On arrival, you’ll be signed on by a member of our friendly team and a tandem skydiving instructor will prepare you for your jump with a brief that takes around 20 minutes. Different aircraft will take more or less time.Īs a tandem skydiver, you’ll be invited to come to the skydiving center in the morning. Our Pac750 XL aircraft will take around 10-12 minutes to reach our exit altitude of 13,500 feet. Though the actual skydive itself lasts around five minutes, the overall experience is much longer.Ī large part of the skydiving experience is, of course, the airplane ride up to altitude. How long should I expect to be at the skydiving center?

An experienced, solo skydiver will usually spend two to three minutes under their parachute. The practice of ‘swooping’ in skydiving is all about increasing the rate of the parachute’s descent, creating faster speeds across the ground. When you turn your parachute, it points toward the ground and is, therefore, traveling down faster than it does when it’s going straight forward. Skydivers can increase the rate of their parachute’s descent by turning the parachute.

This results in a time under parachute of four to five minutes. As there are two people sharing one parachute, tandem parachutes are much larger than those used by solo skydivers – usually, over 300 square feet, compared to half that for solo jumpers. Tandem skydivers usually deploy their parachute at 5,000 feet. The length of time it takes to fly down to earth under the parachute is dependent on the deployment height, parachute size, and weight. How long does it take to fly down under your parachute? The fastest skydiver ever was Henrik Raimer of Sweden, who achieved 373.6mph (601.26kph) during a speed skydiving competition in Chicago in 2016. Tandem skydivers use something called a ‘drogue’ for additional support, and this slows the rate of descent slightly. Typically, terminal velocity for a tandem skydive is somewhere around 125mph – a little faster than a solo skydiver, due to the fact a tandem is two people together, but slower than head down skydiving. A stable head down position (falling upside with your head toward the ground and legs up) gets around 150-180mph (240-290kph). How fast do you freefall?įreefall speeds are dependent on various factors too, including weight and body position.Ī stable belly-to-earth body position will usually result in a ‘terminal velocity’ (this being the fastest speed you’ll reach during freefall) of 120mph or 200kph. Experienced jumpers exiting at 13,500 feet and falling in this faster position will expect 35-40 seconds of freefall time.

This means you’d spend 50 seconds in freefall.įor skydivers who are jumping solo and in, for example, a standing up position, the rate of descent is faster, meaning less time in freefall. We calculate freefall time at 10 seconds for the first 1,000 feet and then 5 seconds for every 1,000 feet thereafter. But this can change, depending on altitude, weight and type of jump.įor example, tandem skydivers usually leave the aircraft at an altitude of 13,500 feet, then deploy their parachute at 5,000 feet. The amount of time you’ll spend in freefall is typically around 50 seconds. Having exited the aircraft, you’ll accelerate to your ‘terminal velocity’ and keep falling at that speed until it’s time to deploy your parachute. How long does freefall last?įreefall is the period of the skydive where you’re literally falling toward the earth. Here, we’ll explore some of the factors that affect how long your skydive lasts. It doesn’t sound like long, does it? But believe us – it’ll be the longest 50 seconds of your life! That’s because you’ll experience so many new sensory stimulations, meaning you’ll be more alert – and time will feel slower – than ever before. How long a skydive lasts is dependent on various factors, including altitude, weight and equipment used. A typical skydive lasts five to six minutes, with approximately 50 seconds of that spent in freefall and four to five minutes on the parachute ride down.

Freefall position