The UAE has one of the most prominent skydiving communities in the world, and in this episode of Guy in Dubai Paris sets out to join it by learning to jump solo.
The route is the AFF, or assisted freefall, course, which he takes at Skydive Abu Dhabi. Ground school is led by instructor Daniel Martin, who has more than 10,000 jumps. Paris jokes that it is more skydives than he has had hot dinners, and it is the only thing keeping him calm. Daniel walks him through the parachute and what to do in the air.
Before leaving the plane, Paris trains in a huge indoor wind tunnel, 32 feet in diameter, to practise body position. The episode doesn’t shy away from the risks either, looking honestly at the reality of accidents in the sport.
Then it is time to jump. AFF builds up step by step over eight jumps: at first two instructors hold on to help the student stay stable, then gradually let go until the student can fly alone. The episode follows Paris to his final jump and qualification, and captures the euphoria that keeps skydivers coming back.
Key moments
- 0:00 The thrill of skydiving
- 1:43 Learning the basics
- 5:05 Indoor wind tunnel practice
- 6:49 The reality of accidents
- 8:55 Final jump and qualification
Adventures like this one feed directly into The Grit Code, Paris’s keynote on grit, resilience and high performance. Planning an event? See Paris as a keynote speaker in the UAE. Browse more episodes on the Adventure TV shows page.
Full transcript
Read the full transcript
Haha This Is crazy It's time for another adventure. Geronimo [Theme Music] I've done some pretty crazy things in my time. I've raced the world's fastest powerboats Flown across the Empty Quarter desert in a paramotor. Swum with sharks in shipwrecks and even ziplined between mountains, but there's one extreme sport which I'm yet to try and takes the podium for madness. What am i talking about? Skydiving of course [Funky Music] It was just a normal day. I did a 270 degree turn. I was too low. I panicked. I freaked out. And I impacted the ground with my side The canopy kept flying and I impact again, and I wake up in the hospital day 15. Hi my name is Carla and I'm an instructor in Abu Dhabi Skydive. Whenever we get a new AFF student, it's a
new day We never know how this person will react, how you will have to talk because every student has a different mentality, different fears The very first step to learning how to skydive solo is to learn your AFF or assisted freefall course so I went to Skydive Abu Dhabi to learn the ropes Hi Daniel. How are you? Nice to meet you. Welcome to Abu Dhabi skydive thank you This is your ground school and I will introduce you in the skydiving world Super right, so this is what we learn before we jump out of an airplane, you're gonna tell me what I need to do first to stop me from doing anything stupid My name is Daniel Martin. I'm working in Skydive Abu Dhabi. I have now ten thousand three hundred jumps, around this Ten thousand
jumps? That's more skydives than I've had hot dinners, but at the time that was about the only thing keeping me calm So we will start to show you your parachute. This is very important for you okay. You need to understand how you use, how you open your parachute, how you check though your parachute if you always go okay? Parachute right, that's one bit of equipment I wouldn't be forgetting My first jump was actually very scary My name is Vijay. Im a pilot with Etihad Airways and I'm a student with Skydive Abu Dhabi I was very nervous but I really want to do it This guy's a pilot He should be staying in the planes not jumping out of them [Groovy Music] I feel surprisingly relaxed considering I'm about to jump out of an airplane at
13,000ft Paris has a facility for learning in the sky you know, something like for free falls for pilots the canopy you know [Groovy Music] So one of the keys about skydiving is you have to get into a banana position and arch back. I'm not the most flexible person so it's a bit difficult for me but if you don't do it you lose balance and you start going all over the place so it's vital that you do I think the hardest thing to grasp right now is actually trying to keep balance while coming off the plane because now I'm at a stage where the instructors are not assisting me anymore getting off the plane so it's a solo jump, so when you jump out without the instructor actually holding on to your back you actually in
my case I start to spin out of control with what actually happened today Another way to be able to practice the skills of skydiving without actually jumping out of an airplane is to use a wind tunnel, so here we've come to the world's largest indoor wind tunnel here at Clymb in Abu Dhabi [Groovy Music} Alright so here at Clymb Abu Dhabi you can experience skydiving without having to jump off a plane. Whether you're a first timer or an experienced sky diver you're more than welcome to come here and try it for the first time or build up on your skills to the next level This is the biggest wind tunnel in the world by far. The previous largest wind tunnel in the world was 16 feet diameter, this one is 32. So you can imagine
how exponentially bigger it is So it's wider and taller. So wow. And does that allow us to do more skills in there or is it Yeah. Matter of fact there is professional skydivers who train bigger formations a larger group of people can come in here and practice with that freedom of moving on the vertical plane more freely with a larger group of people of course and that also means that for a first timer the experience is also realistic Indoor skydiving certainly taught me a lot of things about body composure and technique. But was I going to remember it all when I was falling through the air at 200 miles an hour? I had 899 jumps and you know when you start doing it every day like 10, 11 times and you get confident you start
losing the fear, but at the end we're jumping out of the plane. So it was just a normal day I did 270 turn to start my shipping. I was too low, I didn't know how to react, I panicked I freaked out and I crashed. I impact the ground with my side and then the canopy kept flying and I impact again, and I was with a couple of friends and actually my friend he was from Kuwait We were in Emporiabrava, so I started to speak Spanish to him and he was so freaked out he started to speak Arabic to me it was like. The ambulance came helicopters came and I don't remember anything and I wake up at the hospital day 15. I was like mom what am I doing here? She's like, what do you
mean? Like we've been here 15 days you were talking normally like everything fine it was like 15 days that I was conscious talking and like I don't remember anything [Funky Music] I started skydiving very young and in that moment I put a lot of effort. I got a lot of sponsors a lot of friends and suddenly this crash happened and you're alone. It's just you and your family you know like this no one else likes everyone it's gone. No sponsors. No tunnel. No skydive. It's like Oh start from zero you know. But hey like that makes you stronger person and you get the values in another hand. It's like now I know what I want and I know what that's not needed. I believe it certainly takes a certain group of people to really want
to do this. It's definitely not for anyone because it's actually quite a bit to handle I would say. I like to see how the people don't know nothing about skydiving, and after landing I see the people their smile is here you know [Airplane engine noise] Better now than never. It looks like I'm ready to do this [Funky music] The AFF is designed to introduce you to skydiving step by step First you jump with two instructors holding onto you to help you stabilize and then as you go through the eight jumps, you work on different parts of the technique One of the beauties of this particular drop zone is that whilst we're in Abu Dhabi the emirate, we're actually outside of the city towards Dubai and we're actually equidistant between the two cities. So when you're
at 13,000 ft jumping out you can see the skyline of Dubai and the skyline of Abu Dhabi, whilst you've got the sea bright blue in front of you and it's really the most unbelievable sight Flare. Flare. Flare. Woooooo That was epic If that looked like fun, words cannot explain how fun it really was. And now I'm AFF qualified and ready to jump solo, so the fun has only just begun. However for today, it's over now for me [Theme Music] Did you call Uber? Taxi? Is this my Uber? Yes let's go