Category: Skydiver Training Program Tips
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Skydive Spaceland Skydiver Training Program: Dive Flow 10 Video
Welcome to Skydive Spaceland’s exclusive, innovative Skydiver Training Program! On your tenth “solo” skydive, wearing your own parachute system, you will float out, docked with your instructor, and work on tracking flatter and farther!!!!! Relax and have fun! Previous Dive: Dive Flow 9 Your freefall objectives for this skydive are: Compressed accordion exit Perpendicular heading…
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Skydive Spaceland Skydiver Training Program: Dive Flow 9 Video
Welcome to Skydive Spaceland’s exclusive, innovative Skydiver Training Program! On your ninth “solo” skydive, wearing your own parachute system, you will dive out docked with your instructor and start working on forward movement and backsliding!!!!! Relax and have fun! Previous Dive: Dive Flow 8 Your freefall objectives for this skydive are: Compressed accordion exit Delta…
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Skydive Spaceland Skydiver Training Program: Dive Flow 8 Video
Welcome to Skydive Spaceland’s exclusive, innovative Skydiver Training Program! On your eighth “solo” skydive, wearing your own parachute system, you will dive out solo and practice front and back flips!!!!! Relax and have fun! Previous Dive: Dive Flow 7 Your freefall objectives for this skydive are: Diving exit Back flips and front flips Pre-deployment scan…
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Skydive Spaceland Skydiver Training Program: Dive Flow 7 Video
Welcome to Skydive Spaceland’s exclusive, innovative Skydiver Training Program! On your seventh “solo” skydive, wearing your own parachute system, you will exit solo and practice barrel rolls. Relax and have fun! Previous Dive: Dive Flow 6 Your freefall objectives for this skydive are: Solo poised exit Barrel rolls Pre-deployment scan Deploy the main parachute at…
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Skydive Spaceland Skydiver Training Program: Dive Flow 6 Video
Welcome to Skydive Spaceland’s exclusive, innovative Skydiver Training Program! On your sixth “solo” skydive, wearing your own parachute system, you will practice turns, forward movement, and docking on your instructor. It’s getting real now! 🙂 Previous Dive: Dive Flow 5 Your freefall objectives for this skydive are: Team poised exit Maintaining altitude awareness 360° lower-body…
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Skydive Spaceland Skydiver Training Program: Dive Flow 5 Video
Welcome to Skydive Spaceland’s exclusive, innovative Skydiver Training Program! On your fifth “solo” skydive, wearing your own parachute system, you will practice turns, forward movement, and your instructor will dock on you. Previous Dive: Dive Flow 4 Your freefall objectives for this skydive are: Team poised exit Maintaining altitude awareness 360° turns Forward movement to…
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Skydive Spaceland Skydiver Training Program: Dive Flow 4 Video
Welcome to Skydive Spaceland’s exclusive, innovative Skydiver Training Program! On your fourth “solo” skydive, wearing your own parachute system, you will practice turns and forward movement. It’s time to start really flying! Previous Dive: Dive Flow 3 Your freefall objectives for this skydive are: Team poised exit Maintaining altitude awareness Arched body position Two 90° turns Forward movement/heading…
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Skydive Spaceland Skydiver Training Program: Dive Flow 3 Video
Welcome to Skydive Spaceland’s exclusive, innovative Skydiver Training Program! On your third “solo” skydive, wearing your own parachute system, you will practice deploying your parachute, stable freefall, and altitude awareness. Your goal is to fly smoothly and stable so you can earn your release from your instructor, truly skydiving solo for the first time! Previous…
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Skydive Spaceland Skydiver Training Program: Dive Flow 2 Video
Welcome to Skydive Spaceland’s exclusive, innovative Skydiver Training Program! On your second “solo” skydive, wearing your own parachute system, you will practice deploying your parachute, stable freefall, team turns with your instructor, and altitude awareness. Watch the video to see how it’s done! Previous Dive Flows: Dive Flow 1 Your freefall objectives for this skydive…
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Skydive Spaceland Skydiver Training Program: Dive Flow 1 Video
Welcome to Skydive Spaceland’s exclusive, innovative Skydiver Training Program! On your first “solo” skydive, wearing your own parachute system, you will practice deploying your parachute, stable freefall, and altitude awareness. Your freefall objectives for this skydive are: Proper climbout and exit Maintaining altitude awareness Arched body position 2 practice handle throws Identify the dropzone Deploy…
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Weekdays Rock for Skydiver Training (STP)!
Weekends are definitely the most popular days for our Skydiver Training Program–of course, because that’s when most people are off work! However, as you might know we are open 7 days a week. If you have any availability to jump on weekdays, you might enjoy weekday skydiving training even more! Why? Overall slower pace of…
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Breakoff Series Part 1: Planning Breakoff and Tracking
Revised August 2015 Before you hop in the plane for your next jump, here’s some food for thought on safety: Plan your breakoff and tracking just as carefully as you plan the freefall part of your jump. This part of the jump is often neglected because it comes after “the good stuff,” but it is…
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Red Light, Green Light, No Light?
Quick! What do you do if you are on jump run, the green light has been turned on, and then the green light goes out (either the red light comes back on or the green light simply turns off)? Assume the light is broken and proceed with your climbout and skydive. Flip the spotting switch…
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Skydiver Training Tip: That First Hop and Pop
Is it about time for your first hop and pop (low-altitude emergency exit simulation) in our Skydiver Training Program? If you’re like most skydiving students, chances are you are more nervous about this jump than most of your full-altitude skydives! The lower exit altitude combined with the 5-second maximum deployment time, and possibly your first…
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Skydiver Training Tip: Finding Your Match
When you get ready to skydive for the first time, you put the ultimate trust in your instructor. You trust that person to gear you up, give you the freefalling time of your life, and deliver you softly back to the real world on the ground. The relationship between first-time student and instructor is an…
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Altitude Awareness: Do You Have It?
What’s the first thing your skydiving instructor has you do after you leave the plane? Check your altitude. Before and after maneuvers, check your altitude. If you don’t have altitude awareness, PULL! Awareness of your altitude is of paramount importance to our survival in skydiving, and we all know it. And yet we sometimes forget…
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What’s Your Wind Limit?
Gusty winds are common at Spaceland and many other dropzones. As an experienced jumper, I have thought a lot about what my personal wind limit is–in other words, when I will sit down even though the dropzone is not on a wind hold. Recently, I made the decision not to jump after watching other fun…
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Splish-Splash: Landing in Wet Conditions
Ah spring… Green grass, warming temperatures, and RAIN! One of the most common questions we see in our social media news feeds this time of the year is, “How wet is the landing area?” If you have to ask, the answer is usually “underwater.” 😉 Since we’re not too interested in waiting days for perfectly…
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Keep Learning with Facebook!
As a current or former student in our Skydiver Training Program here at Spaceland, you have access to our skydiving students group on Facebook. This group is a ton of fun! You’ll find everything from freefall and canopy control questions to gear inquiries, discussions of who’s jumping on a particular day, Spaceland event announcements, and…
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Skydiving Currency: Use it or Lose It!
Ah, wintertime. We’re lucky enough here at Spaceland-Houston to have jumpable temperatures year-round, but cooler days and holidays often result in many of us taking a bit of a break from jumping this time of year. This break can result in a lack of currency, which is an additional risk factor for injury in skydiving.…
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Rigs vs. Doors
Recently, one of our licensed jumpers took it upon himself to remind us all about keeping our rigs away from the edges of the aircraft door when rotating out to a floater exit. It’s a great reminder for all of us, because it’s far too easy to get too comfortable and complacent about safety aspects…
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Skydiver Training Tip: What If You Have to Repeat a Dive?
Let’s face it: Skydiving isn’t easy, especially when you’re just starting the sport. You may be a natural at freefall, but struggle with canopy patterns or landing, or vice versa. Or you may be nervous enough to have trouble getting out of the plane at all. The important thing to remember here is that many…
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Skydiver Training Tip: Cheat Sheet!
Are you one of those people who knocks standardized tests out of the park without half trying, or do you tend to need some quality study time to ace them? Regardless of your test performance proclivities, keep one thing in mind regarding your skydiving training tests: These are definitely tests you don’t want to fail,…
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New on New
Are you a new skydiver with a shiny new A license? Or maybe you’re a skydiving student already thinking about the fun things you’ll do after you graduate? Congratulations on becoming a part of the global skydiving community! We’re glad you’re here. 🙂 Now let’s talk a little about the skydives you’ll do once you…
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Long Hair? Avoid This Skydiving Malfunction
Ah, the feel of freefall on your face, your hair whipping in the wind… wait a minute! If you have long hair (past your shoulders), hair whipping around in freefall is actually a bad thing. Aside from the Gordian knot that often results from 120mph of wind whipping your hair around, hair that is very…
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Skydiver Training Tip: Practice Before You Leave
When I was still in school, I was a serious last-minute crammer before tests. Study ahead of time? Not my strong suit. So there I would be at 1 a.m. before a big exam, studying my tail off. 5 minutes before the test, still reviewing. At least I studied, right?! When you are learning to…
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Skydive Spaceland Transitions Events for Recent Grads
For recent skydiving graduates, there is often a no-man’s-land between the A license and getting on good dives. Skydive Spaceland-Houston has been turning that no-man’s land into free coaching central with its monthly Transitions events. On or near the first weekend of each month, organizers and coaches collaborate to provide free small-group coaching tailored to…
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Whose Airspace Is It, Anyway?
Skydiving often seems like one of the most dynamic, chaotic sports in existence. People are falling from the sky every which way, for cryin’ out loud! 🙂 In reality, the chaos is highly engineered to allow us all to enjoy our dynamic freefallin’ fun while staying safe, and that engineering starts with ensuring that each…
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Do it Right: Visualize Your Skydive
If you’ve ever played sports, chances are good that you’ve heard a coach tell you or someone on your team to visualize doing it right when they were struggling with something. Some call this practice mental rehearsal, and it’s a completely valid strategy to increase performance, because you’re training your brain to perform to the…
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Skydiver Training Tip: When to Learn to Pack Your Parachute
Hello student skydiver! As you progress to ever more awe-inspiring feats of skydiving skill in our Skydiver Training Program, do you ever wonder about the magic that happens before you strap your gear on for the next jump? I refer of course to the magic whereby the billowing parachute, hundreds of square feet of nylon,…