PARACHUTING

There has been an increase in the popularity of parachuting among people who want to take up a sport in recent years. Parachuting can be learnt at a parachute club. The training is extremely strict. Normally, the instructor makes sure that the beginner has learnt and understood everything before the jump since it can be deadly.

Like all parachutists, the beginner must wear two parachutes- a main one on the back and a smaller reserve one on the front. Trainee parachutists do not open their parachutes themselves. By law, they have to make their first six descents using a parachute opened automatically by a 15-foot nylon static line fixed to the airplane. It takes about 2.7 seconds for the jumper’s weight to pull on the line, and therefore open the parachute.

Trainees are taught how to ‘spread-eagle’, to lie stomach down and stretch their arms and legs out in the air to slow down their fall. In this way, they descend at about 120miles per hour before the parachute opens, whereas an experienced sky-diver, descending head first, can travel over 200mph. Novices jump from a height of about 2500 feet, while experienced freefallers may jump from well over 7000 feet, waiting until they are within 2000 feet off the ground before pulling the ripcord to open their parachutes.