Skydiving

I engage in a very misunderstood sport - I say so because of the images of danger which most people associate with falling from the sky. In the sport you will find a large percentage of participants are in their 30's, 40's, 50's and up. One individual I know personally is 70 years old and has been jumping since 1961 - with over 36,000 skydives logged.

The most common reason people get injured or killed in the sport is not a failure of the parachute to open - it is a sharp turn close to the ground with high wing loading. Wing loading is basically the ratio of total weight to the size of your parachute is square feet. Really big parachutes (like mine) are much safer than little ones.

Most people have a device on their reserve parachute which automatically deploys the reserve parachute if they do not deploy their main at a reasonable altitiude.

From my perspective - skydiving is much safer than many of the other activities I engage in - such as skiing, motorcycling, driving on I-95, etc.

I would never try to convince someone to try it - it is something you must seek out for yourself. All I ask is that people try to understand it more before they criticize it.