Prepare for one of the best experiences of your life! Skydive Las Vegas offers exhilarating tandem skydiving from 15,000 feet.
Three HD Videos at Bottom of Page.
My friend and I tried this last Sunday morning — both of us for the first time. We loved it!
That doesn’t mean we weren’t nervous…in fact we both had butterflies the day before, when we officially booked the jump. But we reminded ourselves that Skydive Las Vegas does this everyday…and people have been parachuting since 1911. That’s over 100 years of trial, error, and improvements.
Safety is extremely important to Skydive Las Vegas. They use the most advanced parachute system available, the Sigma Parachute; their instructors are all United States Parachute Association (USPA) qualified and have between 3,000 and 14,000 jumps.
Yes, there is inherent risk with skydiving, that is obvious. You should read the caveats carefully and understand accidents do happen. But keep this quote in mind:
According to the United States Parachuting Association, there are an estimated 3 million jumps per year, and the fatality count is only 21 (for 2010). That’s a 0.0007% chance of dying from a skydive, compared to a 0.0167% chance of dying in a car accident (based on driving 10,000 miles). In layman’s terms, you are about 24 times more likely to die in a car accident than in a skydiving one. http://news.discovery.com/adventure/extreme-sports/how-common-are-skydiving-accidents.htm
And each year statistics get better: http://www.uspa.org/AboutSkydiving/SkydivingSafety/tabid/526/Default.aspx
Of course, do your own research as you feel necessary.
Katie and I loved our experience from start to finish. Skydive Las Vegas walks you through every step, and ensures you have fun!
As I looked around our group, there was the same excited yet slightly-pale look to everyone, ha. It’s clear what everyone is thinking: This is going to be awesome and fun and I’ve always wanted to try this…but I sure hope nothing goes wrong!
Again, the professional who is attached to you does this every day. Their life is just as in jeopardy. And they do several jumps per day.
Finally we were suited-up and ready to take off. You see clear, scenic views as you climb to around 15,000 feet. But most people are busy taking deep breaths and preparing themselves. With this whole process your personal instructor helps immensely. They walk a perfect line between professionalism, preparation, and some hilarious humor to help you relax!
We both highly recommend getting the premium media packages. You can get HD videos with music, then raw footage in segments, plus lots of sweet still pictures taken from the HD Video. The instructor starts taking video from the moment you step on the airport tarmac. Every stage of your jump is documented all the way through your comments post landing.
Your freefall is approximately 50-60 seconds, and your parachute ride 5-7 minutes.
I loved every minute of it. That said, the first ten seconds definitely takes your breath away and shocks your system! My stellar instructor, Kevin Smith, reminded me that the most important thing is to breathe.
Soon I had full control of my senses and everything looked crystal clear. It did seem like slow motion. Even though I was traveling around 120mph in the freefall, it seemed a mixed feeling of floating and flying.
When the shoot opens, you feel like a puppet that gets pulled upwards on strings, and soon you are gently floating down, with fantastic views of Lake Mead, Hoover Dam, Mt. Charleston, the Colorado River, the Las Vegas Valley and even the Las Vegas Strip.
Meanwhile Katheryn was having a blast too. Here she is steering the parachute a little, another fun feature that’s safe to do, since you have a professional connected to you.
While you’re floating back to Earth, the instructor often performs a practice landing midair. You lift your feet straight up and out, and the instructor pulls the chute in a landing maneuver. You nearly stop and hover, that’s how powerful these chutes are.
My own landing, and the several landings I witnessed that day, were as gentle as being placed on a feather bed, or casually walking off an escalator. This is a far cry from World War I and II! Those parachuters had to practice jumping off one or two story buildings and completing roll maneuvers to break their fall. See the video at the very bottom for smooth landings in HD.
Below Katie’s feeling happy and cool, while I’m thrilled and thanking my instructor Kevin Smith for one of the best experiences of my life.
And here’s the group from the landing video. They’re also beaming!
For the rest of the day, we both felt as if walking on air or flying. And I guess that’s because we did.
Learn more at SkydiveLasVegas.com.
