A little over 2 years ago I had a "once in a lifetime experience"
It was a 40th birthday present for my wife. She wanted to do something really crazy for the big 4-0.
We both did tandem skydives.
It was pretty cool!
Afterwards they handed us log books and said 'hey you can learn how to do this too!'
So we went back a couple of weeks later for ground school/first jump course with their instructors. We learned safety procedures, how to navigate the parachute after it opens and how to land safely.
The drop zone we started at teaches Static Line so our first few solo jumps were at low altitude with a line attached to the plane that opened the parachute for us as we jumped out. Then we had to make our way back to the airport and land.
Training stalled a little due to work commitments and the airport shutting down for 2 summers in a row for construction but we went back in the spring for refresher training each spring and at least got a couple of jumps in.
This summer we were determined and when the airport was closed again we emailed another local drop zone that did a slightly different training method - Accelerated Free Fall (AFF). They were super chill and accommodating and worked with what we had learned so far and transferred to their program. This program brings you to full altitude and sends you out with 2 instructors who basically manhandle you into proper position and get you learning freefall skills and make sure you can pull your own pilot chute or pull it for you if you spaz out and forget. Thankfully with our earlier training we were familiar with the equipment and how to pull but the freefall techniques were all new.
After a couple of AFF jumps with instructors we were moving onto the fun stuff. Flips! Barrel Rolls! Docking!
We went back almost every weekend this summer and now that we had regular work schedules and 3 day weekends we were racking up the jumps and getting close to the 25 needed to be licensed.
After a few more coach jumps, a check jump with an instructor and an online test and we got our A Licenses a couple of weeks ago! It's been really exciting and everyone we've met has been so chill.
