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What is Tandem Skydiving?

First Time Skydiving

Tandem skydiving is one of the most popular ways to experience skydiving for the first time.

Attached to a tandem skydiving instructor, you’ll jump from the airplane and freefall for around 50 seconds, before your parachute opens and you glide back down to earth.

In total, the whole skydive takes around 20 minutes. But believe us, it’ll be the most exciting 20 minutes of your life! Find out more about tandem skydiving here.

The popularity of tandem skydiving

Did you know that more than 500,000 people try skydiving for the first time, every single year?

It’s a huge number – and that’s on top of tens of thousands of regular jumpers who’ve made skydiving their hobby.

Most first timers choose to make a tandem skydive. The main reason for that is that tandem skydiving requires far less training than jumping solo – meaning you can make your jump after a short brief, rather than undergoing a full day of ground school and ongoing skydiving lessons.

Of course, if you do then choose to learn to skydive solo, that’s no problem at all! In fact, you may find your prior experience of jumping out of an airplane as a tandem student will help prepare you for your skydiving career.

Who is tandem skydiving for?

The majority of people who make a tandem skydive are first timers. We do get the odd experienced jumper give it a go – usually as a celebration of a special occasion, or because they just haven’t tried it before – but on the whole, it’s for people who have never learned to skydive but want to see what it’s like.

It’s something that’s popular with people celebrating a big birthday. What better way to mark the occasion than with an adrenaline fuelled adventure in the sky?

For the romantics among you, tandem skydiving is also a popular way to propose. We’ve welcomed lots of love-birds who make the jump then pop the question. It’s certainly memorable!

Charity skydiving is also very popular. If you’re trying to raise money for a good cause, people will be happy to support you if your fundraising challenge is to jump from a perfectly good airplane!

If you are jumping for a special occasion or for charity, give us a shout and we’ll be happy to help you with any organizational requirements or questions you may have.

How does tandem skydiving work?

You’ll be attached to your instructor by your harness at four points – both shoulders and both hips. This means that as you fall through the air, you’ll be basically lying on the air with your instructor on top of you – meaning you get the full experience of looking down and around you, without your instructor blocking your view.

Your instructor is responsible for the operation of the equipment – including things like deploying your parachute and flying you back down to earth. In return, you’re responsible for maintaining the correct body position for exit and freefall, and for lifting your legs for landing, as you’ll learn in your short pre-jump brief.

It’s pretty much a given that anyone jumping out of an airplane for the very first time is coming to be a bit nervous, to say the least! By choosing to make a tandem skydive, you’ll have a friendly, experienced skydiver right there with you – meaning you can relax and enjoy what we think will be the most amazing experience of your life!

Memories to last a lifetime…

Your first skydive is something you’ll remember forever. Even those of us who’ve made thousands of jumps still remember the first time we felt the wind in our faces as we fell through the air, and the incredible peace and quiet of that first parachute ride.

You too will remember your experience forever, and no doubt you’ll want to tell everyone about it!

To help you treasure your memories and share them with your loved ones, we offer a videography service to tandem skydivers. That means you’ll get a dedicated camera flyer who will interview you just before your jump, join you on the airplane and jump out with you when it’s time to go. They’ll fly in front of you in freefall, filming the whole thing for you. They’ll then capture your reaction back on terra firma. It makes for a fantastic video!

Find out about our video services, and book your tandem skydive with us today! If you have any further questions about tandem skydiving, or any other skydiving we do here, get in touch and we’ll be happy to help.

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