Paulina skydiving journey didn’t get off to an easy start. Living in Poland, she found access to skydiving was impossible as there was nowhere able to teach her, because she’s deaf.
Even after moving to the UK, she struggled to find a centre that could facilitate skydiving lessons for deaf skydivers. Until she contacted Skydive Langar.
With funding support from British Skydiving, Skydive Langar was able to host a ground school for Paulina and then, using a combination of BSL, visual aids and found-communication with Paulina, our instructors supported her through the rest of her skydiving course, led by AFF Lead Emily Aucutt.
We also designed and manufactured a set of lights which were used to provide guidance to Paulina while she flew her canopy. This meant we could give her the same directions as we would to a hearing student over a radio – but rather than hearing our instruction, she saw it in lights which sat in front of her eyes; left light shows, pull the left toggle, right light, right toggle, both lights, both toggles!
Here, Paulina shares her skydiving story with BBC’s See Hear programme, available in full on iPlayer:
There are a number of deaf skydivers active in the UK and we recently taught two more deaf students in the same way as Paulina. Our aim is to make our sport as accessible as possible, as safely as possible. Anyone wishing to skydive with us is required to complete a risk assessment which supports everyone’s safety in the sky and on the ground.
If you’d like to know more about learning to skydive with us, check our learn to skydive page or get in touch.