Skydiving

Skydiving, recreational and competitive sport in which participants, equipped with a parachute, jump from an aircraft and fall to earth. Skydiving differs from parachuting, in that divers free-fall for an extended period before deploying their parachutes. Typically, skydivers free-fall from about 4,000 m (13,000 ft) above the ground until about 1,000 m (3,300 ft), where they open their parachutes. Skydivers manoeuvre in free-fall by controlling the position of their bodies; in a head-first descent they can reach speeds of up to 320 km/hr (200 mph). The use of steerable parachutes that allow soft, precision landings has greatly increased the sport's popularity and a first jump can be made safely after only a few hours of professional instruction. Tandem jumps, with the novice attached to a trainer, form an important part of instruction.

Skydivers use ram-air parachutes, which are rectangular and made with a double surface that inflates into a shape similar to an aircraft wing. This design produces a high degree of manoeuvrability and a slow rate of descent. By operating the control lines that attach to the trailing edge of the canopy, the parachutist can alter both forward speed and rate of descent.

Early competitions, dating back to the 1930s, were limited to accuracy in landing on a target. Later, as skydivers learned to control their bodies in free fall, they added a so-called style event. In this event free-falling contestants perform a series of aerobatic manoeuvres before reaching parachute-opening altitude. In the most popular form of competition, teams of free-falling skydivers (up to 300) form predetermined formation patterns, racing to build the greatest number of patterns in the allotted time. Canopy stacking involves dozens of skydivers creating a vertical “stack” of canopies in flight. More modern events include: freestyle skydiving, in which divers perform aerial routines that are captured by a second skydiver on video camera and both jump and camerawork are subsequently judged by a jury; and skysurfing, in which skydivers use a board (similar to a skateboard) to gain extra speed and control of their falls. The early 21st century saw the further evolution of the sport with the advent of sky flying, the foremost exponent being the German Felix Baumgartner, who flew attached to a carbon-fibre wing across the English Channel. The sport of skydiving has World Championships, which are held under the auspices of the Fédération Aeronautique Internationale (FAI).

The first parachute drop was made by Frenchman André-Jacques Garnerin in 1797, when he escaped from a balloon. Before World War I and up to the mid-1920s, the Americans were the most enterprising pioneers of the sport. The former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and Germany took over in the inter-war years—primarily for military purposes but also for sport. The USSR held its first competition in 1930 and within six years had more than 100 parachuting schools. Skydiving emerged as an international sport in 1951 when five nations met for the first World Championships, held at Lesce-Bled in Slovenia (then part of the former Yugoslavia).