Skydive Santa Clara

People have been using parachutes for hundreds of years, even back to China in the 1100s. Around 1495, Leonardo DaVinci designed a pyramid-shaped, wooden framed parachute. One type of parachuting is skydiving, which is recreational parachuting, also called sport parachuting. Though this web site is oriented towards first time skydivers, we welcome both new and experienced jumpers to our little drop zone. Once the parachute is opened, (usually the parachute will be fully inflated by 2,500 feet). the jumper can control his or her direction and speed with cords called "steering lines," with hand grips called "toggles" that are attached to the parachute, and so he or she can aim for the landing site and come to a relatively gentle stop in a safe landing environment. An important thing to be mentioned is that the parachute canopy is a rectangular, inflatable wing, open in the front to scoop, or ram, air. The parachute is forced to stay filled by the fact that it is sewn closed in the back. Several airfoil-shaped sections, sewn together side by side make up a ram-air canopy. The sections build a wing similar to an air mattress. Despite the perception of danger, fatalities are rare in skydiving, each year a small number of people are hurt or killed parachuting world-wide. Surveys indicate that most people jumping for the first time choose the tandem method. Bay Area Skydiving in California! Do it now! Start your freefall adventure training courses at our skydiving school taught by USPA rated instructors and jumpmasters. New safety devices have in recent years come about and protect the skydiver should he become incapacitated or lose track of altitude. By 1957, the first commercial skydiving schools began to appear, and the National Parachute Riggers-Jumpers, Inc., started in the 1930s, became the Parachute Club of America. PCA renamed itself the United States Parachute Association in 1967.