Why would anyone want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane? I used to say this as a pilot who wore a parachute on most every flight, but never knew the feeling of freefall. As time passed by, my curiosity got the best of me, and soon enough I found myself strapped to the chest of a tandem master, experiencing everything I had hoped it to be. Since then, I've received my USPA license and have been skydiving every chance I get. An addiction? Perhaps, but the love for this sport along with the comradery of peers makes for an exciting, yet familiar environment.

Taking a closer look into the sport of parachuting reveals a very different world unknown to most, filled with various disciplines and safety methods that have been developed over the years. www.uspa.org Skydivers have the opportunity to progress into areas such as free flying, formation skydiving, coaching, etc. , through which they can truly define what it is exactly that they are drawn too. Competition on many levels continues to advance the sport along what has been a growing list of steadily improving standards.

So getting back to my opening question of why anyone would want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. Well, to all you pilots out there, just remember...there's no such thing as a perfectly good airplane.

Hey, you might even enjoy it.

Blue Skies,
Jim jr.