To Al Gramando, potential skydiving instructors need two things: a high
school education and an attitude.
Gramando owns a company that manufactures training aids for instructional
classes, including written manuals. He also sells skydiving equipment.
As if this wasn't enough parachuting stuff, he's a national director of
the United States Parachuting Association (USPA), an organization boasting
over 38,000 members in the U.S. and overseas.
"It's a volunteer association -- only the headquarters staff is paid to
run the day-to-day organization," says Gramando. "But we work very closely
with the government, creating basic guidelines and safety regulations for
the members."
While skydiving regulations vary from country to country, U.S. regulations
are controlled by the USPA. This doesn't mean the USPA has a completely free
hand: the government expects the organization to maintain the safety of its
members and make sure that instructors are competent.
"If you want to be a skydiving instructor, it takes a minimum of 50 dives
and passing a test to get your B license. Once you have your B, you can attend
the basic instructional course. This teaches you how to teach, but doesn't
give you an instructional rating. That comes after 100 dives, a lot of helping
out in other people's classes, and a jumpmaster's certification course," says
Gramando.
"Now you're given a professional card and, after another year of jumping
and helping out, you can take the instructor's certificate course (ICC). There
are a lot of exams -- before and after -- that you have to pass to become
an instructor."
The ICC teaches jumpers how to train in the classroom setting, utilize
other instructors, write lessons plans and fully understand and use training
programs.
"Generally speaking, you should have a couple of hundred jumps by then.
However, a free-fall rating can take from 500 to 1,000 hours to get," says
Gramando. Free-falling can only be done for a few minutes at a time, so building
up the required number of hours takes a heck of a lot of jumps.
There are four ways to skydive. The first, and possibly most dramatic,
is accelerated free fall. The second is tandem, in which a novice and instructor
are harnessed together to the same parachute. Third is static line, where
a length of cord connects the parachutist's ripcord to the airplane, automatically
releasing the chute. The fourth method is instructor-assisted deployment.
While the money earned being a full-time skydiving instructor isn't great,
the majority of instructors don't teach for the money anyway.
"The big benefits are intangible," says Gramando. "You've taken some person
to an area that is hazardous and brought them safely out of it. They've had
a good time and you've had a good time seeing the fun they've had."
This feeling is echoed by Tom Pfeifer, chairman of the coaching and working
committee of a sport parachute association. He's been skydiving for many years.
"It's very enjoyable to watch people learn," says Pfeifer. "It's an exciting,
thrilling sport and it's neat to watch people learning to love it as much
as I do."
Madolyn Murdock likes the competition inherent in the sport. She enjoys
competing against other skydivers around the world and dealing with the challenges
that students bring up day to day.
"I experience the thrill, the electricity that they feel," she says. "I
get a charge out of that."