Skydiving Weight and Age Limits
Your Safety Is Our Top Priority
Understanding Skydiving Weight & Age Limits
General Guidelines:
- Must be 18 years old and sign our Waiver.
- The maximum weight limit for Tandem Students is 220 lbs * flexible up to 250 lbs based on height compared to weight.
- Maximum weight limit for AFF students is 240 lbs.
- Over 70 years? Ask about your ability to make a skydive.
Why Is There a Skydiving Weight Limit?
Not everyone can skydive. Weight is just one consideration. Parachute systems have a maximum designed weight limit. We add the weight of the passenger, gear, and the Tandem Instructor to stay within the limits of the equipment. If you are elderly, we will ask questions to help you determine if you are a suitable candidate for a skydive.
Even if you are within the weight limit, your Body Mass Index and body shape may make any skydive more of a risk to you.
Tandem Skydives
A weight limit for tandem skydiving is necessary for multiple reasons.
All your weight sits on your thighs during the parachute ride down. This can be uncomfortable if you are overweight for your height. Nausea, loss of circulation, and even unconsciousness under the parachute can happen.
Students sometimes have trouble lifting their legs for landing, making injury more likely.
The harness sometimes cannot be fitted properly or safely.
Larger passengers often have to jump with smaller tandem instructors, making their job difficult and their risk of injury greater.
AFF students
There is more to it than just sitting in the harness. You have to deploy the parachute, steer, maneuver, as well as deal with emergencies and possible malfunctions. A larger, heavier person means a larger parachute; which means more strength is required throughout the skydive to steer and land the parachute.
Decreased flexibility if you are overweight or have poor body shape means that you may not be able to reach handles, deploy the parachute or deal with emergency situations properly.
Skydiving is NOT an amusement ride. It is a training environment. Even a Tandem skydive requires the student to participate in the skydive to some degree.
Skydive City reserves the right to refuse service to anyone for the safety of our students and our instructors. And we do not ‘force’ our tandem instructors to take people, even if they fall into the age and weight limits.
Here is a graph to better understand skydiving weight restrictions.
If you are overweight, over the age of 70, and/or have any underlying medical conditions, please call us at 1-800-888-JUMP prior to making your reservation.
