Swooping, more formally canopy piloting, is the discipline of flying a parachute at high performance: initiating a diving turn on approach to convert altitude into speed, then levelling out to travel a long distance close to the ground before landing.
What it involves
A swoop landing uses a carefully judged turn to build airspeed, then a planed-out flight in ground effect. Competitive canopy piloting measures distance, speed and accuracy over a course, often across water.
It is flown on small, heavily loaded canopies designed for the purpose.
It is among the sport's higher-risk areas
Canopy piloting concentrates high speed and low altitude, leaving little margin for error, and low-turn incidents are a recognised cause of serious injury and death in skydiving.
Progression is through structured canopy courses with qualified coaches and gradual downsizing over hundreds of jumps. Drop zones with dedicated canopy programmes and swoop ponds exist for exactly this reason.
These pages explain what things are so the language makes sense. They are not instruction and cannot substitute for it — skydiving is taught in person by rated instructors at a drop zone, and anything involving equipment handling or emergency procedures belongs there rather than on a web page.