Skydiving is not a cheap hobby, look online and everybody will say the same thing, you pay for equipment, you pay for each jump, you pay for licenses, memberships, coaching, insurances, accomodation, fuel, food and drinks when youre waiting around at a dropzone, and beer, a small fortune in itself just on beer, but, without including basic fuel to the dropzone and back (my local dropzone is around £15 round trip in fuel), and paying beer fines, heres some of what its cost me, so far, and ill try and keep this up to date as well.
Initial Training
I did my AFF in northern spain with www.activeskydiving.co.uk| AFF course | 1350 |
| Flights | 248 |
| Trains & Transfers €75 | 65 |
| 10x Consol jumps €298 | 256 |
| Gear hire for 10 consol jumps | 100 |
| 10 packing tickets €70 | 60 |
| Accomodation €235 | 203 |
| Insurance | 57 |
| Total | £2339 |
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Ongoing Training
Jumping out of a fully functional aeroplane thats doing nearly 100mph, then hurtling towards the ground at speeds of at least 120mph, is some seriously dangerous stuff, BUT!!!! If youre really going to do it, youll want to have to best time possible whilst you do, right? Any idiot with big enough balls can jump out of a plane. It takes a special type of idiot to do it for fun though, and it takes a SAFE idiot to do it more than once and survive. Even though humans dont have wings (no matter how much red bull you drink [thats stuffs bad for you kids, it nearly killed me, but thats another story for another webpage]) its possible to learn to fly, in so many different ways, both in freefall, and once your canopy has (hopefully) opened. The skydive IS NOT OVER untill you are safely back on the ground, and even once you have survived that, its still possible to be 'taken out' by another skydiver who has not yet landed, so its not truly over untill you are back in the safety of a building. Ongoing training comes in a few different forms. Theres coached jumps where you skydive with a coach, and learn new stuff during freefall. Theres the wind tunnel, where freefall is simulated by huge fans, and theres canopy coaching, where the freefall is over, and you learn new skills whilst safely steering yourself back to the ground under a parachute. This parachute also needs to be packed properly, so courses to learn to pack are also available, this saves having to pay packing fees after every jump. You have to hold a certificate to be able to pack a parachute, or you can pay packers to pack for you every time you jump. I paid £50 for 6 hours packing lessons. Second set of supervised packing @ £25 before passing the test (yay). Coached jumps are additional fees on top of your own jump ticket.| Wind Tunnel | 460 |
| Canopy courses | 120 |
| Coached jumps x11 @£26@Swansea | 286 |
| Packing course | 75 |
| FS1 jump @ Swansea | 95 |
| Total | £1036 |
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Jumps
Jumps, these also cost money, and if you dont have your own rig, then you have to hire one, and if you cant pack, then you have to pay someone else to pack for you. At my local dropzone, kit hire is £10 per jump, packing is £5 per jump, and the jump ticket itself is £23 per jump, which untill I can pack, and have my own gear, is £38 a jump. Swansea costs for other jumps are £16 for a ground rush (~7-8k) and £10 for an accuracy jump (~£.5-4k). Dunkeswell jumps are from ~14k.| Jumps | £ each | £ total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jumps @ Swansea. | 142 | 23 | 3266 |
| Ground rush jumps @ Swansea. | 9 | 16 | 144 |
| Accuracy jumps @ Swansea. | 21 | 10 | 210 |
| Accuracy jumps @ Swansea. | 29 | 12 | 348 |
| Kit hire @ Swansea. | 47 | 10 | 470 |
| Jumps @ Dunkeswell. | 4 | 23 | 92 |
| Pack jobs. | 50 | 5 | 250 |
| Total | Jumps:224 | £ 4780 |
Paperwork
Paperwork & courses. Membership fees have to be paid, first a temp BPA membership, @ £20, and after completing the AFF course, a conversion to full membership, @ £95. My local dropzone also has a membeship fee of £10, all of this is a yearly fee, second year BPA membership @ £108.Third year BPA membership @ £106, Fourth year BPA @ £103.
2nd, 3rd & 4th year club membership @ £10 per year.
BPA license update for B license @ £5.
Dunkeswell DZ temp membership £10.
BPA license update for C license @ £5.
| BPA membership & fees | 437 |
| DZ membership | 50 |
| Total | £487 |
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Equipment
Next, theres equipment, this is where things get really expensive, some things cost in the region of £5k, and more. As a newbie, im looking to buy some equipment second hand to begin with.| I found a £220 as new jumpsuit on gumtree going for £60, offered £50 with delivery, and was accepted, as i had a few quid in my paypal account, this cost me £26 out of my pocket. | 26 |
| A log book, to keep a record of all skydives | 15 |
| A hook knife, every jumper has to carry one, bought new from the dropzone | 10 |
| Goggles, shaded ones, bought new from ebay, inc delivery | 15 |
| Gloves, doing my AFF I never once wore gloves, but, at my home dropzone, it seems everyone wears them, so a thin pair of gloves, with grips on the fingers and palm, ebay again, £9 delivered. Winter gloves, new from the dropzone, £28 | 37 |
| On facebook, I found a used FS jumpsuit (worth £240), with grips on the arms and legs, for £48 delivered | 48 |
| My next buy was an altimeter, again, over £130 worth, bought from a member of the ukskydiver forum, for £52 delivered | 52 |
| After looking for a 2nd hand helmet, decided to buy a new ‘starter’ helmet, a SkySystems Benny, for £75 delivered from www.thejumpshop.co.uk | 75 |
| A 2nd hand ‘Pro Track’ audible altimeter & freefall computer, which electronically stores jump information, like exit altitude, freefall speeds, opening heights etc | 64 |
| A PC interface, to transfer the data from the ‘Pro Track’ to a computer, bought as used, but all still sealed in packaging with software licenses etc | 25 |
| Thermal layers. Jumping in the winter is VERY cold, so some thermal layers, including a thermal face mask and neck warmer | 24 |
| Im now approaching my B license, so a full face helmet is something that does away with the need for goggles, and looks really cool :). A parasport Z1 helmet, worth nearly £300, from facebook | 105 |
| A second audible altimeter, a ‘time-out’ alti, along with visual indicator, for £23 to fit into the new helmet | 23 |
| A replacement hook knife after leaving my last one attached to a rig | 10 |
| Thats most of the 'basic' stuff done, now it gets on to the expensive gear | |
| My own container, and reserve canopy, as posted here http://digidude.co.uk/my-own-rig/ | 500 |
| Used FURY220 main canopy, including delivery | 200 |
| 1x New Cypres AAD, a life saving backup device that will deploy my reserve canopy if im unable to | 950 |
| After skydiving for around 18 months, a custom made Symbiosis FS jumpsuit, paid for at the skydive expo, | 209 |
| Used storm 190 canopy with around 360 jumps from new, including delivery | 600 |
| Gopro type action camera, with accessories and attachments, spare battery and 32Gb SD card | 145 |
| Weight belt, custom made, including weight and delivery | 80 |
| Total: | £ 3213 |
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TOTALS
TOTALS OF ALL TABLES| Initial training | 2339 |
| Paperwork | 487 |
| Ongoing training | 1036 |
| Equipment | 3213 |
| Maintenance | 135 |
| Jumps | 4780 |
| Total | £ 11990 |
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There are plenty of other skydiving stores available in the UK (and all over the world) Each has offers available from time to time, and it’s also worth making a quick search for vouchers and codes to further reduce the costs.
If you’re looking for alternate sites to compare against, I’d suggest using Skydivenow.co.uk as the prices once shipping is added are usually cheaper than the others.
If you are in the US, then ChutingStar.com is one of the largest in the world and also ships to the UK (although postage is pretty hefty)