Skydiving Weight Limit in New York: What You Must Know

Firstly and most importantly – we want everyone to experience skydiving. Introducing new people to freefall is what we do and excluding anyone for any reason is not by choice. However – there is indeed a weight limit for skydiving. Skydive Long Island’s Weight limit is 250 pounds for height-to-weight proportional people. While it is potentially possible to skydive if you are a little over this, careful consideration must be applied for it to happen. Rules is rules and here is why…

Skydiving Gear

Successful aviation is made of maths and science. The aircraft and equipment used by a parachuting center is carefully maintained to a very high standard – and is designed from the outset using practical parameters for exactly what it needs to be used for. The airplanes, harness systems and parachutes used for tandem skydiving are balanced between not only excellent safety parameters, but also practical usability. Sure, there are much bigger parachutes out there that can handle huge weights and be used to drop military vehicles or ease the splashing of space capsules into the sea, but both aircraft and skydive operations must consider all the relevant parts of the equation. A harness needs to be comfortable and quick to apply, a parachute needs to fit into a backpack sized container and the whole caboodle of enough people and parachutes must fit into a fairly small airplane to make things run as a business.

If you do happen to be over the weight limit, it is easy to feel that things are unfairly built to exclude you. Weights and balances are crucial to successful flight, and discipline in adhering to the rules is hugely important. For the sake of efficiency, a skydiving plane needs to carry as much up to altitude as it can safely carry. After all – empty capacity is not contributing to the business. These just-enough-but-not-too-much parameters within which skydiving must operate means that the weight limits in place are not some arbitrary number to exclude those who carry a little more weight around, they are very precise and important.

Customers

Skydiving is actually very accessible and all manner, shape and size of human can be found pursuing this remarkable sport. Your comfort is important to us and this is another thing considered by the creators of the equipment we use. Overloading the plane can make successfully getting off the ground difficult or impossible – and landing with too much on board is really best avoided. Cramming too many people in the plane also makes things tight inside and less enjoyable.

All told you will be spending a bit of time in your harness and it needs to fit right. We use the same ones for all our customers and while they have a good size range they only adjust so much. You need to be in a harness that feels good and does not pinch – not only for the actual skydiving part but from start to finish.

Tandem Skydiving Instructors

Another part of why we adhere to the limits is to look after our instructor team. Our tandem instructors jump a lot and are responsible for guiding their passengers gently onto the ground every time. While it is possible, landings with people over the limit can get tricky which puts pressure on our team. Our instructors are a friendly bunch and we want them to stay that way.

Goals

Let’s be clear – we absolutely want you to skydive with us, but the weight limit exists for a reason and we stick to it. Jumping out of an airplane, free falling towards the earth and then riding down the rest of the way under a parachute is one of the most thrilling and life-affirming things we can do as humans. If you need motivation for shaking off a few pounds then let this be it – as soon as you are ready to go we will be thrilled to introduce you to the world of skydiving. If you are under the weight limit for skydiving in NY then book right now! If you have a bit of work to do first we will see you as soon as you are ready.