Skydiving at Night

[Dave Homewood]

Is this a common practice? I have never heard of civilians jumping at night. From the Press, 17 November 1978:

Sky diving by night

Eight members of the Canterbury Sky Diving Club resembled glow worms as they fell through the darkness with torches at the Wigram R.N.Z.A.F. base early this morning. The men, five of them attempting to gain their D licences to raise their qualifications as jump instructors, landed safely.

[FlyingKiwi]

When I flew skydivers at Thames about 12 or 13 years ago there were some members of the club there that had done night jumps, but I definitely wouldn't say it's a common practice.

[NZ1009]

I did 436 civilian jumps of which 3 were night jumps. One broken leg in 433 day jumps and one
broken leg in 3 night jumps - a lot harder to judge your height to flare the square
canopy at night.

[Dave Homewood]

Ouch!

Was it the same leg each time?

[NZ1009]

Yes, same leg. Have had a somewhat chequered history with
broken bones. In 10 seperate (mainly sport related) incidents
I have broken:

- a leg 3 times
- both arms
- both collar bones
- ribs
- a finger
- 2 toes

Collar bones and ribs are the ones to avoid.

[Dave Homewood]

[NZ1009]

Just a bit more on how we did the night jumps. It was over farmland
to the north of Adelaide, Australia and very dark looking down. We
had 3 lanterns on the ground arranged as points of a triangle with the idea that
the view of the triangle changed as you came lower under canopy so
you could get some impression of height (e.g. if they are in a straight
line then the lanterns are at eye level). The square canopies we were
using had, on full drive, a forward speed of around 20mph. I was on full
drive just thinking time to flare when I hit the ground totally unprepared.

There were 5 of us in the plane, went from 8,000ft, had a light attached to
the harness so you could read the altimeter. Each jumper carried a glow
stick so we could see where everyone was in free fall.

Probably not the best way of doing night jumps.