Skydiving as main career/main source of income

[FallloutboyDAoC 0]

I'm researching this for a school project, can anyone post a website, or post some information?

I'm looking for:

The training to become an instructor (aff, tandem, s/l, and anything else i missed)

All the work there is in the field

The hours

The pay (hourly, monthly, yearly)

And anything else you think i should know that i haven't mentioned.

Thanks :>

edit: I'm posting this in the instructor's forum because i would think the instructors would be able to tell me the most

[lifesatrip 0]

Well there is a place down in Newzealand that says they will train you in all the basic of working at a dropzone. To become a coach, instructor, tandem master or AFF instructor you have to jump and then courses that take are run at local dz's across the country. As for pay, well normally you get paid for what you do. More like piece work pay. As for how much you get for doing things it can very from dz to dz. If you find the right dz you can make more as a packer then anything else. For instance where I jump we get paid $8/pack. I hope this helps you out

[skybytch 273]

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The training to become an instructor (aff, tandem, s/l, and anything else i missed)

Go to USPA's website and download the Skydivers Information manual. The answers to this question in the US can be found here; other countries parachuting associations may have different requirements.

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All the work there is in the field

Besides instructing, you can make money as a packer (main canopies), rigger (packing reserves and maintaining/repairing gear), or camera flier (video and/or stills). You can also work in manifest (office work at a dz), in gear sales and/or manufacturing, or as a pilot.

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The hours

Generally, daylight hours. Depends on where you work; some jobs are 40 hours a week Monday thru Friday, others are from sun up to sunset on weekends only.

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The pay (hourly, monthly, yearly)

Again, depends on what you are doing and where you are doing it. The more you can do, the more money you can make - ie most jumpers who rely on skydiving for their only income do more than one thing (rigging, one or more forms of instruction and video). Most people don't get into it to make the big bucks; they consider themselves lucky if their income is above poverty level.

[billvon 3,109]

>The training to become an instructor

90% of the training is the training you get when becoming a good skydiver. There are some specific pre-courses and drills you can do, but it's mainly the skills you need to do RW and teach anyone anything.

>All the work there is in the field

Packing
Manifesting
Office work
Video editing
Jumpmastering
Flying video
Tandems
Aircraft maintenance
Organizing (RW, VRW etc)
Coaching
TV/movies

>The pay (hourly, monthly, yearly)

Best I've done is about $700 a day. Worst is $0 a day.

[dgw 8]

Any chance of getting the cumulative frequency, skewness, kurtosis, mean, mode, median, and standard error/deviation of your skydiving earnings?

[ZigZagMarquis 9]

Keep doing your research and all and I don't mean to put the buzz kill on you or anything, but I learned a long time ago that most "professional" DZ...
Packers
Manifest Dude or Dude-etts
Office workers
Vidiots
Jumpmasters
Tandem-masters
Organizers
Coaches
and many many DZOs...

... are in it for the lifestyle and not the supposed truck-loads of money.

[FallloutboyDAoC 0]

If i was to do it as my main job, it'd be because of that too, but i need to research all this for the project.

[FallloutboyDAoC 0]

Quote

>All the work there is in the field

Packing
Manifesting
Office work
Video editing
Jumpmastering
Flying video
Tandems
Aircraft maintenance
Organizing (RW, VRW etc)
Coaching
TV/movies

>The pay (hourly, monthly, yearly)

Best I've done is about $700 a day. Worst is $0 a day.

Perfect list, but can you explain some of them?

Mainly manifesting (i have no idea what it is), jumpmastering, TV/movies, organizing (RW, VRW, etc), and the office work.

And can you tell me how you get paid for each of these? Is there any hourly rate at all working at a
DZ, or does it vary between all of them? And like how much do you get paid for each of the jobs, etc.



Thanks for the replies too :>

[PhreeZone 20]

Packing $5-12 per main repack
Manifesting $7-12 per hour or other methods like X per load and Y per student waivered
Office work $7-12 per hour if needed at all.
Video editing $3-5 per video
Jumpmastering $5-15 per student and potenitally a free jump
Flying video $30-60 per jump
Tandems $35-70 per jump. High pay rate usually means doing things like Hand shot videos also.
Aircraft maintenance Look up the shop rate at your local airport
Organizing (RW, VRW etc) - Free jump
Coaching - Professional training experienced jumpers? $15-55 per jump, instructor coaching student? $15-30 per jump. Average training is 1-1.5 hours per jump.
Rigging - $45-55 per reserve repack. Rigging loft labor rate is about $20 per hour for repair work but you might need to buy thousands of dollars in sewing machines to make any money.
TV/movies - Sky is the limit on the pay here based on each job but there are also only a dozen people worldwide that can do this type of a gig. All hthose have years in the business and thousands and thousands of jumps.

For most you need to have 200 jump for video and jumpmastering and 500 for tandems. You also need to figure in start up costs of buying your own rig, cameras, helmets, the training and everything else. There are no benifits, no pay for rain days, no insurance and no medical leave. Hurt your ankle? Pay the bills and make no money for weeks while you heal up.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[FallloutboyDAoC 0]

Ok, thanks. That is exactly what I needed :>

[DARK 0]

Quote

... are in it for the lifestyle and not the supposed truck-loads of money.

go on give us a hint on the lifestyle seen as im going to start living it in 3 weeks but dont really know what to expect.

as a packer in particular

[billvon 3,109]

>Mainly manifesting (i have no idea what it is)

Manifesting means getting people onto airplanes. They make lists of who is in which plane, figure out when the students are jumping, do weight and balance calculations, collect money etc. I've seen pay rates from zero to about $10 an hour.

>jumpmastering

There used to be a big difference between a jumpmaster and an instructor. Instructors taught, jumpmasters just jumped with you (or put you out of the plane.) Nowadays there is less difference since there is no separate jumpmaster rating any more. For AFF I've seen rates from $10-$35 per jump. For static line much less.

>TV/movies

Occasionally there will be a TV show, commercial or movie that needs skydivers as talent; the movie Drop Zone was an example. These pay VERY well but are few and far between. I've been fortunate enough to work on two, an MTV tandem stunt and a Honda commercial. Both paid around $500 a day plus housing, food, travel and additional hazard/cinematographer pay. Don't expect to be able to do this regularly, or at all unless you have a lot of experience and some very specific team skills (like being part of a demo team or the World Team.)

>organizing (RW, VRW, etc)

Skydivers will pay for organizers to help them set up dives. Sometimes the drop zone will simply pay your slot to help get people safely in the air; the organizer tents at the WFFC worked this way. Sometimes a very experienced jumper will do a player/coach team where he will both coach a 4-way team and jump with them. Typically the rest of the team pays his slot, the video guy's slot, their packing and some additional fee for the organizer. Fees vary a LOT. Expect to pay nothing for a DZ utility organizer; expect to pay a few hundred a day to get Fury or Airspeed coaching.

Rarely, if you're really good, a DZ will advertise your name as a draw. "May 25th we have Kate Cooper organizing the Missouri state record!" They get paid even better.

>and the office work.

Like office work anywhere. Big DZ's often need office people to process payments, do payrolls, create ads, manage waivers etc.