Having tried sky diving twice myself (intend to go more often but scheduling
has made it more difficult), I can say that's not very dangerous either. The
chutes are very easy to fly and a safe landing isn't very hard. The idea is
to turn into the wind for your landing aproach to slow yourself down. You
further slow yourself down by performing a "flare" about 15 feet off the
ground. A "flare" involves pulling on both steering loops at the same time
which changes the airfoil shape to generate more lift and acts as a brake
(of course if you flare too long you stall). Both times I went, there was
almost no wind so landing was actually harder (nothing to slow you down). I
ended up falling on my knees both times resulting in a few minor scrapes
(I've suffered worse falling on pavement), and I only had shorts and a
t-shirt on.
Andrew "frugal" Dacey
frugal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.tildefrugal.net/
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Gries" <rgg@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2002 1:31 PM
Subject: RE: [OM] more Power Parachute pics
> Actually, it is quite safe. You already have the parachute deployed, so
> it would just be a smooth descent to the ground. These units only go
> about 28 mph. It's slow speed and openness contribute to the "floating"
> feeling. Really nice.
>
> One only needs about 3 hours of instruction before they can get their
> license; 30 if they want to take someone else up.
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