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All instructors (and everyone else, except front end staff) are paid per unit - industry wide. Depending on aircraft it generally costs around $12-20 per seat
by joeguilmette 15y ago
All instructors (and everyone else, except front end staff) are paid per unit - industry wide.
Depending on aircraft it generally costs around $12-20 per seat in the plane. The equipment costs around $15k to buy new is fairly expensive to maintain. Instructors earn anywhere from $25-85 per jump, depending on facility, the weight of the student and whether or not the student bought a handcam video. Also, it generally costs about $10 to pack the parachute after the jump. So you're looking at around $60-120 in cost for each tandem jump.
Outside video (a videographer) costs 1 seat and pays around $40-70 to the videographer. It pays more because they have to buy their own parachute and camera helmet ($2k-3k and $1k-2 respectively). They also have to pack for themselves. They also do less work, so it's harder to keep them around.
The aircraft generally cost around $1 million to purchase, give or take a couple hundred grand (Otters, Porters and PACs). Smaller, less efficient aircraft are available for $35-50k (Cessna 182 and 206s). To lease an aircraft costs about $600-1000 per hour for a large one (like an Otter), $150-200 for a smaller one (like a Cessna), both prices including gas. You can get a flight up in about .2-.3 hours for the larger planes, .4-.5 for the smaller ones.
The larger planes will get 12-24 people in them, the smaller ones 4-6.
Q: How to do make a small fortune skydiving?
A: Start with a large one.
- tedjdziuba 15y agoProtip: if it floats, flies, or fucks, rent it.
- graupel 15y agoCurious - why does the weight of the student have a bearing on the amount paid to the instructor? Is it harder to work with super light (or super heavy?) people?
- joeguilmette 15y agoFor people over 200lbs its a big PITA, to the point that a lot of places won't take you if you're over 225. At that point it's hard on the instructor and hard on the gear. At around 250lbs, depending on the weight of the instructor, you come up on the max recommended exit weight. Most everything will still work fine, you just expose yourself to situations where the reserve might, say, explode if you do too many wrong things in a row. We just charge $1 per lbs to the student for everything over 200lbs and give it to the instructor. That way when a 250lbs 5' tall bowling ball of a woman walks in, everyone fights over her :)
- romland 15y agoI just wanted to thank you for posting all of this, and more importantly all your comments in the thread. It was incredibly generous of you to share so much details about your business. Packaged up it really makes me feel like I get a better idea on how Groupon works for businesses like yours (and hey, I also learned a thing or three about skydiving!). I wanted to send an email to thank you instead of cluttering this thread but it was not in your profile. Thanks again. :) (why I reply to this comment is entirely random)
- roel_v 15y ago"I wanted to send an email to thank you instead of cluttering this thread but it was not in your profile." Sorry for another OT, but I think it would be great and would reduce clutter on HN if there was a check box on each post that would make that post only show up for the person that is being replied to. Would be a perfect 'thank you' post system, and I wouldn't feel bad about voting down 'thank you' posts (which by themselves are meant well but impose a tax on others).