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OT UConn Skydiving

beerfan

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The UConn skydiving team came in second place in the National Championship, even beating out a military team.

I had no idea this even existed?

dailycampus.com

UConn Skydiving wins second place in national championship

Two members of the University of Connecticut skydiving team placed second in a national collegiate championship in Arizona over winter break. With no prior competition experience, sixth-semester Al…
dailycampus.com dailycampus.com
 
beerfan said:
The UConn skydiving team came in second place in the National Championship, even beating out a military team.

I had no idea this even existed?

dailycampus.com

UConn Skydiving wins second place in national championship

Two members of the University of Connecticut skydiving team placed second in a national collegiate championship in Arizona over winter break. With no prior competition experience, sixth-semester Al…
dailycampus.com dailycampus.com
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Neither did I. I’ll probably try it on my next birthday. There’s a place to go in Key West.
 
I jumped out of Ellington when we were in school. Pretty cool that the school has a jump team now.
 
of course i'm curious about the revenue-expense side of this. Is this a club sport and paid for by the participants? I looked it up. Seems like they've been around for several years

 
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beerfan said:
The UConn skydiving team came in second place in the National Championship, even beating out a military team.

I had no idea this even existed?

dailycampus.com

UConn Skydiving wins second place in national championship

Two members of the University of Connecticut skydiving team placed second in a national collegiate championship in Arizona over winter break. With no prior competition experience, sixth-semester Al…
dailycampus.com dailycampus.com
Expand ...

Will this help us in conference realignment?
 
Kolumbo said:
of course i'm curious about the revenue-expense side of this. Is this a club sport and paid for by the participants? I looked it up. Seems like they've been around for several years

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Definitely club sport
 
I skydived (dove?) once. Puked my guts out upon landing. I have no idea how people do that
 
husky429 said:
I skydived (dove?) once. Puked my guts out upon landing. I have no idea how people do that
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I knew a guy, when I took computer programming classes after UConn, who used to test parachutes. That’s another level of craziness.
 
husky429 said:
I skydived (dove?) once. Puked my guts out upon landing. I have no idea how people do that
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A lot of people pass out their first time. That's why the first jump back in the day used to be a "hop and pop" static line jump where your 'chute is deployed by being attached to the plane. These days I think the first few jumps are tandem jumps.

Puking is just a reaction to the adrenaline flood. Jumping is not for everyone. At least you manned up actually gave it a shot.
 
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HCCForever said:
Neither did I. I’ll probably try it on my next birthday. There’s a place to go in Key West.
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My first skydive was in the Keys. Marathon I think. That was about 30 years ago. The visuals were great. That would have been enough for me but I did it again in Northampton, MA as some friends wanted to try it so I went to. My tandem guy decided to start doing 360s and wouldn’t stop for a full minute seemingly. That was it for me.
 
cwh20 said:
My first skydive was in the Keys. Marathon I think. That was about 30 years ago. The visuals were great. That would have been enough for me but I did it again in Northampton, MA as some friends wanted to try it so I went to. My tandem guy decided to start doing 360s and wouldn’t stop for a full minute seemingly. That was it for me.
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That would do if for me as well. I don’t mind heights but I don’t like going in circles.
 
As a former competitive skydiver at the regional level, I say "Awesome!". Competing in a sport like this takes a lot of time and money and effort. Easy way to understand how hard it is to get good at this is to look at practice time. A practice skydive lasts a minute. It would take 120 skydives to have the equivalent "real world" experience as one hoops practice. And that's like $2400 bucks a person in jump fees. 120 skydives is barely starting out. I read the article and they are using wind tunnels to improve time in flight. Especially cool since bad weather states are not as competitive nationally. Hard sport under hard conditions and you are broke all the time but its something you will always remember.
 
c29328 said:
As a former competitive skydiver at the regional level, I say "Awesome!". Competing in a sport like this takes a lot of time and money and effort. Easy way to understand how hard it is to get good at this is to look at practice time. A practice skydive lasts a minute. It would take 120 skydives to have the equivalent "real world" experience as one hoops practice. And that's like $2400 bucks a person in jump fees. 120 skydives is barely starting out. I read the article and they are using wind tunnels to improve time in flight. Especially cool since bad weather states are not as competitive nationally. Hard sport under hard conditions and you are broke all the time but its something you will always remember.
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My heart goes into palpitations when I even think about skydiving. Can you explain why it shouldn’t and how safe it is or isn’t?
 
jibsey said:
My heart goes into palpitations when I even think about skydiving. Can you explain why it shouldn’t and how safe it is or isn’t?
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For safety, its pretty safe. Tandems/first jumps in particular. In the US, it used to be 30 fatalities for about 3,000,000 jumps a year. Usually none were tandem. So 1 out of 100,000 might end badly. If you take away the half of the fatalities that are from nutty people doing unsafe stuff, its more like 1 in 200,000. I am OK with those odds. Flying in that little plane scared me more than getting out.

Now as far as scary, of course it is. For some that's the fun in it. If your heart doesn't thump a bit when a door opens on an airplane in flight, you are an odd duck. Met a few but 99% of the people are scared as hell the first time. You learn to manage fear since its always there to some extent. You find out if you can save your own life and once you realize you can it gets better. I had 4 malfunctions and only one was really close to an "I might not make it" type of thing. I was doing something really risky at the time so I deserved it. Fresh off a divorce lol.
 
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I have also parachuted. It was a static line jump back in 1980. Four of us (two couples) drove up to the home of sport parachuting in Orange, Mass. Went thru the training and then the jump got cancelled. Too much wind. Went back the next weekend and finally went up in the plane. I was first in line and couldn’t chicken out in front of my girlfriend. Jumped kicking and screaming. The chute popped and it was an unbelievably scenic view slowly floating down. Late October day, the peak foliage was spectacular from 2000 feet. There was a walkie talkie on top of the reserve chute. The plan was for the ground instructor to guide you to the target bowl but I couldn’t hear him clearly enough to understand anything he was saying. Looked around and saw the airport and the landing zone and got down pretty close to the dirt circle. My girlfriend came down a hundred feet or so from me, but the wind dragged her another hundred feet away. People ran out to assist us with the equipment and get us to the truck to take us back. All four of us made it safely down. It was a great adrenaline rush. We headed home and the whole ride back we talked about what a fun experience, gotta do this again, yadda yadda. (None of us ever did.) But I got to cross this off my bucket list.
 
I made about 15 jumps decades ago. Never tandem. Always dope rope (static line) or free fall. There is no experience that can simulate putting your feet in the door.

I wasn't very good at it. My arch sucked. I missed the LZ. Finally decided that sky diving was not a good sport to be bad at.
 
CL82 said:
A lot of people pass out their first time. That's why the first jump back in the day used to be a "hop and pop" static line jump where your 'chute is deployed by being attached to the plane. These days I think the first few jumps are tandem jumps.

Puking is just a reaction to the adrenaline flood. Jumping is not for everyone. At least you manned up actually gave it a shot.
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I also used to puke from adrenaline dump after boxing. I think I'm just emotional
 
husky429 said:
I also used to puke from adrenaline dump after boxing. I think I'm just emotional
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Semi related comment: I used to tell my kids that nervousness was a superpower. "When you're nervous, adrenaline floods your system, making you faster, stronger, and more alert. So when you feel nervous, know that that's just your body making you ready to compete at your best."
 
first time was in Northampton MA in the 80s, then 2x at Skydive Orange VA more recently ... all tandem

looking at doing tandem HALO next
 
I’ve been thinking of doing this for years. My wife wants to do it as well. It will be tandem jumps with a pro probably from a place in Key West since we live near Orlando. The posted pictures look fantastic.
 
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You have to be 100% in while on the ground because you’re not going to be close to 100% when the door opens in flight. At least the first time. What a rush.

I can compare it to the CNN tower in Toronto. There is an area that is a clear floor. Obviously it’s safe but I wondered if I could just walk right on it without hesitating initially. Nope. Self preservation takes over until you can override it.
 
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