Skydiving has become one of St. Louis' exceedingly remarkable and unequalled adventures

Skydiving in Missouri

Have you often wanted to shoot across the heavens like Superman? Odds are, you have, just as a large number of humans have sometimes allowed their minds a couple moments of such whimsical fancy. But in contrast to our Kryptonian idol in Metropolis, U.S.A., we mortals are subject to the law of gravity, so we have certainly had to depend on creativity and danger to live out our aerial fantasies. Man must be satisfied to FALL rather than FLY. Yet thrill-seekers throughout history have indeed found that falling isn't so dangerous-- IF you can LAND SAFELY.

As far back as the 1100's, the Chinese executed what we these days call "base jumping," an adventure sporting activity characterized by leaping from protrusions or high cliffs and floating to the earth utilizing parachutes, but the historic Chinese varieties had very little in common with today's parachutes. Centuries later in the middle of the Renaissance, renowned artisan and inventor Leonardo Da Vinci penciled a design of a pyramid-shaped parachute using a wood framework, and this was demonstrated with success on a minimum of two instances during the 20th century.

As with the exhilarating sport of hot air ballooning, skydiving can be linked to 18th century Europe, when Frenchman Andre-Jacques Garnerin began diving from hot air balloons in 1797. Garnerin successfully made sky dives using a silk parachute attached to a basket. He took a trip throughout Europe for expos in which he sailed 3,000 feet above enamored crowds. He would soon after slash the balloon free and drop in a makeshift basket-parachute completing stunts and antics for audiences, arguably offering the world an early peek at our modern-day skydiving.

Jumping ahead (no pun intended) to the very early 20th century, observation balloon aviators were assigned parachutes as rescue devices during the course of World War I, in the event they had to bail out do to emergency. However the very first VERIFIED and DELIBERATE free-fall sky dive with ripcord-operated parachute implementation is credited to Leslie Irvin in 1919. Further beating the drum for the procedure of skydiving (or more frequently called "parachuting"), initial tournaments started in the 1930s, featured by stunt jumper Georgina "Tiny" Broadwick apparently making free-fall jumps by "falling away" from a plane, slashing her static-line as well as physically pulling out the remaining line to deploy her parachute, according to adventure sport historians.

The U.S.A. and some other allied military developed more advanced skydiving systems during the course of World War II as a means of delivering soldiers to the battlefield. It was soon after World War II that sky diving came to be more commonly performed, when surplus parachutes from the conflict were used by retired soldiers, who had evolved to love the excitement of freely "flying" through the air just like their new comic book heroes. Ever since those days, skydiving has grown into a genuine leisure sport that sums up adrenaline fans all over the world.

Ready to attempt skydiving near St. Louis, Missouri? Give Skydiving Over St. Louis a telephone call at 314-783-4776 for much more info and fantastic sales prices!