University of Portsmouth Skydive

People skydive for many reasons. Most new Skydivers jump with the aim to just have fun, but at some stage most will start looking to compete.

Like most Sports, skydiving has many disciplines. Some are competitive, other are just plain old fun. Below is a brief overview of the most popular disciplines. Some video links have been scattered throughout this page so please take some time to have a watch!

Formation Skydiving

Formation Skydiving, or 'FS', is where skydivers join up in the sky to make shapes, or 'formations'. When falling out of plane, grabbing hold of somebody would seem the natural thing to do but in practise it is quite difficult.

FS comes in a variety of forms:

• 4-way FS - This is the most common competitive FS discipline which involves a team of 5 (4 people + a cameraman) aiming to get as many formations in 35 seconds. The formations are drawn from a 'dive pool' at the start of the competition and each jump (or round) is totalled at the end. At the time of writing some of the world's best teams are scoring 50 formations (or points) per jump.

• 8-way FS - Similar to 4-way, 8-way is also a competitive discipline but with, you guessed it, 8 skydivers.

• Bigway - A 'bigway' formation is made up of anything more than 8 skydivers. Bigway isn't a competitive discipline but many world records have been set. The current world record for bigway FS is a 400-way which was completed by the World Team in 2006.

Freefly

Freeflyers, not content with skydiving on the bellys, fly in all manner of orientations. Most people will learn to fly in a 'sit' orientation before transitioning into higher-speed orientations like 'stand' and 'head-down'.

Freefly is just as competitive as FS and, when done well, looks fantastic!

Accuracy

Accuracy is a classic discipline which isn't practised as much nowadays. However, accuracy competitions are still common place and are a fun way to improve your canopy skills.

Accuracy involves leaving the plane at a slightly lower altitude and deploying your parachute almost immediately. The accuracy jumper then aims to land on a target in order to score points. Good accuracy jumpers can land on a penny nearly every time.

Accuracy jumpers will jump larger canopies in order to allow them to 'sink' them down onto a target.

Canopy Relative Work (CRW or CReW)

CRW may be described as the intentional maneuvering of two or more open parachute canopies in close proximity to, or contact with one another during descent. The most basic maneuver in CRW is the hooking up of two canopies, one below the other. This formation, known as a 'stack' or 'plane' (the difference between a stack and a plane is the grip on the parachute), is the most common maneuver in CRW.

Like FS, CRW describes both smaller competitive formations and larger 'bigway' type formations.

CRW is an advanced discipline that requires a considerable amount of experience.

Wingsuit

Wingsuiting is a exciting new discipline that involves wearing a purpose-built suit that enables the jumper to literally fly their bodies. Wings are located between the arms and legs and contain pockets that fill with air and inflate. This turns the body into a semi-rigid structure (like the wing of an aircraft) which creates lift.

While wearing a wingsuit, downspeed can be reduced by up to 3 times. This speed is converted into forward movement across the sky.

It is not possible to land in a wingsuit so, like any other skydive, a parachute is deployed to bring you safely back to the ground. Wingsuiting is an advanced discipline and requires considerable amount of experience.

Canopy Piloting (CP or 'Swooping')

Swooping involves accelerating the canopy towards the ground in order to increase its speed before levelling out and 'swooping' across the ground at speeds of up to 90mph.

Swooping has grown in popularity recently and many believe this is because it is one of few 'spectator friendly' disciplines.

Swooping is very impressive to watch when done well, and fatal when done wrong. It is an advanced discipline that requires considerable experience.

BASE Jumping

BASE jumping isn't a skydiving discipline but it's worth mentioning. In fact, as the most dangerous extreme sport, it's not endorsed in any way by the British Parachute Association.

BASE stands for 'Building, Antenna, Span (bridge) and Earth (cliffs)' which are the main types of objects that are jumped from.

You will likely have read about BASE jumping with the recent flurry of media coverage. All BASE jumpers start as skydivers.

There is no direct entry into BASE jumping.