rec.skydiving FAQ

This document contains a list of Frequently Asked Questions (and their answers) about skydiving, learning to skydive, and the newsgroup rec.skydiving. It should be read by anyone interested in the sport of skydiving and prior to posting on rec.skydiving.

PARACHUTE : An aerodynamic deceleration device.
(Federal Aviation Administration)

This posting constitutes a dynamic compilation of Frequently Asked Questions concerning the sport of skydiving, related activities, and the news group rec.skydiving. It is posted on or about the second and fourth Mondays of every month.

Additions, corrections, or suggestions can be posted or emailed to the current maintainer, Barry Brumitt, belboz@frc2.frc.ri.cmu.edu. The original version was written by Jerry Sobieski, jerrys@umiacs.umd.edu, who is currently too busy to maintain it.

First, the news group rec.skydiving is an unmoderated group for the discussion of issues relating to sport skydiving. It obviously is not limited to skydiving as there are many sports that share technology, history, common interests, and avid proponents; but these tend to be minor distractions for the hard core jumper :-). News or events to be held, or post-event reviews are commonly posted, as are questions about equipment, skills, regulations, theory, etc. And plain ol' reminiscing over "the good ol' days" by the old timers, and long exuberant descriptions of newcomer's first jumps are posted here as well.

Skydiving is not just a sport, it's a lifestyle (not to be confused with bungee jumping which is just a sport :-).

It seems there are a great many new readers every year of rec.skydiving, many of which stumbled across it and found it interesting but have never jumped. After a time, they seem to always ask the same questions. So in an effort to promote the sport, minimize redundant postings, and in general continue the camaraderie of fellow free spirits here is now the "Rec.Skydiving F.A.Q. Sheet". If your question is not answered in this document, please feel free to post it to the net. If we get tired of answering it (:-), we'll append it to the FAQ sheet. The information disseminated in this FAQ sheet is generally related to the sport within the United States. However, much of the information is applicable world-wide as well. If you need specifics for a given geographical area, post it. Someone from that region can then reply.

The questions are not ordered in their "asking frequency". Instead, I have tried to order them so as to provide the information in a more easily understood manner.