How to Skydive Well
Anybody that has come across skydiving at anytime will be only too aware of all the myths surrounding this pastime. Here we will attempt to prove or dispel these myths once and for all.
1. It is impossible to breathe when you are skydiving.
This is without a shadow of a doubt one of the biggest myth of all when it comes to skydiving. Of course there is no truth whatsoever in this, otherwise everybody that goes skydiving is surely jumping to their death. If you cannot breathe when skydiving then you would become unconscious. If this were to be the case then how would you manage to open your parachute safely and of course how would you land?
2. You can still talk to each other whilst you are skydiving.
Because of the wind that rushes past you whilst you are skydiving it is almost impossible for you to hear anything. Therefore this is another myth, and this has been brought about mainly due to the portrayal of skydiving in the movies because of the fact that you cannot hear anything whilst skydiving. The skydivers communicate by hand movements.
3. Holding on to someone who has a parachute will save you if you do not have one, or yours fails.
Again this has probably come about due to the influence of heroes in the movies. There is no way to say with any guarantee that this is in fact true. It may have occurred in the past but this is not to say that it will always happen.
4. Free falling can last around 5 minutes.
You would have to have jumped out of your plane at around 60,000 feet to get anywhere near that amount of free fall time. A typical time scale would normally be around the 40 second mark, before you would have to open your parachute.
5. My parachute will definitely not open when I jump.
This will probably be the greatest fear of anybody that has even considered taking up skydiving. Yes there are a lot of deaths and accidents associated with skydiving, but most of these are generally put down to misjudgements or being ill prepared for the actual jump, the truth of the matter is that parachutes today are practically as failsafe as they can possibly be.
