Your First Skydive : Tandem or Free Fall?
It could be a bit scary to take on any new sport, but there’s maybe no athletic activity that intimidates beginners quite as much as skydiving. Since the majority of folks who are interested in skydiving have not jumped out of an aircraft before, it makes masses of sense that skydiving could cause even the most experienced and bold athletes to come down with a sudden case of the jitters. The fact that many of us find their first jump so hard makes the first fall much more crucial. If your first skydiving experience is positive, you’ll feel more assured about your ability to learn skydiving technique. If you do not enjoy your first jump for any basis, you are unlikely to try again. In some sense, the first jump can make or break a skydiver.
There are 2 common techniques for taking on your first dive : tandem jumping or accelerated free fall. In a tandem jump, you share a harness with an experienced skydiving instructor who has total control of the fall and landing. In a sped up free fall, instructors help to steer you during your time in the air, but you are in your own harness, open your own parachute, and control your own landing. Each of these methods has some advantages and some drawbacks, and choosing which one is good for you depends largely on what you suspect your future as a skydiver will be.
Tandem jumping can be less terrifying than a sped up free fall, and many people opt to begin with a tandem jump in order to get a taste of what skydiving is like without having the responsibility of controlling any portion of their fall. Often , people who only plan to skydive once decide to take a tandem jump because it lets them relax and enjoy the ride while their jumping partner fears about the altitude, the parachute, and the landing. This gives you the chance to experience the thrill of skydiving while knowing that your safety is in very capable hands.
In a speeded up free fall, you exit the airplane with 2 instructors, one on both sides of you, who maintain a grip on your harness for the duration of the fall, controlling your speed, helping you improve your position, and assisting you with stability. When you reach 4000 feet above the ground, you open your own parachute and pilot yourself down to the landing target. A speeded up free fall is more expensive than a tandem jump because it requires 2 guides instead of one, but unlike the tandem jump it can count as the first leg of your training course towards eventual certification. This makes it a nice option as a first jump for folk who are serious about continuing with their skydiving training.
