October 30, 2013
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Skydiving vs Base Jumping vs Bungee Jumping
An acquaintance was asking for some thrill ideas before he went back into the workforce so we had a discussion on what would be considered thrilling. He has gone skydiving before so that was out of the picture and other ideas of mine were out because of the price tag or danger which includes paragliding because you need training and your own equipment, flyboarding because instruction and rental costs were expensive, and canyon swinging because it's been banned since people saw the cool clip on YouTube and decided to test the thrill out but failed to make the correct calculations in the rope line and swung to their deaths so dying was out of the picture. But what is scary and what is thrilling?
Skydiving to me is thrilling but not very scary because you're in tandem with a pro that does all the work and calculations and you're just attached at their crotch for the ride. The pro handles everything and hits the safety precautions for you so you don't have to worry about a thing but to enjoy the ride unless of course you're like that old lady that was slipping out of the harness. The real scare is when you're flying solo where the control is in your hands but you can't do that until you have a few tandem jumps under your belt and your own equipment which is costly. Due to the distance of your fall, there is time to think and figure out a solution in case something goes wrong like when your first chute fails, there's your back up chute and so forth which is why there's not much deaths. A good number of skydivers say that because of the control of the pros, skydiving is not scary and after flying solo after you gain the control the thrill of the scare also goes away. They also said they would never try bungee jumping as a result because of the lack of control makes it too scary.
Skydiving tandemBase Jumping is more scary because the distance of your fall is less so you have less time to react if something was to go wrong. There is also no such thing as tandem base jumping either so you're on your own which is why novice jumpers are not allowed to try the sport. Well technically you can if you have the equipment but of course doing so would be at your own risk. Base jumping sounds really fun especially if you sport the squirrel suit, but not so much if you fly into a tree or something. Of course there's always the risk of your chute not opening which would result in severe injuries or death. The other risk is because of the distance, the height to pull your chute and the impact of your landing is much more crucial as this guy learned in this very graphic video.
Base JumpingBungee jumping is the scariest thing to skydivers because so many things can go wrong in the short amount of time and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it but to plunge head first to your death but at least it would be instant and over with in a split second when you realize something is wrong. Like base jumping, there's no one to hold your hand and there's no safety net or chute in case something goes wrong like the rope or ratchet breaking or colliding into the surrounding or getting tangled into the line. I would think the highest yet safest bungee jump in the world is the one at Macau Tower because even though it is the highest, they add in extra lines and contraptions to ensure safety which in a sense takes the scariness out of it. You have your usual bungee line then you have a safety line that keeps you in control from running into the building itself but also slows down your fall towards the end.
Bungee JumpingRegardless of which sport you go to for thrills, if something goes wrong then it goes horribly wrong. You only live once right? Carpe Diem or YOLO for idiots.
