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To make your first jump, you have to choose one of three alternatives: AFF (Accelerated Free Fall), SL (Static Line), or Tandem. Jumptown only offers AFF and Tandem instruction. You then find out the dates for a first jump course in the discipline you are looking at. A good place to look for that is the News section of this page. Static Line and AFF require a specific first jump training course, but tandems can do their first jump anytime. Sometimes part of the ground training of the AFF first jump course is taught here at MIT, and sometimes you have to go to the dropzone for the whole thing. Check the News. Once you have that down, you'll need to get in touch with either the club officers, or the dropzone personnel to reserve your place. They will ask you for a $50 deposit to hold your spot. Experience shows that those who have shelled out fifty clams beforehand are less likely to chicken out. Many people say they want to skydive, and go their whole lives with out ever jumping. They keep putting it off and saying "ok, next weekend I'll go for sure." Don't be one of these people. They aren't having nearly as much fun. Pick a date, put down your deposit and you'll find your self staring out the open door of a DeHavilland Twin Otter, with a parachute strapped to your back in no time! When the day comes you go down to the dropzone and have a good time. To get there, you can either drive or you can email dzrides@mit to see if anyone is going and hitch a ride with them. There is also a Liability Waiver.
AFF stands for Accelerated Free Fall. It is now the most popular way to learn to skydive. AFF is divided into 8 categories, each with a set of checkpoints. Your jumpmasters train you on various elements of skydiving and give you feedback after every jump. Some students finish AFF in 8 jumps, but many have to repeat one of the categories and do it in about 9 or so. With each jump you become more autonomous, and once you have completed the progression, you are a novice skydiver and qualified to skydive on your own. The first jump is the most expensive, but it gets progressively cheaper with every jump. You should figure on spending about $1700 to complete all eight AFF levels, though many people only do category A and are satisfied with that.
A typical AFF category A jump goes something like this: AFF begins in the classroom with about eight hours of ground training. Generally you get four hours of instruction the night before and four hours the morning you jump. You learn the basics of freefall, hot to get into an "arch" position for maximum stability, how to acquire altitude awareness, how to pilot a canopy, and how all of the gear works. You then get in a vertical harness and practice emergency procedures: how to recognize different types of malfunctions and what to do if something goes wrong. You then practice the flow of your first skydive on the ground several times with a jumpmaster. Once you are comfortable with the training, you get geared up with your own parachute, helmet and goggles. You take a plane up to 13,500 ft, about 2.5 miles above beautiful Orange Massachusetts. You get prepared and when you get the instructors signal, jump out of the airplane! As you jump, your two highly trained jumpmasters go out the door right along with you, one on each side, and hold on to you to prevent you from tumbling out of control. You perform a couple of drills to show that you are aware of your surroundings and in control. You look to your left. You see a jumpmaster smiling at you. You look to your right, you see your other jumpmaster giving you a signal to straighten out your legs a bit. You make the correction, look around, and can see the world from a whole new perspective! You are actually flying! When your altimeter says 6000ft, it's time to end the skydive, and you reach back and throw out your pilot chute. Your rainbow colored parachute unfurls itself and you have 260 square feet of fabric above your head slowing you down from 120 mph to about 12 mph. You have just saved your own life, and as your heart is pounding, you look down and see your instructors fall away from you and open their own brightly colored canopies. A voice coming from a radio receiver strapped to your chest congratulates you on your first freefall and guides you gently back down to the landing zone where you touch down on soft sand and become a creature of the earth once more. You get debriefed, and you are now ready for category B!
In AFF categories A, B, and C1 there are two instructors on either side of you. The make sure you are stable and can give you hand signals to make sure you are doing everything you are supposed to do. If for some reason, you black out, or panic, they are close enough that they can throw your pilot chute. The rigs that students use have been specially designed to make it easy for either instructor to bail you out. Since there is lots of training and plenty of adrenaline, however, students rarely need much critical help from their instructors.
Jumptown (nor most drop zones in New England) does not offer static line training any more, but this description is left on here for completeness.
Static Line is the military way of teaching students. Each jump is cheaper than AFF, but it takes more jumps to get off of student status and reach the level of novice skydiver. The total cost from zero to skydiver is about the same as AFF. You start out with a cable attached to your parachute, and your first jump is from about 3,500ft, a full 10,000ft lower than AFF. This means that unlike with AFF, you don't get any freefall time on your first couple static line jumps. You go out by yourself, and the instructor watches you from the airplane. Once you reach the end of the cable, the parachute opens and you float gently down. A voice on a radio receiver attached to your chest guides you back to the landing zone and determines your approach. After you have done this a few times, and have shown that you can perform a stable exit and pull your own (mock) ripcord, the static line is removed, and you jump out on your own. You start by pulling right away, and then with a longer and longer delays, from higher and higher altitudes and gradually gain more and more freefall skills.
A typical static line student's first jump might progress something like this. The static line program begins in the classroom (typically the night before). As with AFF, you learn all about skydiving gear, parachute flight, and safety. You learn how to exit an airplane in a stable position, and what to do if everything doesn't go as planned. The classroom portion for Static Line is similar some ways to AFF. While still on the ground, you practice your exit, your arch (a stable exit position), and your emergency procedures. When you're ready, you are geared up with a jumpsuit, goggles, a helmet, an altimiter, and of course a parachute. You walk out to the plane, and you and your jumpmaster are whisked up to 3,500 feet. At altitude, your jumpmaster connects your static line, opens the door and peers out to make sure you're in the right spot. At this point you hear the buzz of the engine, and feel the wind whipping by. Your jumpmaster shouts, "Sit in the door!", at which point you swing your legs out the door and sit. Leaning out with you, your jumpmaster points out the dropzone, some landmarks, and scenery in general. Next your jumpmaster shouts, "Climb out!" You place your feet on the plane's wheel, and climb into position with both hands on the strut (the diagonal piece which supports the wing). You feel the prop-blast in your face, and you peer back into the plane waiting for the signal. At the right moment, you feel a sharp slap across your thigh as your jumpmaster yells, "Go!" You step to the side, arch, and let go of the strut. In an instant, there is a giant rainbow-colored canopy over your head, and everything is quet. The radio on your chest strap squawks to life, and an instructor on the ground congratulates you on your first jump. You are then guided to a nice gentle landing in the sand, and you watch your jumpmaster land next to you. After a debriefing, you are ready for another jump.
The static line progression starts with a jump like the one described above. After that, you move on to Practice Ripcord Pulls. Although you are still using the static line to open your parachute, for the next few jumps you practice pulling a dummy ripcord as you exit the plane. When your jumpmaster is satisfied, the static line is removed, and you get a real ripcord -- this is your first freefall! You exit the plane, and pull your ripcord immediately. Over the next few jumps, you gradually build freefall time. First you have a 5 second delay, then a 10, a 15, a 20, a 30, a 45, and finally you fall the full 60 seconds. With each jump you become more comfortable in freefall, and you become more skilled at landing your parachute. Eventually, you can qualify for licenses, awards, and do everything else that skydivers do.
Tandem jumping is where you are attached to the front of an instructor. Tandem jumps are a great way to get a taste of skydiving with a smaller investment. They are cheaper than AFF category A, and unlike Static Line, you get to experience free fall on your first jump. It only requires an hour of ground training, so you can get trained on the morning of your first jump. You don't need as much training to do a tandem jump because there is always an instructor who is in control of the parachute strapped to your back in case you get in trouble. Some tandems pull their own ripcord, and some have their tandem master pull the ripcord. For many people, a tandem jump gets them hooked on skydiving and they sign up for the next AFF class. Some people do it just once to check skydiving off of their list of things to do in life. Either way, tandem skydives are a fantastic adventure!
| Category A (First Jump) | $315 |
| Category B (including membership to USPA) | $236 |
| Category C1 | $185 |
| Categories C2-E2 | $155 each |
| Refresher Course If over 90 days since last jump | $215 |
| Coach Jumps (not strictly AFF, but the natural progression) | $95 |
| Tandem Jump (Sat & Sun) | $215 |
| Tandem Jump (Thursday & Friday, or Students) | $200 |
| Transition to AFF | $260 |
| 10 or more | $195 |
| 5 or more | $205 |
Experienced Skydiver from 13,500ft |
$24 |
Yes! Just email skydive-officers@mit and say that you would like to be added. If you're more of a do-it-yourself person, MIT has 3 main skydiving lists -- skydive@mit, dzrides@mit, and skydive-banter@mit. Our general announcement list is skydive@mit and you can subscribe yourself at the mailman for skydive@mit.edu page. If you're looking for (or can offer) rides from the MIT area to a dropzone, join dzrides@mit. If you would like to be part of one of the biggest skydiving email lists in the Northeast (and the country), join skydive-banter. Of course all of the lists are completely optional - you can cancel at any time and keep only the emails you like.
Type "skydiving" into any search engine and you'll get thousands of hits. Which ones have the most/best information? Here in no particular order are some of the MIT Skydiving Club's favorite skydiving links:
skydive-officers@mit