Skydiving and parachute jumping in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas
Tips on freefall safety, parachute flight, rigging, packing, and much more from the instructors, pilots, and riggers at Skydive Spaceland.
What’s most important, an on-heading opening or a fully open canopy? (Video follows article) Many manufacturing industries educate their employees about hand safety, especially when they have to work around heavy machinery. We don’t tend to talk about hand safety too much in skydiving, other than to recommend not wearing rings that can get hooked …
We’re all adults here, and we all know that showing up late for a date can make you miss out on… well, whatever you had planned! 😳 Your date with the airplane for a skydive is no different, and few of us ever miss that! However, there are a LOT of skydivers who can be …
Hey, new skydiver! Do you feel confused when picking your gear up off the field? Do you constantly hear “YOU’RE DRAGGING!” being shouted from across the landing area? Do you want to look more like a PRO on your way in?! There’s a whole lot of information thrown at you as a new skydiver, and …
Have you ever struggled to understand what a parachute landing pattern is and how to modify it for different wind conditions? Check out this video! (Another fantastic edit by Nick Lott!)
When we were kids, pretty much everyone who took care of us taught us to look both ways before crossing any street. Right? This was probably one of the rare pieces of advice most of us didn’t challenge too much, because no one wants to get hit by a car! Why, then, do we not …
Continue reading “Look Both Ways Before Crossing the Runway”
UPDATE (10/10/22): We now have a secure gate on our side to access this area (in the southwest corner, the one closest to the hangar). It’s still not ideal to land here for sure, but we should be able to get you out without too much trouble. We would still recommend avoiding this area when …
TL:DR–Skip to the video! Airplanes are a lot like people–individual (sometimes ridiculously so) in their needs and tolerances. For example, you can safely get away with sitting far back in the cabin of the Super Otter, but not so much in the Super Caravan. This is the reason for a recent policy change in how …
Remember the Smokey the Bear public information campaign with the slogan, “Only YOU can prevent forest fires?” The idea was to remind us that we all bear personal responsibility for avoiding this dangerous situation. (See what I did there? 🙂 ) Flying parachutes puts us in a similar situation that requires each of us to …
You’re thinking about trying skydiving. Or maybe a friend/family member is. Or maybe you just need a few minutes’ break from work or your amazingly awful blind date, and this article sounded like the perfect activity to kill time while you’re hiding out in the bathroom. Let’s have some fun with this! These are the …
Continue reading “19 Things You Want to Know About Tandem Skydiving”
If you find yourself at the dropzone, you will most likely be spending some time in the manifest office. With the rapid rate of growth that Skydive Spaceland has been experiencing, we want to spread the word on some general reminders and guides for manifesting and sharing the space of the office. Manifest Basics What …
Air turbulence can partially or completely collapse a skydiver’s canopy, causing injury or worse. Avoid it at all costs!
“Airmanship is the consistent use of good judgment and well-developed skills to accomplish flight objectives. This consistency is founded on a cornerstone of uncompromising flight discipline and is developed through systematic skill acquisition and proficiency. A high state of situational awareness completes the airmanship picture and is obtained through knowledge of one’s self, aircraft, environment, …
So you are ready to get that shiny new wing, or sell your current canopy. Well caveat emptor[1], good readers. Are you making good decisions about this purchase, or the sale of your “old” wing? We are seeing a disturbing, fatal trend among skydivers worldwide as newer, faster wings come onto the market and older …
Weekends are definitely the most popular days for our Skydiver Training Program–of course, because that’s when most people are off work! However, as you might know we are open 7 days a week. If you have any availability to jump on weekdays, you might enjoy weekday skydiving training even more! Why? Overall slower pace of …
Continue reading “Weekdays Rock for Skydiver Training (STP)!”
It’s a super cool shot to get when you’re flying outside video above a skydiving formation–that shot when the outside camera flyer (who is filming the jump without being a part of the formation) drops into the center as the formation breaks away, probably turning in place to watch everyone track far and fast before deploying. …
Continue reading “Breakoff Series Part 3: Video Takes the Center, High”
Tracking away from other skydivers well is one of the most vital survival skills a skydiver can have. No matter what kind of freefall skydive you do, unless it’s a Mr. Bill or a solo, you will be tracking to achieve horizontal separation from the other people you are skydiving with before deploying your parachute. …
As skydivers who want to skydive again (and again, and again…), we tend to pay attention to the highest risk areas for our skydives to make them as safe as possible. We learn as students how to fly and land our parachutes safely, and we take canopy courses to get even better at it. We …
Revised August 2015 Before you hop in the plane for your next jump, here’s some food for thought on safety: Plan your breakoff and tracking just as carefully as you plan the freefall part of your jump. This part of the jump is often neglected because it comes after “the good stuff,” but it is …
Continue reading “Breakoff Series Part 1: Planning Breakoff and Tracking”
Quick! What do you do if you are on jump run, the green light has been turned on, and then the green light goes out (either the red light comes back on or the green light simply turns off)? Assume the light is broken and proceed with your climbout and skydive. Flip the spotting switch …
Is it about time for your first hop and pop (low-altitude emergency exit simulation) in our Skydiver Training Program? If you’re like most skydiving students, chances are you are more nervous about this jump than most of your full-altitude skydives! The lower exit altitude combined with the 5-second maximum deployment time, and possibly your first …
Continue reading “Skydiver Training Tip: That First Hop and Pop”
When you get ready to skydive for the first time, you put the ultimate trust in your instructor. You trust that person to gear you up, give you the freefalling time of your life, and deliver you softly back to the real world on the ground. The relationship between first-time student and instructor is an …
Continue reading “Skydiver Training Tip: Finding Your Match”
Traffic is a bad word, especially for those of us living in the Houston area! And while we think we can get away from it when we’re flying, the reality is that at any dropzone, and particularly at a busy one like Spaceland, the traffic can resemble downtown Houston rush at its worst. The difference …
Continue reading “Canopy Traffic: Find Your Place in the Sky”
These days, most of us are almost never without our mobile phones. Some even seem to have separation anxiety if they misplace their phones for even a few minutes! 🙂 This week’s tip is good news for the phone-bonded among us, because it’s a recommendation to take your phone with you whenever you skydive. Why, …
What’s the first thing your skydiving instructor has you do after you leave the plane? Check your altitude. Before and after maneuvers, check your altitude. If you don’t have altitude awareness, PULL! Awareness of your altitude is of paramount importance to our survival in skydiving, and we all know it. And yet we sometimes forget …
Gusty winds are common at Spaceland and many other dropzones. As an experienced jumper, I have thought a lot about what my personal wind limit is–in other words, when I will sit down even though the dropzone is not on a wind hold. Recently, I made the decision not to jump after watching other fun …
Ah spring… Green grass, warming temperatures, and RAIN! One of the most common questions we see in our social media news feeds this time of the year is, “How wet is the landing area?” If you have to ask, the answer is usually “underwater.” 😉 Since we’re not too interested in waiting days for perfectly …
Current weather reports 1000 foot overcast skies… anyone for a hop & pop? In all seriousness, how low are you prepared to get out of the airplane? Have you thought about what you would do in an emergency since you were a student? A couple weeks ago I was flying, had just taken off from …
As a current or former student in our Skydiver Training Program here at Spaceland, you have access to our skydiving students group on Facebook. This group is a ton of fun! You’ll find everything from freefall and canopy control questions to gear inquiries, discussions of who’s jumping on a particular day, Spaceland event announcements, and …
You’ve probably heard skydivers talk about the “hill” and “flying the hill” when discussing exits from powered aircraft flying horizontally. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, let’s define it! The hill is that transition period between your leaving the aircraft and reaching terminal vertical velocity. When you exit, you are initially traveling horizontally just like …
Ah, wintertime. We’re lucky enough here at Spaceland-Houston to have jumpable temperatures year-round, but cooler days and holidays often result in many of us taking a bit of a break from jumping this time of year. This break can result in a lack of currency, which is an additional risk factor for injury in skydiving. …