Perhaps you've entertained the notion of skydiving, but never knew what to expect? Or perhaps you simply want to know what goes through one's mind as the decision to leap into nothingness becomes concrete, and evolves into what Charles Lindbergh characterized as "greatest adventure of my life."
This book will provide that insight. Of the several dozen books currently available on the sport of parachuting, fewer than a handful attempt to describe the emotional anguish and exhilharation that inevitably accompany a student's progression from "whuffo" (never used a parachute) to "skydiver." And clearly, none does it better than this book.
Miles Clark is a British journalist who undertook to learn skydiving for the express purpose of writing a book on it. The result is a well-written, approachable, technically informative, and very entertaining expose on learning modern skydiving.(That whiff of British wit doesn't hurt either!) It will get your heart pumping as Cark describes standing at the open door of an aircraft in flight for the very first time!
Although several years old, all technical aspects remain
accurate, as are prices for training and equipment in the U.S. Admirably, Clark does not try to gloss over skydiving's risks, nor does he portay it's participants as death-seeking freaks. The risk/reward question is equitably treated. Don't look here for a treatise or a "how to" book on becoming a world-class skysurfer, or some of the newer disciplines to appear recently. This book emphasizes the basics: what one needs to learn to move from beginner to novice. It would be most appropriate for those considering skydiving, or wanting to know what it entails from an emotional and technical standpoint. Eloquently described, as it is in this book, the sport of skydiving can only sell itself. Read "Sky Diving in 8 Days!"
