. The first three have been rolled out (My DZ currently has one). These are now called Atlas Angels and have a wicked paint job . The idea is that once all 6 have been converted, 5 drop zones will each have one and there will be a spare for when one goes in for a service! I love these planes – it takes just 12 minutes from take-off to 12 000ft, and about the same time back to the end of the run way.

Although the Angels only hold 9 skydivers, they are normally on their way back up with load 2 by the time the tandems from load 1 are landing

See below pic’s of my favourite jump ship

One thing I love (Especially now being winter here), from about 7 000ft and up the view is amazing! To the right of the plane, we can see the Drakensburg Mountains, covered with snow, and to the left, we see the entire Durban coast line and even the arch of our new stadium!

Those are the main differences that I know of – the only other minor difference is: Here, the maximum wing loading for a “Beginner / intermediate” skydiver is 1.0 as opposed to the 1.1 in the US, not a huge difference, but for me – it’s the difference between being able to fly a 170 vs. a 150. Meaning that now (Because I’m in the process of buying my FIRST rig) I have to buy a 150 canopy, and look at it in the cupboard while I jump a 170 till I get my B-License as the 150 is going for a great price and don’t want to lose out!

I haven’t been able to jump anywhere other than in South Africa, so I’m just going on what I’ve read. Please feel free to add a comment if there is anything specific that you would like to know about.

Blue skies everyone and happy days!

Hi everyone,

I thought it best to introduce myself…

Hi, my name is Lance, and I’m a skydiving addict! It’s been exactly 2 days and 19 hours since my last fix and I’m getting serious withdrawal’s – I like to call this “Altitude Sickness”

I live and jump in Durban, South Africa and needless to say, skydiving here is not quite what it is in the US and the rest of the world. Yes – It IS as awesome and as addictive as it is everywhere else in the world, but it is not as “Big” here as it is everywhere else…but hey – that just means I can get on more loads!

I’ve currently only got 39 jumps under my belt and am about to start (this weekend) my free fly training for my CAT II & III (Super excited).

I guess you could say that skydiving is in my blood – My parents actually met skydiving in Ohio, although my mom decided it wasn’t for her after landing in a tree, my dad went on to do 600 odd jumps and get his D-License.

I am very grateful to my dad for marrying a US Citizen, because it means that I am also a US citizen which would allow me to travel and jump in the USA without having to worry about visa’s THANKS DAD!

I love skydiving life! Skydiving has completely taken over my world and only skydivers ACTUALLY understand how addictive it is, and why it’s pretty much the only thing I talk about!

Anyway, I am very excited about being able to write for Skydive Addiction and give my insight into the skydiving life in my part of the world.

Blue Skies everyone and happy days!