You peer back to the aircraft for a brief second to see it speeding away. You feel weightless as the wind roars around you. Looking down you suddenly realize that you are falling towards the earth. Someone once said that the sky is the limit, but in skydiving the ground is the limit. Skydiving is not just a free fall and a parachute ride, but an extreme thrill of events in a short amount of time.
Skydiving begins on the ground.
The equipment that you use is the most important part of a successful dive. The most important piece is the parachute itself. The reserve parachute is the second most important piece of equipment. It must be packed by a Federal Aviation Administration rigger every 120 days or after the reserve parachute has been deployed. The third piece is your altimeter that is set and calibrated to altitude at ground level.