The most unnerving moment of my first skydive was watching other jumpers leave the plane. One second they were there; the next they were snatched into a vast, sucking chasm of blue. My recommendation: Go first. But once I made the leap, I understood that riding in an airplane is not flying, just as riding in a boat is not swimming. Choosing the unknown over the known: That is flying.

"Why jump out of a perfectly good airplane?" is a question heard by all skydivers.

"It's the most liberating feeling I can get," says Jim Moss of Crafton, who has been a jumper for 14 years. "The only limitation is your imagination. You can maneuver in the air exactly as you want. Plus there are always new techniques to learn. People continue to push how you can fly in the air, and it inspires me."

This month, a skydiving festival was held in Mercer County's Skydive Pennsylvania that drew close to 150 people from Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, including approximately 40 first-time jumpers. On July 18, the skydiving center will host a "parashoot" competition, where participants will be judged on the accuracy of their parachute flying and target shooting.

"There is a widespread assumption that freefall feels like falling and I think it keeps a lot of people from trying the sport," said Jeff Reckard, owner of Skydive Pennsylvania. He says there is no fear of heights or the roller-coaster plummeting feeling that people expect. "It's like you have your hand outside the window of a moving car. In skydiving it feels like that rush of air is all over your body and that you're in the space shuttle at the same time. You're floating, but there is the pressure of moving air all over you."

According to the United States Parachute Association, there were 31,834 licensed skydivers in the United States in May 2009, with 898 in Pennsylvania. Though USPA observed a downturn in participants for a few years after 2001, the number of jumpers has slowly but steadily increased since 2006.

Reckard says the number of experienced jumpers in the region has plateaued in recent years, but that the number of first-time jumpers keeps growing.

"The popularity of a tandem skydive [where a skydiver is harnessed to an instructor] has radically increased due to marketing, equipment improvements and a huge increase in public awareness."

Reckard estimates between 5,000-7,000 Western Pennsylvanians have made their first tandem ($229) at his facility in the last five years.

Tandems are an easy, streamlined introduction to the sport. For those who want more, they can begin training toward a series of USPA licenses. To achieve a beginner license, a student must make 25 jumps, demonstrate free-fall and parachute skills, and show knowledge of skydiving equipment, aircraft, jump conditions and emergency procedures. The cost is approximately $2,250 and can take from a few weeks to a few months. Once a skydiver is licensed and purchases his or her own gear (which ranges from $2,000 for used to $6,000 new), the cost per jump is about $25.

As exhilarating as skydiving is, it does have its risks. For 2008, USPA recorded 2.6 million jumps with 30 fatalities. Nearly all accidents in the sport result from human error, not mechanical failure. In the case of a main-parachute malfunction -- often due to improper packing or deployment -- a reserve parachute can be activated. However, poor judgment on the part of the skydiver does not have a backup system.

But the more jumps you make, the more control you will learn, until you can fly yourself through the air like a fish swimming in the water. Coaching, skydiving events and skills camps improve your abilities, and there are regional and national competitions for disciplines like formation skydiving, free-flying, canopy accuracy and others. Some jumpers train for years to reach the pinnacle of the sport, and the winning team of the national competition represents the United States in the World Skydiving Championships.