Virginia Skydivers

Coming into UVA, one of the most exciting things was always the amount of clubs offered. I have always been a girl to enjoy a lot of extracurriculars and hence appreciate the selection here a lot. One of the clubs that I am most fond of is Virginia Skydivers.

The club's regular by-comers are all experienced divers, except for me, because I just joined. Although costly, skydiving is very well worth it. First tandem jumps cost $255, but with the UVA student discount it's $225. A tandem jump is a type of skydiving in which you are strapped onto an instructor and the parachute is attached to the instructor's harness. There's some training before you make this first jump, but most first-jumps are tandem jumps. This is the first baby step of skydiving! Once you dive more and eventually get licensed if you wish, prices for jumps significantly decrease. Usually at least one person in the club goes out every weekend. We have two regular locations, Orange, VA and West Point, VA. A lot of times, people can just come out and watch too. It's a really fun time to go out and just watch people sway down from the sky and witness it in person. It's a really different atmosphere out there.

In addition to just jumping, we also have a handful of fun events we attend! We do other things, such as base jumping, jumping from hot air balloons, wind tunnels, and recently the club attended the infamous skydivers' Halloween Boogie at West Point, VA. There was a casa, in which 30+ jumpers use a tailgate exit, magic carpet rides where divers just hold on tight to each other, hoop dives through hula hoops, raft dives, and etc, as seen in these pictures!

We meet every Thursday at the Backyard, which is off of Elliewood on the Corner, at 7PM. These meetings are always very relaxed and chill, talk about skydiving, fundraising ideas and other things. I make it out there by foot from Old Dorms, so I know you can make it too! Fundraising is a big priority right now, because we want to make skydiving more affordable for college students, but to do so we need help! Please try and come out sometime and we'll assure you have a blast!

And here is some really cool footage of CavMan diving into Scott Stadium when we played Eastern Michigan! I can't say that the club sponsored CavMan, but cool nonetheless.

Along the lines of something a superhero once said... flying is statistically still safer than driving! Check out our site http://www.student.virginia.edu/skydive/index.php!