History – how did it start?

Skydiving has a long and rich history. While most of the significant milestones in skydiving history occurred in the 20th Century, parachutes have been around for much longer.

The long history of parachuting started in China in the 1100s, nearly one thousand years ago. Naturally, there were no airplanes to jump from, but there have always been mountains and cliffs to leap from and float relatively safely to the ground. The first recorded jump ever using a parachute was from a building, long before airplanes were built. Fauste Veranzio, a Hungarian, jumped from the Bell Tower of Venice, Italy in either 1595 or 1617 (accounts vary). He dropped over 300 feet under a parachute with a rigid frame, a very similar design to drawings made by da Vinci a century earlier. Jumping da Vinci’s design was carried out again recently in 2000 by British skydiving legend, Adrian Nicholas, pictured below.

Skydiving as a sport, however, has a much more recent beginning. While the ancient Chinese and Leonardo da Vinci are both credited with conceiving the idea of a parachute, it was in France in the 18th century that the first parachutes were made and used. In 1797 the Frenchman, Andre Jacques Garnerin made the first parachute drop from a gas filled balloon using a basket under an open parachute which was made of silk and stiffened with supporting poles.

Parachutists from the earliest days, along with the balloonists and early aviators, formed part of aerial circuses, or ‘flying circuses’ as they were commonly referred to.

The development of aviation and parachuting between the wars still carried a ‘barnstorming’ image and despite attempts in the 1930s parachuting was not accepted by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (http://www.fai.org) - the World Air Sports Federation - as an aeronautical sport until the 1950s.

These early sport parachutists used ex-military parachute equipment, experimenting with the aerodynamics of the parachutes by cutting holes in them to improve the steering and flight. Gradually, as competition became fiercer parachutes were developed for sport use. The first World Championships were held in Bled, Yugoslavia in 1951; the 20th World Parachuting Championships were held there in 1990. Today, parachuting forms the largest internationally represented aeronautical sport within the FAI.

While parachuting generally refers to the use and flight of a parachute system, the term skydiving is generally used to refer to the freefall aspect. Freefall is quite simply, falling to earth until the force of gravity and freefall is what most skydivers live for. In the 1970's, freefall veterans experimented for a long time to get two people to freefall beside one another. This is where formation skydiving originated, the term “formation” refers to 2 or more skydivers flying their bodies relative to each other during freefall.

Currently, the span of Formation Skydiving begins with a two-way and ends with a 400-way as the current official world record. It's a social affair in the air: skydivers are holding hands and legs and both at the same time to build all kind of different formations of all sizes. Organizers and coaches are engineering the puzzle.

Formation Skydiving can generally be organized into two different areas: big way skydiving, also known as fun jumping, and the competitive arena.

Big Way Formation Skydiving

Big way skydivers meet up to build all sizes of formations in the sky. As the number of bigger events (with larger aircraft) continues to grow, they meet with skydivers from all over the country, sometimes all over the world, to build their formations from 8-ways up to the current world record of a 400-way formation http://www.theworldteam.com pictured below;

Competition Skydiving

More ambitious skydivers are sharpening their flying skills at training camps and going out to compete. Skydiving has become a very well organized competition arena. The national champions of all countries in the world compete each year either at the World Cup or at the World Championships. Skydiving is also slowly forging its way to becoming a part of the Olympic Games.

The U.S.A. and France have been the dominating nations in skydiving. In 17 FAI World Formation Skydiving Championships, the 8-way discipline has been won by the U.S. 14 times, Russia twice and France once. The U.S.A. currently holds the world record in 8-way with a score of 31 points in 50 seconds, set in 1997.

In the 4-way event, U.S.A. and France have been taking turns in bringing home the gold medal with only the Swiss 4-way team interrupting this sequence once in 1983. The current world-record in 4-way is an amazing 44 points in 35 seconds, held jointly by two Russian teams and set at the 2006 World Championships.

Twenty years ago, world record holders in 4-way were scoring 8 points in time, and no one would ever have believed that our sport would have advanced to currently scoring 44 points in time.

This rapid progression is testimony that skydiving is truly a professional, athletic sport with highly trained athletes, and is a skill that can be developed and cultivated like many other professional sports in our culture.