Did 200+ jumps a few years ago before life took twisted turns.
Is it fun? Sure is!
Is it safe? Between somewhat and no. Cpxxx said 'the drive to the airport is probably more dangerous' but to be honest, this is far from true. The level of risk is closer to riding a motorcycle, but that's not enough to rate it, because you can ride like a maniac through heavy traffic, or you can ride responsibly in full gear after having followed riding courses.
Skydiving is the same. As the sport is pretty much self-regulated (as long as you don't cause a plane crash with your antics, FAA (for the US) won't bat an eyelid if you lawndart yourself far from bystanders), you can get away with pretty stupid cheese... until your bucket of luck gets empty before your bucket of experience is filled. If you jump canopies too small (=fast) for your experience level, or get into difficult jumps with lots of people where the required skill is way above your head, or never make the effort to learn the details of how your gear works, chances are good that you'll end up someday with life-changing or even life-ending injuries. If you respect the activity (never forget that you're throwing yourself towards the earth at 130 mph and that you're dead as soon as you leave the plane UNLESS you do something right about it), jump canopies sized for you with a safety factor and mostly be humble about your skills and your abilities), you can be considered a safe skydiver. Just like pilots, old and bold skydivers are very few.
But this is a leisure activity with an inherent risk that will never reach zero: the experienced guys use to say that you'll never be good enough to never risk injury or death, and that you can do everything right in a jump and still die.
That being said, you'll meet tons of interesting people in skydiving, learn a lot about yourself, and lament about the permanent empty state of your wallet
. I went for just an AFF jump and signed for the whole course instead. Three weeks later, I was jumping unsupervised and packing my (rented) canopy myself.
Go to
www.dropzone.com, register on the forums and read all you can in the 'incidents', 'safety and training' and 'gear and rigging' forums. Don't do like every newbie and ask the same old same questions. Tons of info are there. Read!! But feel free to PM me if you feel the need. It is normal to feel apprehensive about this madness
I wish you lots of awesome jumps.
Blue Skies...
