In tandem jumping – a popular way to start skydiving – a beginner jumper and an instructor are attached together by a harness. They exit the plane and descend together, remaining attached throughout.

At all times you’re attached by a harness to the instructor, who completely controls the jump, the free fall and the canopy release. They completely pilot you both horizontally and vertically through the entire jump, and you can just enjoy the experience.

It allows you to get acquainted with skydiving with minimal risk, minimal anxiety and minimal training. Many people use this as a preliminary to static line or accelerated freefall training, and ultimately to solo jumping. It’s also tends to be the cheapest option as you don’t have to purchase or hire your own equipment and you require less pre-jump instruction.

Whereas most jump programs require several hours of ground instruction, very little training is needed to do a tandem jumping as a student. The novice must learn how to cooperate with the instructor in exiting the plane and descending, but this will usually take less than a couple of hours.

Within a few seconds of the two jumpers exiting the plane, the instructor will release the drogue – a small pilot chute. This helps slow the descent to the normal free fall speed of roughly 120 mph (193 kph). Without the drogue, the combined weight of the student and the instructor would result in a descent speed of about 200 mph (321 kph), a speed that no novice jumper should experience.

At an elevation of roughly 3000 feet (914m), the instructor will deploy the main parachute canopy. This will slow down the descent and by the time the tandem jumpers land, they will be travelling at a gentle 10 mph (16 kph).

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