Sky Diving - The Main Disciplines.

Sky diving is by definition performing acrobatics in free fall before pulling the ripcord of

a parachute. There are many ways of sky diving, also called disciplines. Before you can

perform acrobatics in the air you need to simply sky dive first, i.e. jump out of a plain

and parachute safely to the ground. The next step is free falling, after that acrobatics

solo and eventually jumping in groups. Here is a summery of the major disciplines available

to sky divers today. To learn how to sky dive most students still start with static-line jumping. Here the jumper

is connected to the airplane with a line. As soon as the jumper jumps from the plane this

line opens the parachute almost immediately. There is therefore no free fall. Static-line

jumping usually happens from low altitudes: between 600m and 1500m. Although nowadays in

sport jumping people almost always jump with rectangular mattress parachutes it is still

possible with round parachutes. In the army round parachutes are still used a lot, because

they are more suitable to let large groups of people jump from a low altitude straight after

each other.

Another popular way to get to know the sport is tandem jumping. Here the passenger is tied

to an instructor, an experienced jumper with a special training. This way you can enjoy the

jump nicely without having to worry about opening the parachute. The instructor takes care

of that. This version is also the one that is most accessible to people and also the most

affordable. Some will jump this way only once, but some may be hooked on to the sport by

this primal experience.

Accelerated free fall
Another way to get acquainted with the sport and to learn to jump is the AFF method

(Accelerated Free Fall). You jump together with your instructor (s) from the plane, but you

fall alone. AFF consists of 7 levels. Every level contains a number of exercises that you

have to complete in order to proceed to the following level. In the first couple levels, two

instructors will jump with you in order to hold you in the free fall, so that you won’t go

every direction when first performing the acrobatics. Later, if you can fall stably on your

own, only 1 instructor will accompany you.

The ways of jumping described above are not real disciplines of sky diving, but rather the

learning and preparation methods for the real thing. Therefore, there are no competitions

for them. The following ways are real (competition) disciplines.

Formation jumping
The most practiced discipline is formation jumping. The jumpers in free fall try, flying on

their stomachs, to make figures. At games the idea is to form as many figures as possible,

at special events to form figures that are as big and as difficult as possible. The figures

that have to be made are known in advance and come from limited a pool of possibilities. All

figures also have a name and a letter, so that it is easier to remember for the jumpers.

Some figured have passages from one figure to the other that are also prescribed and are

called blocks. Other figures have a free choice in how jumpers should transit into the next

one. These are called randoms. On the ground the jumps are being watched by referees and

checked according to the submitted plan for their quantity and completeness by means of

video images. These video images are made in the free fall by a cameraman who jumps with the

formation. The current record is a formation of 357 men and women, that was established on 6

February 2004 in Takli, Thailand. Formation jumps are usually dirt dived first, which means

that the formation practices the jump on the ground.

Free fly
After formation jumping free fly is the most popular discipline. It is still a rather new

discipline that started in the beginning of the 90’s as a rebellious response to the too

technical character of formation jumping. The inventors were the "hippies within formation

jumping" that found that jumping should be just fun. The characteristic of the free fly is

that you fly in rather unstable body postures. This is tricky and takes a lot of exercise.

The basis postures are stand-up (standing), sit fly (sitting), head down (on the head) and

back flying (on the back).
(Formation is done on the stomach, the most stable form of free falling).
These postures are also faster: the speed in free fall varies from 200 up to 400 km/hour.

The organization of the free flying is less strict than that of formation jumping. In the

early years for example people didn’t dirt dive and there were no obligatory or pre-defined

figures. Just like in the early years of the formation jumping it was a period in which a

lot was experimented. Nowadays the free fly looks more like formation jumping and there are

also fixed movements between the jumpers and transitions between body attitudes. During

games people jump from 13.000ft and the working time is 35 to 45 seconds. A free fly team

consists of 3 participants: 2 performers and 1 cameraman. Different than in formation

jumping the cameraman is not only there to film, s/he is much more involved in the jump. The

whole is judged by the jury on the ground on completeness of the movements and on the style.

Within free flying the last few years several variations have arisen, in which, hybrid jumps

forms of formation jumping and free fly mix together.

Canopy Formation Skydiving
This is formation skydiving with opened chutes. In this discipline the target is to make as

many characters as possible in a certain time with opened cupolas.

Precision jumping
This is one of the oldest disciplines and often one of the few that people can tell you

about. It is also the only competition for solo divers, but results are also accumulated in

teams. The target is to land exactly where you want to land.