Meet Ryan, the skydiving enthusiast who brings his passion for the sky to Safran Seats

I made a tandem skydive in 2009, followed by four solo training skydives the same year. I took some time off from it, then resumed skydiving in 2012. I obtained my skydiving license that same year, and have been actively skydiving since then.

I typically make between 200-400 skydives per year, and have roughly 3,000 total skydives. During warm weather seasons, I try to skydive at least every other weekend. During colder weather, I usually only skydive one weekend every four to six weeks.

One of my most memorable skydives was back in 2016 when I was part of a U.S. national and Texas state wingsuit formation record. This was the first skydiving record in which I was involved, and I was quite proud of it. In December of last year, I also participated in the largest wingsuit vertical formation ever. I received three records for this formation: at the California state, U.S. national and world record levels.

I participated in a wingsuit performance competition in 2020 and received 2^nd place in the Open Class. Wingsuit performance consists of three categories which gives the total score based on speed, distance and time. I haven’t participated in this for several years, but I’m considering getting back into it.

I’m most proud of where skydiving has taken me. From jumping out of airplanes thousands of times, I’ve had the opportunity to meet numerous pilots. This is what eventually led me to pursue being a commercial pilot. I worked extremely hard for over two years (while working full time) to obtain my pilot certificates and ratings. The hard work has paid off greatly, creating so many opportunities for me to fly my family and friends all over the country. I’ll be even happier the day I go full circle and start flying jump planes for skydivers during my weekends.

I did when I first started skydiving, but rarely anymore. When I first began, I was extremely nervous while on the airplane during the climb up to the jump altitude. This feeling immediately disappeared the moment I exited the aircraft, however. Over time (50 skydives or so), the nervousness faded to being non-existent. I think that the repetition of skydiving, plus my trust gained in the equipment, is what took me past this fear – and now it’s normal to me.

Skydiving has taught me that you need to work hard at something to get good at it…and setting goals helps you achieve that. I set goals every week. I write down on a piece of paper my work week goals and my personal goals. It makes it easy to keep track of the progress, and more actions can be added to the list as others are checked off.

Very important. Whatever is to be achieved on a skydive usually involves multiple people. If you aren’t working as a team, you not only miss your goal, but you can potentially create a dangerous situation.

Find something you are passionate about and do it. Make the time to pursue it in your free time around your career, and don’t wait until it’s too late.