Sunday, September 30, 2007

Parachute jumping

Finally I received last pictures from my Moscow first parachute jumping attempt. Yes, last day I was in Moscow I went to parachute jumping course. Those of you who read russian could more about the place and the course itself at http://www.kukuruznik.com/.

Future skydivers

Basically the course contains about 9 hours of ground training and when single parachute jump from 800 m with dome-shaped parachute next day.

Ground training includes everything you need to survive your first jump :
  • Explanation about the parachute (army parachute Д1-5y)
  • Controlling the parachute, landing direction and speed
  • Leaving the aircraft
  • Landing
  • Safety features (emergency parachute, the system which automatically opens emergency parachute at certain height and etc)

Ok, all the equipment used in the dropzone was extremely old, the parachutes were at least 30 years old and aircraft probably even older. We had army-style living conditions and slept almost under canvas. This is probably explains extremely low prices, the course + jump + video of you leaving aircraft costs less than 1800 RUB which is about $70.


Training in progress

So we had a two days fun of learning, jumping from landing training stand, playing 'Mafia' game a night and ... may be god was with me because finally we didn't jump due to high winds and rain suddenly started at the second day. We waited till afternoon for only 30 minutes of quiet but with no success ...