Customer Reviews

Parachuting: The Skydiver's Handbook

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book continues in the excellent tradition similar to the "Dummies" books. It might just as well have been called "Skydiving for Dummies." It is especially aimed at the beginning skydiver who wants all the information available for just before, and just after the first few skydives. However, as an experienced skydiver with over 1,300 jumps, I also learned a few things. Humorous little quotations adorn many of the pages, helping to lighten up what could, in areas, become so technical as to be, well, overwhelming for the skydiving neophyte. But, in my experience, beginning jumpers will gobble up all the information available. And this is a complete and healthy meal. The only thing missing is the dessert--that is, the photos and info that show how really COOL and high-tech the sport has become. And the camaraderie that develops among like-minded sport parachutists, who are also called skydivers. It is really a fun and exciting sport for today. If you want to learn all about it, this is the book for you!

Now in a completed revised, updated and expanded eighth edition, The Skydiver's Handbook continues to be the "bible" of this dramatic and popular sport. Skydiving is much more than just jumping out of an airplane with a parachute. Skydiving today is as close as a human can come to unencumbered bird-like flight, and with proper aerobatic maneuvering, a skydiver can cover about 1.35 miles on a sixty-second skydive from 12,500 feet, providing 10,000 feet of freefall. Skydiving is aptly described as high-speed vertical aviation, and The Skydiver's Handbook is a reader-friendly, comprehensive, reliable, informative, and complete instruction manual and guide to a safe, exciting, skill-building skydiving experience.

After reading it and digesting alot of it I have come to quite a few conclusions. This book is an incredible source of knowledge and enlightenment on the fundamentals of skydiving. It is so well written that even the newest student can understand the technical aspects and physics of our sport. It is an awesome plethora of knowledge combined into one little 396 page book and well worth the $$ spent and the time committed to reading it. To all skydivers: A great tool for re-inforcement and reference.

This is a good book for beginning skydivers. It has a lot of stuff that every skydiver should know about many aspects of skydiving. It is less interesting for experienced skydivers, for a lot of things will already be known to them (but there are still a lot of useful gems in this one)

I definitely recommend this book. Also consider "The Skydiver's Survival Guide". It picks up where this book leaves off.

One of the quotes in this book is "the difference between fear and respect is knowledge." As a newbie to skydiving I have (like many others, I'm sure) wanted to gather as much information as possible about the sport, how the equipment works, the safety features that have evolved over the years to keep skydivers safer. So I've done a lot of research, thumbed through a lot of books and paid very close attention at the dropzone where I'm training.

This book, unlike anything else I've seen, organizes the principles of skydiving and the descriptions of various seemingly every possible relevant point into a very easy-to-follow format. I'm about halfway through it now and the more I read, the more comfortable I am with everything. Poynter and Turoff seem to simply be reinforcing everything I've learned from my actual instructors (both AFF and tandem).

To the point, if you're considering skydiving, if you're new to the sport, if you're an instructor looking for resources to pass along to uneasy students, this is it... a fabulous companion to the training you'll get at your own dropzone.

If you are even remotely courious about skydiving, read this book. If someone you love is taking up the sport and you are nervous about it, read the first few chapters. If you are concerned about safety, health requirements, equipment, procudures, you name it... get a hold of this book.
It is a good reference to review emergency procudures from time to time and it is a fantastic aid for skydiver like me that are just out of student status striving to find someone to jump with. It contains several pointers on exercizes to practice while in freefall and under canopy that are useful well after a skydivier is off student status.

I read it cover to cover almost twice before getting my first lesson. Of course that did not prevent me from forgetting the little detail of deploying my canopy on my first jump (but I am alive and still skydiving, yes, skydiving is THAT safe).Student skydivers should always listen to their instructors.

Parachuting is an increasingly popular hobby. Indeed, right down the road a piece from where I live is Skydive Chicago, one of the largest skydiving centers in the Midwest. Well, if you are considering doing your first jump, then you *must* get this book. It tells you what will happen on your first jump, gives you easy to learn maneuvers and techniques, even telling you why people jump.

Overall, I found this to be a very good book. The techniques are sound, which is no surprise as the authors are both expert skydivers, and the pictures are well done. And I must say, I really did enjoy the history of parachuting! Overall I found this to be a highly informative read, one that I recommend to anyone thinking about taking the big plunge!

This book is absolutely great. Everything you could possibly want to know about the sport. I would consider this book to be a true handbook of the subject. I had a clear understanding of what to expect before my first jump. I felt like a veteran. I'd recommend it for anyone wanting to make the leap either as a once in a lifetime event or lifetime sport. Kudos to the author Dan Poynter and Mike Turoff. Thanks for the great book!

I have read this book cover to cover before I did my first tandem. Later I have gone through many books on parachuting but never came across such a complete and simple book that explains virtually everything you need to know about parachuting. This book is especially useful for beginners. Well... this book is simply the best I have seen on parachuting. Need I say more?

I bought this book prior to starting Accelerated Free Fall. It gave me a good working knowledge of what to expect. Now that I am into the sport, I use it frequently to look up reference items that will be used during my next skydiving session. I appreciate this book being availible.