Types of Skydiving for Beginners

There are three types of skydiving for beginners: tandem, IAD/Static line, and AFF. A tandem skydive is a jump where the student is strapped into a harness and attached to a certified tandem instructor. This method of skydiving is often used for people that only want to jump one time or people that are testing out the sport to see if they like it. I did this type of jump as my first jump. In an IAD or static line jump the student has his or her own parachute, but it is pulled out right as they leave the plane.  In a static line jump the parachute is tied to a line that is tied to the plane; so that the line will pull out the parachute as one jumps out of the plane, and the line will detached from the parachute. In a IAD, Instructor Assisted Deployment, the instructor pulls the parachute for the student as he or she is jumping out of the plane. AFF is a progression of jumps that will allow for a student to become a certified skydiver. In AFF there are multiple levels that teach the student different skills. The student must demonstrate these different skills to pass each level to move on to the next one. I went through AFF and actually just graduated.

These are two videos of the world record vertical freeflying formation.
1. The world record with the song radioactive playing in the background
2. The world record from one persons point of view