Skydiving


 * This article is about a recreational activity. For the Bulgarian suicide method, see Sky Diving.



Skydiving involves jumping out of an airplane, parachuting to the ground, and not breaking your femur when you land. Participants include men with big penises, and women who enjoy being the center of attention, surrounded by men with big penises.

Equipment
Assuming they want to survive the landing and jump again, every skydiver must use a parachute. Most usually jump out of an aeroplane usually either in flight (as opposed to just sitting on the ground) or an aircraft that very very recently WAS in flight, before it started to plummet from the sky in smoke and flames. It's a good idea to jump from a sufficient altitude to allow the parachute to inflate and slow the terrifying headlong fall to certain death. Some skydivers also jump tall buildings, high bridges, large cliffs, small dogs, naked people, clothed people -- heck, skydivers will jump anything, let's face it. They are horny, oversexed hedonists who can't be trusted with anything that has holes in it.

Common sense would dictate that a larger parachute would be safer, and this is, in fact, the case. Larger parachutes are slower and more docile, greatly reducing the risk of injury. But, since skydivers are generally not admired for their common sense, most skydivers choose to jump very very small parachutes, often called "canopies," that are very fast, highly maneuverable, and very likely going to hurt someone in a spectacular life-threatening impact that will probably be videoed and posted on YouTube within days. It's a fact in skydiving that the smaller your parachute, the larger your penis. So ladies, next time you see a guy land a parachute the size of a beach towel, you know he's packing.

Modern parachutes, made of synthetic nylon and a host of high-tech materials are much more reliable than the old 'round' silk parachtes of yesteryear. In fact, they are much too reliable for the serious skydiver seeking to risk life and limb in an adrenaline-enhancing plunge to earth, so many continue to experiment with new designs that can increase the sense of sudden fright and unexpected terror once so common in the sport. Two such parachutes are worn: a main parachute designed to be as difficult to pack up as possible and to open inconsistently, giving the modern jumper the same feeling of dread and uncertainty as in the old days; and the reserve parachute, designed to support professional parachute packers, known as 'riggers' (as in "this raw deal must be rigged somehow") who claim with a straight face that the reserve chute must be repacked, used or not, every 6 months for a handsome fee.

The safest parachutes are made by Strong Enterprises -- they are perfectly safe and well designed by Ted Strong. A Strong parachute is well made, designed to last and will never be subject to a safety recall ever. A skydiver is much less likely to die from gear design flaws and deterioration if they use a parachute made by Strong.

Unsafe gear is made by Sun Path, such as their Javelin "death trap" Odyssey. Micron, Wings, Icon, Velocity and Mirage parachute gear is also considered to be unsafe and much more likely to kill the jumper without even swooping.

Most beginning skydivers carry an altimeter, or height gauge, which tells them how far above the hard, unforgiving ground they are. It is usually mounted on the wrist. Most experienced skydivers however, 'eyeball' it, because they are too cool to be wearing what looks like a goofy wrist watch.

Helmets are also commonly worn, much to the bafflement of onlookers wondering what good they will do, not realizing how important the helmets are in keeping the head sweaty and the hair matted firmly to the skull, giving skydivers that coveted "helmet head" hairdo.

A special, custom fitted jumpsuit helps keep the otherwise flailing body in control while in freefall. Most skydivers wear brightly coloured jumpsuits, often evoking comparisons to "Gay Power Rangers", so they can be easily seen and can show off how bad ass they are, unless they are skydiving naked -- a not uncommon practice (see above). Despite the bright colours of their jumpsuits, skydivers should not be confused with the Houston Astros of the 1970s

Some skydivers also mortgage their homes to purchase an expensive, electronic "automatic activation device" costing thousands of dollars and designed to support the companies that manufacture them by bilking customers out of hundreds of dollars every few years to replace the expensive batteries, inspect the units and declare them out of date every 12 years, forcing the customers to purchase brand new units that will accidentally deploy the reserve parachute into the perfectly good main parachute, causing them to entangle and collapse, giving the skydiver that wonderful old sense of sudden fright and unexpected terror as they plummet to their death.

Aircraft
Skydiving generally takes place from an aircraft missing a large, secure door that is flying up in the sky, or one that is quickly disintegrating as it hurtles to the ground in a burning, twisting hulk of sheared metal and smoking debris. Some of the more common skydiving planes are old, beat-up Cesna 182s, long-neglected and poorly maintained Twin Otters, perfectly good King Airs that fly contraband below radar when they aren't hauling jumpers, and ancient Beech 18s that nobody else will dare fly.

Planes must be certified for recreational parachuting. This involves thouroughly trashing the interior, installing a kick-ass stero system and speakers, chipping away most of the paint, removing all the seats if there are any, and bolting seatbelts to the bare floor which the FAA mandates must be worn so as to give skydivers a false sense of security should the pilot elect to crash the aircraft on takeoff.

In general, to be certified for parachuting, the planes are made as uncomfortable to sit in as possible, and as slow to climb without raising suspecion so that skydivers will be encouraged to jump out of the airplane rather than endure riding in it a minute longer.

Disciplines
Skydiving is a great sport with many disciplines and skills to master. In reality, they are all just variations of what we call 'falling'. Falling right side up is counted as a completely separate discipline than falling upside down. Many skydivers like to pretend they are sitting in an invisible chair while falling, and have very active imaginations! The most popular disciplines include formation skydiving (also known as relative work), Canopy Formation (also known as Canopy Relative Work, or CReW), and Freeflying (but actually costing just as much as regular skydiving)

Formation Skydiving Formation Skydiving is the carefully planned art of falling out of an aeroplane while holding onto someone else. While this might seem an obvious and intuitive thing to do, given the terrifying nature of the activity, in practice its is quite hard to accomplish. Skydivers carefully rehearse the dive on the ground before attempting it in the air, in a pre-jump ritual known as dirt diving -- no kidding. Intricate, beautiful patterns, or formations, are meticulously choreographed and practiced, with each jumper given a slot, an assigned grip point and designated orientation in mid-air. Each completed formation is called a 'point.' Once in the plane and over the jump spot, the skydivers huddle together in the open door, fighting the blistering wind, clutching onto each other for dear life as they tumble out the aircraft in a spinning, rolling mass of humanity before being quickly flung apart, bodies flying uncontrollably in every direction. Most usually regain consciousness in time to deploy their parachutes before cratering into the ground.

Canopy Formation Skydivers too scared to experience the horrors of free-fall often deploy their parachutes just as soon as they can after leaving the aircraft, and instead substitute the insanity of flying their parachutes into each other. If the hapless jumper manages to grab hold of some part of the other jumper's equipment, body or whatever, and if the canopies do not wrap themselves up into a tangled, spinning pin-wheel, nor rip themselves into shreds of worthless fabric, and if the suspension lines do not cut the jumpers in half or strip their skin clean to the bones, as they so often want to do, and if the canopies somehow miraculously stay inflated and flying in more or less the same direction, the resulting collision is called a canopy formation.... which then may wrap up into a nasty mess killing everybody involved.

Freeflying Skydivers unable to fall stable relative to the earth, instead cartwheeling about, head down, feet first, on their backs, careening about the sky, narrowly missing other unstable jumpers, and often reaching blazing speeds of several hundreds of miles per hour as they scream (sometimes literally) straight down out of the cold sky are engaging in the discipline of "Freeflying"

Wingsuit Skydivers not satisfied with the obvious level of risk of mailfunctioning parachute equipment. They put on a winged suit that restricts their arm and leg movement effectively hindering their ability to deal with mailfunctions. First they have to unzip and "get out". The winged jumpers soar happily on the winds like eagles, each of them convinced by the hopless idea that if the parachute equipment fails completely then they can just "glide if of" as their wings can lower the vertical speed to 30mph - while the horizontal speed of 150 mph is just considered a minor problem.

Other Disciplines There are many other aspects and areas of specialization in the sport, including Accuracy, where jumpers compete to see how far they miss landing on a target, Swooping where jumpers perform low; sharp turns close to the ground and compete to see how long a trench they can dig with their toes as they plough into the earth tumbling, rolling or splatting upon impact, Skysurfing, where especially narcissistic jumpers who imagine themselves to be comic book super heroes convince gullible friends to jump with them and take their picture as they spin wildly out of control with their legs tightly locked in place to a rigid board, and Drinking easily the most common and popular activity, where jumpers replenish their courage and fortitude for the next day's bold assault on the heavens.