If you are going to learn how to swoop, you should keep in mind that the most important part of swooping is the last part. In other words, you’re going to need to practice getting ready to land and actually carrying out your landings. You will also need to make sure that you’re very good at piloting your canopy up until the point where you need to land if you’re going to be safe while you’re swooping.
Practice normal landings
As a result, before you even start learning how to swoop, you should make sure that you are very good at normal landings. This means that you have done hundreds, if not thousands of regular skydiving jumps, and that you have experienced a lot of different landing situations. After all, the only way that you can truly get good at landing your parachute is by practicing.
Having large numbers of jumps under your belt will help you out since you are more likely to have experienced some unusual landing situations. The more unusual situations you’ve experienced, the more ready you will be for the problems that can pop up when you’re swooping.
A good landing area
One thing that you should always make sure of when you’re skydiving, and especially when you’re swooping, is that you are heading toward a good landing area. Always try to make sure that you are going to land inside of the drop zone. You should also make sure that if you for any reason are going to miss the drop zone that you are headed toward a safe landing area.
Never land while you’re turning. While it might be tempting to make some last minute changes while you’re swooping or landing, there are some things that you need to be careful of. Before swooping, you need to know how low you can go and still be able to turn – and don’t turn if you’re below that altitude. If you land during a turn you could be seriously injured, or even killed.
Know the wind conditions
You should also be very aware of the wind situation while you’re landing. If you are headed in the same direction as the wind, this might be dangerous. Going with the wind will increase the speed at which you’re traveling – and if you’re coming in for a landing, you want to be going slowly, or at least have control over your speed. Before starting any skydiving jump or swoop, make sure you know the wind conditions so that you are able to use them to your advantage.