Skydiving is a monthly from DeLand, Florida that describes itself as "parachuting's newsmagazine." It's all of that and a fascinating read, even for stay-solidly-on-the-ground types.

Sports parachuting provides many opportunities for great photographs, and Skydiving often utilizes striking cover graphics very effectively. An example is the new February issue, which shows jumpers tumbling from the open tail hatch of a DC-9 jetliner under the very blue sky of Southern California. The camera was positioned just underneath the open hatch.

The accompanying story is about how the 88-passenger jet, 37 years old, finally received FAA approval to be used for mass jumps. Said the co-owner of the plane, "It takes 30 minutes to do it [remove the tail hatch] - and three and a half years of paperwork to allow it."

Skydiving is a big and growing business, and the magazine serves both the individual sports jumper and the industry.

The most profitable part of the parachuting industry seems to be tandem jumping, in which a novice jumps with an experienced instructor who wears and controls the parachute. Usually another staff jumper, equipped with a video camera, records the jump as a memento for the newbie. This operation can bring in hundreds of dollars per jump, much more profitable than the $50 or $60 per jump that parachute centers charge for taking solo parachutists up.

After many years of fatality-free tandem jumping, the industry suffered two student deaths, one in October 2005 in Georgia and another in May 2006 in Ohio. To the horror of their instructors, both students fell out of their harnesses and plummeted to earth. The two fatalities have caused much soul-searching in the parachuting industry. It's important to note that both deceased students were "special situations": one was a wheelchair-bound man with little leg strength, the other a 230-pound woman.