Skydiving and parachute jumping in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas
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 …
Rosharon, Texas (March 31, 2015)–Building on the strong success of two world-class skydiving centers near Houston, Texas, and Miami, Florida, Skydive Spaceland will open a third skydiving center near Atlanta on May 1. “This is such a beautiful farm property in the Appalachian foothills,” says owner Steve Boyd. “We’re super excited to bring our business …
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 …
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 …
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. …
Recently, one of our licensed jumpers took it upon himself to remind us all about keeping our rigs away from the edges of the aircraft door when rotating out to a floater exit. It’s a great reminder for all of us, because it’s far too easy to get too comfortable and complacent about safety aspects …
Let’s face it: Skydiving isn’t easy, especially when you’re just starting the sport. You may be a natural at freefall, but struggle with canopy patterns or landing, or vice versa. Or you may be nervous enough to have trouble getting out of the plane at all. The important thing to remember here is that many …
Continue reading “Skydiver Training Tip: What If You Have to Repeat a Dive?”
Are you one of those people who knocks standardized tests out of the park without half trying, or do you tend to need some quality study time to ace them? Regardless of your test performance proclivities, keep one thing in mind regarding your skydiving training tests: These are definitely tests you don’t want to fail, …
Do you ever wonder what our pretty King Air with the in-flight door is up to? Spaceland’s owner Steve Boyd, Sr., has teamed with the Veterans Airlift Command (VAC) to provide free transportation in his King Air to our wounded veterans. So far, he has completed four missions including trips to North Carolina, Florida, and two …
Continue reading “Skydive Spaceland Owner Gives Back to our Military By Flying Wounded Veterans”
Oh no! You want to jump this weekend, but your reserve is out of date! Can this tragedy be averted so you can get some quality sky time? The answer is: Maybe! Our full-time rigging loft may very well be able to accommodate your right-now repack request, depending on their current workload. If you need …
Low/High Pulls High openings and low passes must take into account the number of airplanes flying, other skydiving activities, and canopy descent rate. We cannot always accommodate low passes or high openings. We cannot guarantee that low-pass jumpers will land alone unless only one plane is flying. Ensure that the aircraft is configured for your …
Continue reading “Special Dives: Low/High Pulls, Toy Dives, Pond Swooping”
Canopy Safety Wind indicators: Landing direction arrow, flags, wind sock. The landing direction arrow is an air-traffic control device that sets the landing direction on the north side of the runway. Know the landing direction before takeoff, and check the landing direction indicator (LDI) north of the runway after you open and check canopy in case …
Winds Aloft This information is posted daily on the board near the aircraft mockups. Also check out our weather page… Loading Area We use loading area 1 (north of the hangar) on cold starts/after fueling, and loading area 2 (northwest corner of hangar) on hot turns. Please be in the loading area on the 5-minute …
Continue reading “Aircraft/Loading Area Safety and Policies”
Wingsuit jumps carry many of the same risks as tracking/angle flying because of the horizontal movement component. They can also pose a risk to later-dropping aircraft because of the extremely slow fall rate. They can pose challenges when dealing with malfunctions as well, because of the limited mobility many suits allow the jumper before wings …
Are you a new skydiver with a shiny new A license? Or maybe you’re a skydiving student already thinking about the fun things you’ll do after you graduate? Congratulations on becoming a part of the global skydiving community! We’re glad you’re here. 🙂 Now let’s talk a little about the skydives you’ll do once you …
Forrest Gump might have said that skydiving and cameras go together like peas and carrots. It’s an awesome thing to capture what’s arguably the world’s most fun aerial activity with a nice tiny, high-quality camera such as a GoPro. It won’t get in the way, right? You won’t even know it’s there! To go back …
It is bumpy up there! Turbulence is the Rodney Dangerfield of skydiving…. It doesn’t get respect. Turbulence is a challenge for jumpers for at least two reasons: It is invisible and unpredictable. Because turbulence is invisible, we must actively anticipate where it may be. Most new jumpers (and a lot of more experienced ones) vastly underestimate …
If you’re a people watcher, observing skydivers preparing for hop and pop skydives (low-altitude exits) is a lot of fun. You see everything from cool-cat, ho-hum, highly experienced swoopers practicing their craft to jumpy first-timers doing their first exits below full altitude, hoping with all their hearts to be stable enough to deploy within the …
On August 3, 2014, Skydive Spaceland added friendly competition to its Transitions program for recent graduates of any skydiving program. Skydivers with A licenses up to around 100 jumps enjoy free coaching from two available USPA Coaches/experienced jumpers every weekend. Also, during the first weekend of every month there is an event with additional mentors …
Continue reading “Skydive Spaceland Hosts First Transitions 3-Way Speed Star Competition”
Ah, the feel of freefall on your face, your hair whipping in the wind… wait a minute! If you have long hair (past your shoulders), hair whipping around in freefall is actually a bad thing. Aside from the Gordian knot that often results from 120mph of wind whipping your hair around, hair that is very …
Continue reading “Long Hair? Avoid This Skydiving Malfunction”
When I was still in school, I was a serious last-minute crammer before tests. Study ahead of time? Not my strong suit. So there I would be at 1 a.m. before a big exam, studying my tail off. 5 minutes before the test, still reviewing. At least I studied, right?! When you are learning to …
Continue reading “Skydiver Training Tip: Practice Before You Leave”
Tracking dives are fun… free flowing… and inherently potentially riskier than dives that fall straight down. Any dive in which jumpers plan horizontal movement will require additional safety considerations to reduce the additional risks. Spaceland has developed several policies for tracking/angle dives with the blessings of our staff and experienced tracking organizers. Please follow these …
For recent skydiving graduates, there is often a no-man’s-land between the A license and getting on good dives. Skydive Spaceland-Houston has been turning that no-man’s land into free coaching central with its monthly Transitions events. On or near the first weekend of each month, organizers and coaches collaborate to provide free small-group coaching tailored to …
Continue reading “Skydive Spaceland Transitions Events for Recent Grads”
There are a lot of things in life we sugarcoat, such as when answering questions like, “How do I look in this dress?” Or “How does this resume sound?” But some things in life just don’t take sugar well–they are what they are. So it is with safety around propellers, be they of the aviation, …
Skydiving often seems like one of the most dynamic, chaotic sports in existence. People are falling from the sky every which way, for cryin’ out loud! 🙂 In reality, the chaos is highly engineered to allow us all to enjoy our dynamic freefallin’ fun while staying safe, and that engineering starts with ensuring that each …
As skydivers, we tend to like to do things together. We like to skydive with our friends, give each other grief about any minor mistakes during the dive, celebrate our successes, and enjoy brews together after sunset. Some people prefer solo skydives on occasion so they can work on skills or just enjoy the sky without …