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| Scared Shitless |
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You will be (at least sometimes). If you're not one tiny bit nervous when you're leaping out of an aircraft in flight, you're either dead or should be doing something else.
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| Second Camera Flyer |
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During competitive events, a freefall cameraman who objectively records the team's jump from a more traditional fixed, flat, belly-to-earth pose.
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| Skyboard |
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Lightweight, custom-built boards that the skysurfer straps on with a releasable binding system. Most are made of honeycomb aluminum and graphite, similar to snow skis. Skyboards, unlike snowboards for example, are very stiff. They have little if any flex.
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| Skydiving |
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Modern parachuting for sport and fun. The true essence of skydiving is not the time spent under the canopy, but instead it's the freefall.
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| Skygod |
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A person of noted freefall ability. Sometimes the term refers to skydivers whose egos are bigger than their canopies.
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| Skysurfing |
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Skydiving with a skyboard attached to the skydivers feet (kind of like a snowboard). Skysurfing looks very cool and lots of extremely rapid movements can be achieved by surfing on the air cushion that is created by the freefall.
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| Slider |
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Slows and controls the speed of a canopy's opening. It's a piece of fabric with large grommets through which the four major line groupings are threaded. When packed, the slider is pulled to the top of the lines. During deployment, it is forced down the lines by the expanding canopy. Without a slider, most canopies would open so hard that they could blow out major seams and "explode".
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| Slot |
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A position in the skydive or on the plane. Uses: "dock in your slot", or "two slots left on the next lift".
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| Snivel |
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Usually refers to when a canopy opens more slowly than expected. Most camera flyers pack an intentional snivel to ease the G-shock created by opening the canopy.
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| Sos |
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Single Operation System. This system simplifies emergency procedures by combining the functions of the cutaway and reserve handles in a single handle.
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| Spot |
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The imaginary point in space in relation to the targeted landing area where one exits the aircraft, taking into account wind direction and speed that affects canopy flight. The person who makes the determination is called the spotter. The act of making this determination is called spotting.
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| Square |
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A ram air parachute as opposed to a round parachute.
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| Square Parachute |
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An aerofoil shaped ram-air parachute, which is actually rectangular with aspect ratio's from less that 2 up to more than 3.5. The parachute is termed a 'semi rigid wing'. It is held in a wing shape by the air rushing in the front, keeping it pressurized. Squares work not by providing drag to slow the descent but by providing lift as they fly at about a 3:1 glide angle. They therefore must fly quite fast! and speeds up to 35 mph in a straight line depending on the Canopy and the weight of the Skydiver are possible. They can be flown into the ground at in excess of 60 mph if one wants to, (which one obviously doesn't). The most common configurations are 7 and 9 Cells and they can be made of porous material or non-porous Zero Porosity material.
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| Stab |
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A hard toggle turn that can quickly reverse the canopy direction, slinging the parachutist out from directly under the canopy.
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| Stabilizer |
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The vertical strips of cloth depending from the end cells of the canopy. Stabilizers improve the canopy's ability to fly straight ahead and enhance efficiency by reducing tip vortices.
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| Stall |
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When the angle of attack of a wing becomes too high to sustain lift, the wing is said to be stalled. It will collapse for a few moments and start falling until it builds up enough speed to be fully bearable again. Not the kind of thing you want to do close to the ground.
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| Static Line |
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In static line deployments the parachute deployment system is attached to the airplane, with a cord ten to fifteen feet long, resulting in deployment immediately after exit.
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| Steering Lines |
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The lines that run from the steering toggles on the rear risers to the trailing edge of the parachute.
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| Streamer |
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A malfunction in which the slider gets stuck on the top of the suspension lines and prevents the canopy from being fully expanded. Calls for immediate reserve pull unless frapping is desired.
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| Suspension Lines |
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The lines from the risers to the canopy. They are normally in four groups, labeled from front to back as A, B, C and D. They can be further divided into right and left or front and back riser groups, and by type of material.
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| Swoop |
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To approach very aggressively, then brake quickly for a soft approach. Can be used to refer to flight in freefall or under canopy.
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