Skydive Speak

Hanging out with skydivers, you start to pick up some of the lingo. Here are our favourites so far.

Our Skydive Glossary:

Dirt diving:  Practising the formations on the ground first. Figuring out the sequence of grabs so that in       the air no mistakes are made. In theory!

Eating the Carrot:  Landing into the wind.  So called as you come in to land with the orange wind socks pointing at you. This is much safer than landing with the wind behind you as the wind helps slow your landing.

 

Dead air:  If someone opens their chute underneath you your canopy can collapse. The cameramen have to be very careful when filming below the divers that they clear the formation before pulling their chute as they can cause all manner of problems. Like their job was not complicated enough to begin with.

Free Diving:  A style of skydiving where you create a sequence of formations in free-fall. More balletic than the ground rush stuff.

Dust Devils:  Mini tornados that whip up in the desert. The vortex they create plays havoc with the skydivers coming in to land. They have a tendency to cause your parachute to collapse. Not so fun when you are travelling at up to 70 miles an hour towards the hard desert ground.

 

Drop Zone:  An area where you have permission to land.

Funneling:  Can occur when forming straight line formations (such as we are doing). There is no support for the guy in the front of this formation which makes it hard for them to balance. If the line dips it is hard to straighten it again. If it dips too far then “dead air” is created and the whole line collapses in on it's self.             

Making Doughnuts:  Producing the standard skydive formation of making a circle in freefall. This is the foundation shape for many other formations.

Blue Skies:  The salutation of choice for any respecting skydiver and one that is also very apt for anyone trying to shoot an ad featuring skydivers for that matter.

If you know of anymore it would be great to hear them.

Comments

[Shane Mitchell]

"Eating the Carrot: Landing into the wind. Much harder than landing with the wind behind you."

I'm not familiar with the phrase, but landing with the wind behind you is much more difficult and potentially dangerous as you will be traveling at the combined speed of the parachute and the wind.

[Phil]

Here is a near complete glossary of skydiving terms:

http://www.infiniteskydiving.com/glossary.html

[jonathan tapper]

Thank you for the tip. Looks like I need to listen more when these guys are trying to teach me skydive speak.

[bill von]

Some of my personal favorites -

To chowder - to land spectacularly badly
"Aging the suits" - another excuse for bad landings
Snerging - to go way too deep on a cat build
Chunking the base - the task I always end up with when Tom has his way
Slotting people - assigning them positions in the dive
(I always had this image of people with a series of slots cut in them though.)

[Vince]

Best Of All for experiance to use on 'rookie' skydivers is:

BEER FINE - when ever a 'first' is achived.. ie 1st freefall, 1st cutaway, or when a further qualification is achived you call on the megaphone for a Beer fine and that person is due to buy everyone a beer that evening in the bar!!!

[coach outlet]

Happiness does not drop from the sky ,it's to be created by our hands

[femmes russes]

Thank you, it's been very interestingly.

[implantes dentales precios]

Nice pics! It looks really really funny!