Tandem Skydiving-safety While You Learn

How to learn about skydiving by taking a tandem dive. What to expect with a tandem dive.

If you plan on trying the exciting sport of skydiving, you should try to learn everything you can about it. If so,diving in tandem can be a great place to start.

Team diving is a great way to improve your diving skills and it is a talent that you can use whether you just sky jump for fun, or or you want to become competitive in this sport.

The most common kinds of parachuting are solo parachuting and tandem parachuting. In tandem parachuting, two skydivers are attached, and they dive together. In a way, one is piggy backing on the other as they do a freefall skydive through the sky. Usually the other is an instructor and the "rider" is a novice learning how to skydive. The responsibilities for the jump still lie with the instructor, but the passenger learns as he goes down or he can just relax and enjoy himself. Outside of diving together, the only difference in tandem diving is the larger parachute required by the weight of two people.

Weather is always a factor in skydiving but team skydiving is most drastically affected by the weather. Very bad weather may ground the planes, but even once the plane has gone up, high winds may change the schedule so that the dive may be postponed. If you planned on having an audience for your skydive, make sure they realize that things may change suddenly because of weather or high winds.

Once you are on the plane, and the plane has flown to the proper altitude, you will be anxious about what to expect next. As you approach the jump point, the pilot will give you a signal that serves as a first warning. You will be nervous at this signal, since it means the jump is coming up soon. The instructor will tell you to stand up and you won't even know what's happening as he straps everything in place. Once this is done, there will be a final signal by the pilot that means you must step to the door and be ready to dive. Looking out and down over the earth below you can be a very frightful experience, but the instructor will not give you much time to think about it as you only have a fraction of a second to move into the jump. The next thing you know, the earth will be rushing up to meet you as you do a free fall skydive towards it. Open your eyes, because this is a view that is not seen by many and is truly spectacular. If you are skydiving in your local area, you can look for landmarks that you know. You may just start to relax as you get used to the sensation, but that will not last, since the instructor will be ready to pull the ripcord. This is another shock, since it feels like a brake stopped you in the air! You will probably also be surprised at how tight the straps feel now that you are in the air. Parachute cord is something everybody should know do save any disaster or in an emergency.

If you paid close attention to the ground instructor, you will land easily and effortlessly and be ready to go skydiving again soon!