Can I Bring My Own GoPro Skydiving?

You consider your GoPro camera your #1 adventure buddy. That little piece of digital ingenuity has been with you on each of your great escapades and captured some of your favorite memories. Now that you’ve scheduled a tandem skydive, you are probably thinking: can you take a GoPro skydiving?  After all, if there’s one thing that goes great with skydiving, GoPro is it. 

Skydiving with camera in tow isn’t out of the question, but can you take your own GoPro skydiving? Unfortunately, not so much.

We get it. We all want to capture memories and keep them with crystal clarity that can last a lifetime. So we know bringing your GoPro on a tandem skydive may seem like a great idea, but trust us: it’s not.

Here’s why we have to say no to taking your own GoPro skydiving.

Big Trouble Comes in Small Packages

Skydiving is no carnival ride. When you’re on a tandem skydive, you are a skydiver. Yes, you have a United States Parachute Association (USPA) certified instructor there with you, but you have a few responsibilities, too. And trust us when we say the first time skydiving is overwhelming enough on its own without adding any extra attention grabbers or gadgets. 

To have a camera attached to you requires some serious skydiving skill and a near-avian familiarity with freefall. Obviously, people too focused on getting the best shot (something that is tough to do, even when you’re not freefalling at 120mph) are easily distracted. And, frankly, on a skydive, the directions provided to you by your instructor are something that deserve your undivided attention.

While it’s rare, just like in everyday life, emergency situations do arise. And guess what? It’s been proven that cameras can interfere with response times and emergency procedures.

Even tandem instructors (who must have a minimum 500 skydives to even qualify for a tandem rating) are recommended to complete 200 skydives with tandem passengers SANS camera BEFORE adding a GoPro to the mix.

In part, this is because cameras are a snag hazard – parachute deployments include a highly organized unfurling of several attachment lines and you don’t want anything to be sticking out that can potentially catch. A line entanglement with a camera can cause a very sticky situation and result in injury, so cameras need to be kept clear of the lines during parachute deployment, which takes some serious flying chops.

The Rules are Bigger Than Us!

The rulebook all skydivers, instructors, and dropzones follow is called the USPA Skydiver’s Information Manual (also known as the SIM). The job of the United States Parachute Association (USPA) is to disseminate the safety information it’s been gathering for decades to its group member dropzones. And we take this information to heart. All of our operations are centered around what the USPA recommends or requires.  

So what’s the conclusion the SIM draws about cameras? Flying a camera is a serious decision. If you’re someone who likes to get into the nitty gritty, check out Section 6-8, which covers camera usage and safety. Or, if you’re more of a summary kind of person:

The SIM says before jumping with a camera, a skydiver should have enough general jump experience to be able to handle any skydiving emergency easily and without stress. As such, it recommends having a C license, or 200 skydives and the equivalent C license flying skills. 

Oh, and before a skydiver can jump a camera, they also need to have 50 jumps on the parachute equipment that they will be jumping with while using said camera. And when it comes to a licensed skydiver filming students, the SIM suggests that the filming skydiver must have at least 300 group freefall skydives AND at least 50 jumps flying a camera with an experienced jumper.

Why are we telling you all this? To drive the point home that adding a camera to the mix is a decision that has to be made with care.

Professionals Do It Better (and Safer)

Don’t worry. We have you completely covered at Long Island Skydiving Center. Sit back, enjoy the experience, and let us worry about capturing the skydive on film. 

Even if you could bring a camera to altitude, you shouldn’t even want to. Imagine not being distracted by trying to get a sweet shot, or panicking over whether you even turned the camera on. That’s for us to worry about. Allow yourself to live fully in the moment: don’t let your skydive pass you by just so you can watch it on a screen after the fact. 

And, while we’re sure you’re a great videographer who’s captured some pretty sick vids, we can pretty much guarantee that our professional video flyers have the experience to wow your socks off. They’ve done this a lot! 

Since we know how hard it is to leave your faithful friend at home, still bring your camera with you to the dropzone! Just leave it on the ground in the hands of your human friends and family and get some behind the scenes footage before and after your jump. 

Your skydive will be captured by professionals so that you can relieve the great time you just had again and again.

Ready to get that share-worthy footage of yourself having the time of your life? Scoot on over here and lock in your tandem skydiving date! See you at the dropzone. Blue skies!