Do I Need Special Skydiving Clothing?

So you’ve booked your skydive and the day of your jump is rapidly approaching. It’s likely you’re feeling excited, maybe a little nervous? One of the things you might not have thought about yet is what to wear skydiving.

If you’ve never jumped before, the decision of what to wear for your skydive might be a little baffling. It is, technically, a sport, so generally anything you’d wear for a sporting activity will be fine.

Here, we’ll provide some tips on what you should wear for your skydive.

1) Layers Are Your Friend!

The weather on the ground is usually a little warmer than in the sky. The higher you go, the more the temperature drops relative to lower elevations, so it’s worth preparing for this with your choice of clothing.

We recommend you wear layers for your jump. Lots of thin layers will keep you nice and warm, and can easily be reduced down by simply removing one or two if you feel too hot.

2) Avoid Baggy Clothing

While layers are awesome for skydiving, wearing lots of loose fitting or baggy layers isn’t a great idea. This is because loose fitting clothing will flap around during freefall, which is both annoying for you, can cause chafing as it flaps against your skin, and doesn’t look great if you elect to have a video of your jump either.

Another consideration is that your instructor has lots of handles they have to be able to access, so flappy clothing has the risk of getting in the way. Best to avoid anything that is loose or baggy.

3) Wear Appropriate Footwear

We know that wearing a great pair of heels makes you feel really good. But unfortunately, the drop zone is no place for heels.

Instead, please wear sensible shoes. Anything you’d wear to the gym is good. Running shoes, sneakers, anything with closed toes is great for skydiving.

4) Leave Your Best Clothes At Home

Much like heels, we know that dressing nicely makes you feel good. Especially when you’re doing something that makes you nervous, like a skydive, we get that you want to feel good in your outfit.

That said, for safety reasons, we tend to land on the ground on our buttocks and skid across the grass to get rid of the last bit of forward motion we have. That means that wearing your nicest white linen trousers is not the best idea. Wear something that you don’t mind getting dirty – or elect to wear one of our skydiving jumpsuits to protect your clothing.

5) It’s Okay To Wear Glasses And Contact Lenses

It’s a common misconception that you can’t jump in your glasses or contacts. We actually have plenty of people jump with spectacles or contacts. We’ll give you goggles to keep your eyewear safe.

6) Cameras Aren’t Part Of Your Skydiving Wardrobe

We offer a fantastic tandem skydive video package which will capture every step of your journey by a highly skilled instructor/videographer. Wearing a camera on their wrist, every part of your experience will be reproduced in glorious quality, allowing you to share your memories with your friends and family too.

For safety reasons, we don’t allow you to wear your own camera – even small cameras like Go Pros and Sony Action Cams. The wearing of such cameras by students is absolutely against United States Parachute Association rules and regulations, so this rule is set by our governing body.

Are you ready to skydive? Book your jump today, or get in touch if you have any questions and we’ll be happy to help.