The duration of the plane ride is influenced by things like the type of aircraft, the engine it has, how heavily loaded it is (both in terms of people and fuel) and who is flying it. How long is the plane ride for a skydive? For tandem skydivers, we might spend a little longer taking in the sights under our much larger parachutes, so the journey from freefall to the ground is more like 5 or 6 minutes. Parachutes in flightįor most solo skydivers, the parachute ride takes around 3 or 4 minutes. It’s also affected by the way we fly so, if a skydiver is putting lots of turns in under their parachute, they will spend less time flying back down as they will increase their rate of descent, while a skydiver flying a straighter flight pattern will take, generally speaking, a little longer. The speed at which we fly our parachutes back to the ground is defined by factors including our weight, the size of our parachute and a metric called ‘wing loading’. How long does it take to fly the parachute back down to the ground? When exiting the aircraft at 14,000 feet, it takes approximately 10 seconds to fall the first 1,000 feet until we reach what’s known as terminal velocity, which is our fastest falling speed, at which point it’s more like 5 seconds per 1,000 feet.Ī solo skydiver can expect to be in freefall for around 60 seconds, while a tandem skydiver will be in freefall for closer to 50 seconds. It’s also dependent on how high we jump from. The amount of time we spend freefalling during a skydive is dictated by how fast we’re falling.Ī decent benchmark figure is around 120mph and this covers most solo jumpers, with tandem skydivers falling a little faster. Tandem skydiver in freefall How long do skydivers spend in freefall? The purpose of this post is to answer those questions and help you to feel even more excited about your upcoming jump! Not yet booked on? No worries – you can book your tandem skydive right here on our website, or call our office to speak to a member of the team. But while you can be certain of a great time, there are other things about our sport that you might be wondering about – like, for example, how long a skydive lasts for, how long you’ll be falling in freefall and how long it takes to fly the parachute to the ground. Skydiving is probably one of the most exciting things you’ll do in your lifetime.

Skydiving freefall