It's a quick death...isn't it?

[sparkie 0]

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Skydiver are "risk managers". They believe that it is the "others" who die. They believe that their skill or caution that will curve the odds in their favor. It is not true.

Imo, you kinda have to think like that to stop one from quitting the sport. It's healthy i think.

Yes skydiving is dangerous, and yes I could die doing it..... No point in dwelling on it, just be as prepared for trouble as you can be, what more can you do. You might miss all the good stuff that makes me smile, like last loads, the farting in the plane, the scenery and the reassurance that you're not the only guy/girl that never quite grew up ;)

just my 2cts (from my vaaast experience at 42 jumps ;PP)

[champu 1]

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Its also a global risk you're talking about, not strictly a personal risk. Your figure of 1:1000 is way out - as someone posted earlier I'd guess it's more like 1:100,000. Sure, its more likey to kill you than 10 pin bowling, but you're also more likely to die on the way to the DZ than you are whilst you're there.

As people have pointed out many times before, the driving to the dropzone vs skydiving comparison is usually made very poorly.

3,000,000 jumps a year resulting in 30 fatalities means 1:100,000 jumps results in a fatality. If you pretend that each jump I make is an independent roll of the dice, then I have a 99.5% chance of making it through any given year (~500 jumps these days)

But it's not really an independent roll of the dice against these odds, which brings us to...

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Skydiver are "risk managers". They believe that it is the "others" who die. They believe that their skill or caution that will curve the odds in their favor. It is not true.

Blah blah blah, "do everything right and still die," yeah, I get it, but the fact of the matter is that screwing up will get you killed a lot faster than doing everything right.

In the meantime, I'll continue to use caution and hone my skill so I can roll my dice against the best odds possible.