Hello, and Welcome to the Skydive Area.

The launch platform will send us up into the sky and release us to skydive back down.

First thing is to make sure you have a parachute so you don't fall to earth in a mess.

There are sports chute systems in Second Life, which can be steered, and which count your jumps and accuracy for competitions, etc.

But here we have available a free Emergency Chute.. which you can use for your first jumps.

Get an E-Chute from the box near the launch platform.

Touch it and it should give you its contents.

It gives you a note card and the 'chute itself.

The notecard gives some details of the 'chute and a location for Cubey Terra's Second Life area where sports'chute are available in his shop.

Now look in your inventory for the E-Chute.  If you cannot see it type something like "chute" into the search box to quickly find where it is.

Its actual inventory name is "Terra E-Chute 2.2".

Now drop that item onto your avatar.. and the E-Chute will be "worn".

It operates automatically and will open when you fall below 100m.

Check its on you by looking behind your avatar.  It is a small oval shaped pack.

This is a good time to set up to take snapshots of your jump.  Take one snapshot now with  File -> Snapshot to Disk or by using Ctrl+'

This lets you type in a suitable file name and select the save location while you have plenty of time.

During the jump the you can just take extra snapshots using Ctrl+'

Now right click on a free seat on the launch platform, and select "Skydive!" (in the usual "Sit" pie chart position).

Don't adjust the height or press Start on the menu that appears until we are all ready or you will go without us. We all see the menu as we take a seat.

Lets go with the height now set.

Okay.. one of us should press Start...

Wheeeeeeeee..........................

Get ready for release...

Great style - you must have done that before :-)

Remember to look around with the camera, and to take a snapshot of your jump.

The E-Chute will automatically open at 100m.

You will not be able to steer that but should land somewhere near the Tower we took off from.

My  Sports Chute steers and is affected by the wind.  I can set its opening altitude and make other adjustments.

Your E-Chute packs itself for you when you land.  But its still attached ready for another jump.

You can remove your E-Chute by right clicking on it and selecting "Detach" or finding it as a "worn" ("on pelvis" in bold) item in your inventory and selecting "Detach from Yourself".

The target on the roof of the Vue Associates Tower is a sensor that can see where avatars land, and if they are wearing a jump tracker can record the positions with a central recording system.

The jump tracker also counts how many jumps you have done so more experienced jumpers can be noted by systems across Second Life.

So this skydive jump system makes a good demo of the physics of Second Life, how vehicles work, how scripts can log avatar activity and act as sensors.