Space Lan

How old do you have to be to go tandem skydiving in the USA?

I've been looking around at a few websites, all say 18+ or don't say at all. Is it illegal for a younger person to tandem skydive or just not recommended? Also, if you have gone skydiving, how is it?? = )

Public Comments

1. You can make a jump @ 14 tandem or AFF (accelerated free fall) @ 16 both with your parents consent. AFF is simply a dive master doing the entire dive with you. Its also more expensive. As for the jump? If your afraid of heights then you need to do this for yourself. Once you conquer it everything in life after this is in second gear!!!
2. most places it is 18. sometimes you'll find a place that will let you go at 16 with some extra paper work. The reason that people under 18 have a more difficult time getting to jump is because they are not legal adults and cannot sign the waivers for themselves. It's not illegal to jump. As long as you are tall enough to fit in the harness you'll be fine. I've been jumping for a few years and I love it. It is the greatest sport in the world. there is nothing better than flying your body through the sky with your friends. there are some many different styles of skydiving and different things to do. There are a couple websites you need to check out to get good info on skydiving. http://www.uspa.org is the website of the United States Parachute Association, the governing body for sport parachuting in the United States. There is a list of member dropzones on the website along with all sorts of great info on the sport. The official site for the British Parachute Association is: http://www.bpa.org.uk/links.htm The official site for the Canadian Parachute Association is: http://www.cspa.ca/ http://www.dropzone.com is another great resource for everything about skydiving and some BASE too. http://www.skydiveradio.com is just fun and a good place to feel like you’re at the drop zone when you can’t physically be there. If you’re not sure about skydiving but want to fly you should look at the vertical wind tunnels. http://www.skyventure.com/ is the website for skyventure which operates many tunnels in the United States, Europe and Asia. I love flying in the tunnel. I don’t do it very much, I’d rather spend my money on skydives, but it is a great place to learn, work on my flying skills and just have a lot of fun! Make sure that you contact the drop zone you want to jump at directly. There are a few scams out there, one of which is 1800skyride. They will take your money and send you to any dropzone they want too but only about three dz’s in the country except skyride tickets. So please, please, please contact the dropzone directly. The tandem is a great jump. I’d get video too. I made one tandem a little over two years ago and came back to start student training (good info about student training at uspa.org) and got my license. I’ve been jumping for two years and have a few hundred jumps. I love this sport and I sincerely hope that you’ll become a full time skydiver and I’ll be able to make some jumps with you at a boogie! Blue Skies! Black Death! and EFS!