Were skydivers wilder and crazier in the old days?

[tbrown 26]

You know anybody jumping on 'shrooms or blotter acid nowadays ? Used to be a fairly commonplace occurence, at least on the west coast. Oh yeah.

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

[SivaGanesha 2]

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IMO skydiving was a 'fringe' activity then..

IMO skydiving still is a 'fringe' activity. It is not a mainstream activity...your average suburban soccer mom is, well, a soccer mom, not a skydiving mom. It has become somewhat mainstream to do a single, solitary tandem jump just to say you've 'been there, done that' but once you get past that--this is still far, far from a mainstream activity. Whuffos still outnumber skydivers about 10,000 to 1 in the general population.

"It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

[Zenister 0]

when you have rules, regulations and licenses to do any activity it is no longer 'fringe'

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Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[SivaGanesha 2]

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when you have rules, regulations and licenses to do any activity it is no longer 'fringe'

Well, the original question was whether skydiving was more 'fringe' back in the 70's. Definitely skydiving had rules, regulations, and licenses back in the 70's. It's been a LONG time--ie more than 30, probably more than 40, years--since skydiving has been a completely frontier activity totally without rules.

Were the rules broken more frequently in the 70's? Or are they broken more frequently now? I don't know. Skydiving isn't 'fringe' in the sense of being a criminal or terrorist activity. But it is certainly very much still fringe from the standpoint of what most people do on their weekends.

"It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

[pirana 0]

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Whuffos still outnumber skydivers about 10,000 to 1 in the general population.

I think if you consider only active licensed skydivers it is at least double that, maybe triple.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley