You’re just one step away from greatness” can have many meanings. Deciding to exit a perfectly good plane at around 10,000 feet is one of the better ones, according to Brian Strong, Drop Zone Owner of Skydive Coastal Carolinas. He and his team have been providing an experience that just about everyone says is life-changing, for nearly 30 years.

“The freedom you get from skydiving is difficult to explain. It’s not like a rollercoaster ride; you don’t get that sinking feeling. It’s more like floating on a column of air. When you leave the plane, you’re falling at 176 feet per second, there’s nothing in your peripheral vision, you feel like your soaring, and the ground looks so far away that it’s not a problem. After the parachute opens, you have the most amazing feeling of freedom, while you’re enjoying a view of the coast that goes from Myrtle Beach to Topsail Island.

4019 Long Beach Rd SE
Southport, NC 28461

skydivecoastalcarolinas.com
910-457-1039

Open 7 days a week: 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.

I’d wanted to try it since I was young. The Army was going to send me to airborne school, then didn’t. When I got out in 1976, my parents gave me a gift certificate to skydive, and I jumped and trained thereafter. In 1996, I started the company in South Carolina, but Cape Fear Regional Jetport Director Howie Franklin kept insisting I should relocate here. I had done a few shows for him and finally in 1999, I came for a two-week stay, and never left. The views are just spectacular.

Tandem jumps are for anyone at least 18 years old. After a 30-minute ground school, you’ll be fitted with a harness that connects you to a certified instructor and the parachute system, and you are ready. Accelerated Free Fall requires four to six hours of training; you’re in your own gear, with an instructor on either side of you during free fall, and you open your own chute.

Safety is paramount, of course. We exceed the requirements of the US Parachute Association, and the FAA. We have eight instructors, and all our Tandem have done at least 4,000 to 5,000 jumps. Clouds must be at certain heights and winds must be at certain levels to go ahead with the jump. We’re safety conscious and follow the rules so you can have a great experience. We have two Cessna 182s that can carry four jumpers, and a Lear that can carry 13 people, six jumpers.

The best part is watching people’s reactions. It’s a natural adrenaline rush, and so exciting; they are just joyous, jumping around and going crazy when they land, saying that it’s the best thing they’ve ever done. In 30 years, we’ve only had three people who said they wouldn’t do it again.

We have families who come for vacation every year and jump with us, we have a 50-foot ‘Will You Marry Me?’ ground sign for proposals, companies come here for team building, and some even celebrate divorces with us. There are so many reasons to want to do this. We try to show you that the sky isn’t the limit, it’s just the beginning.”