Did you know, that you can jump out of planes totally by yourself after managing only 7 jumps?
Assuming you ever wanted to do that.
Being a Skydiver for over 4 years now i realized, that so many people still think it takes forever to get a skydive licence.
But there´s a thing called AFF-Course or AFF-Training. (Acclerated Free Fall)
I hope I can inspire a few people to try it out, because it changed my life and I want it to communicate to others.
From the first jump on, you have your own gear, own parachute, own harness and leave the plane with two Instructors who take care of you.
First you start off with 1 1/2 days of ground school, learning all the theory,
how to fall the right way, what to do if your parachute doesn´t open correctly aso.
After that you feel prepared for everything that might happen and you can start with your first jump.
The procedure before every jump is always the same.
You start with a briefing, your AFF-Teacher tells you what to do before and during freefall,
you can ask him every questions that seems important to know
and if you feel ready you start with putting on your gear.
Within an AFF-Course you get all your gear you need from your dropzone.
That contains harness, altimeter, helmet, jumpsuit and goggles. (works best in another order)
Before entering the plane your gear gets checked.
While the plane is ascending to 4000m or 12000ft the teacher will go through the whole jump again,
to ensure you can still think properly (because at this point you´ll be excited as fuck)
and will check your gear again for safety reasons.
Until this point, all the jumps will be similar, but now comes the thrilling part.
Jump 1 (2 teachers)
The Plane reached 4000m, you and your two teachers walk to the door,
one in the plane, one on the outside and you´re in the middle of the open door.
You look to the teacher inside screaming CHECK IN! - If everythings fine,
the teacher will confirm, you scream to the other teacher CHECK OUT and he´ll confirm as well.
To start the "exit sequence", you move your upper body up, down and when you go up again,
you and your two teachers will leave the plane simultaneously, hitting the air with almost 200km/h.
You have to be aware of your altitude, tell your teachers the altitude you read from your altimeter,
try to get into a stable body position und reach your hand to your deployment handle 3 times.
At 1700m you wave off and deploy your parachute.
Jump 2 (2 teachers)
Go to the door, CHECK IN / CHECK OUT, up - down - out.
Reach for your deployment handle 2 times, check height, look to your left teacher, he´ll most likely give you a thumbs up.
Now you rotate 90° left, stop the rotation, 90° right, stop the rotation, wave off, pull.
Jump 3 (2 teachers)
Check, check, up - down- out.
Reach for your handle once, concentrate on your body position.
The teachers will let go of you if they think you are stable as long as you are stable.
If you are stable, you are ready for jump 4.
Jump 4 (1 teacher)
Now with only one teacher remaining you only have to scream CHECK OUT once (because the teacher will be outside...)
up - down - out, the teacher will stabilize you for a moment and then let go.
You rotate 90° left, 90° right and repeat until it´s time to pull.
Some students and by some I mean a lot start to rotate and never stop.
If you did that -> rejump, if you did not you can continue.
Jump 5 (1 teacher)
360 time!
Now you leave the plane without being grabbed by the teacher (sounds weird), but now you have to get stable on your own.
Rotate 360° left and 360° right, done that? Awesome, you unlocked level 6.
Note:" Even if I don´t mind it every time, you should deploy you parachute... every.... time".
Jump 6 (1 teacher)
Leave the plane like in jump 5, but this time you do a flip!
It´s not about the flip, how good or bad it is, it´s all about becoming stable after being
very unstable.
After the flip you rotate 360° left and right and if you have enough time you can do a track.
Tracking means putting the arms back, making a forward movement with your arms used as wings.
Jump 7 (1 teacher)
What to do now? It´s kinda like a surprise jump, it differs from teacher to teacher.
In my case I did a flip with a few rotations and tracking.
That´s about it, the most important thing your instructors want to see, is that you can get stable
no matter what you do and that you can safely open your parachute.
If you do something hardly wrong you have to do a rejump, but if you manage to pass all jumps first try,
you can go for your first free solo jump within only 7 jumps in total.
It means you are still a student, but now you can grab your gear and hop all by your own out of a plane :)
If you´re good, you need about 22 jumps until you can do your licence jump.
With 2-3 jumps a day as a student, you can become a skydiver within 2 weeks.
Btw: you have a walkie talkie with you and the instructors tell you what to do once your parachute is open.
The beginners parachutes are insanely large and super slow, so you don´t have to worry about landings.
Of course if you don´t pull, start to spin, become unconscious etc. the teachers will help you alle the time.
You have a reserve parachute and a device that opens the parachute automatically at low altitude if you
can´t pull your chute for various reasons.
Dropzones are everywhere and almost all of them offer AFF-Courses.
I hope this was kinda interesting to read, here is a video of me doing my 7 jumps I made a few years ago.
If you have questions about getting into skydive, you can ask my anything.
