mercredi 17 octobre 2018

The Use And Importance In Skydiving Of The Safety Parachute

By Stephanie Schmidt


With the advent of the bucket list craze, more and more people have committed to stepping out not just from their comfort zones but from their safety zones. This accounts for the popularity of certain kinds of extreme sports, like skydiving. Before you embark on this perilous enterprise, however, you should first be equipped with a trusty gizmo called a safety parachute.

Extreme sports has become such a threadbare phrase that you might be boggled on what it could actually entail. Smart alecks say it is only applicable to daring exertions like snowboarding and rock climbing, while the more conservative ones consider temperate activities such as scuba diving and snorkeling. In the classic sense of the word, though, it refers to enterprises where the most likely outcome of a mistake or accident is death. Typical.

However you look at it, though, skydiving is qualified as such. Imagine jumping from an aircraft or airship at more than ten thousand feet above ground, only deploying a parachute at about five hundred feet or so. This parachute is a dome shaped equipment tailored from light and strong fabric, maybe silk or nylon. It operates by the rules of physics, lowering ones terminal velocity and increasing aerodynamic lift to ensure a safe landing.

Parachutes are an eighteenth century thing. Even then, they have not reached the pinnacle of their development. In fact, they are continually being developed and upgraded to improve safety and functionality.

The statistics stand at injuries per one thousand jumps and fatalities per one hundred thousand jumps. In the US, for example, three million skydives occur every year and less than twenty five of those result in fatalities. To put into perspective, consider that ones probability to die from a car crash, for example, is one in six thousand.

However, youd still want to take into account all the nuts and bolts. You can easily be that one in one hundred thousand who fulfills the statistics. The probabilities may be mitigated if you undergo the required training and implement the required practices and equipment.

First time solo parachutists are required to undergo four to eight hours of ground training. And even after then they may opt for a tandem jump, in which they are strapped to an experienced instructor, who opens the parachute and deals with possible emergencies. All must carry with them a reserve parachute, which is personally inspected and packed by a certified rigger.

Parachutists are required to wear supportive footwear that prevent ankle rolling, jumpsuits that keep the body warm in cold high altitudes, and helmets with a strong shock absorption factor. Goggles are recommended, but not mandatory. The most revolutionary development in the field is the automatic activation device, which is a tiny computer that measures the jumpers terminal velocity and altitude. If it detects that the main parachute has still not been deployed at the predetermined height, it automatically opens the reserve parachute.

The fact that fatalities are usually attributed to jumper errors is very telling. No matter the advances made in safety and equipment, they will all be for naught if jumpers dont take heed of basic training and instructions. Even if things take a turn for the worse, at least you can take comfort of the fact that you will be remembered as someone brave, rather than someone stupid.




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