Skydiving & Parachuting for Beginners, Novices & Licensed Parachutists.

Welcome to the Peterlee Drop Zone offering Skydiving & Parachuting for Beginners, Novices & Licensed Parachutists in North East England. We are based in County Durham, 23 miles from Newcastle upon Tyne.

The Peterlee Parachute Drop Zone (DZ) has been operating since 1987. We operate in unrestricted Air Space flying aircraft capable of dropping parachutists from up to 15,000ft. We are central for Tyneside (19 miles) and Teesside (19 miles), have good dual carriageway access from Northumberland & North Yorkshire and we are adjacent to 7 day a week public transport routes.

We are located at Shotton Airfield, 10 miles east of Durham City & 2 miles West of Peterlee. Whilst the Airfield can operate 7 days a week from 8:30am - 8:30pm or dark which ever the sooner our Airfield Booking Office is open Mon - Fri 10am - 5pm.

We offer Tandem Skydiving, Solo Parachuting &Accelerated Free Fall Courses:

Tandem Skydiving: For a once-in-a-lifetime experience, a tandem skydive is unlikely to be forgotten! Many do sponsored tandem jumps for charity or simply just for the thrill of falling at speeds in the order of 120-180 mph. We offer two options, the Popular Option jumping from 7,500ft to 10,000ft (wherever possible 10,000ft being achieved) and the Maximum Altitude Option jumping from 9,000ft to 15,000ft (wherever possible 15,000ft being achieved). Participants need to be aged 16 years and older (16 & 17 year olds require parent/guardians written permission on two specific forms which can be provided upon request) and satisfy some basic fitness criteria (outlined on specific forms which again can be provided upon request). Whilst we may take participants weighing up to 16st 7lbs/105kg we require any aspiring participants weighing over 14st/88kg to contact us before booking in order that we can make an assessment, some may require a larger parachute, &/or a lighter instructor or in some cases they may be unsuitable until some weight is lost. Tandem Skydives may be filmed for an additional fee.

Accelerated Free Fall “AFF” really means Accelerated Learning, it is a professional one to one, 8 jump skydiving course designed for the average person. You start jumping with two instructors then with one and finally at the end of the course you will be able to freefall alone, perform turns, somersaults, tracking, then open your parachute and steer it to the landing area.

A static line parachute jump can be done just as a one off experience or as part of a course to progress on to freefall and skydiving. If you have time but want to spread the cost of learning to skydive over a longer period of time then the SL course may be just for you. It is a good way of experiencing parachuting if it is something that you might like to carry on with without the expense of an Accelerated Free Fall (AFF) Course. A single static line jump can also be done as a sponsored event for charity. With the SL method the parachute is deployed by a static line secured to a strong point within the aircraft. Progression to freefall is possible on later jumps. All parachutes used by Skydive Academy are of the Ram Air design & all reserves are fitted with automatic activation devices. Round parachutes are no longer used by us. The SL Course requires a minimum of 6 hours instruction. Courses normally last a full day allowing for coffee, lunch & tea breaks and normally take place on the 1st Saturdays of each month, although other dates can be arranged for group bookings, with the jump normally taking place the next day weather permitting. Occasionally during the lighter summer evenings jumps may be undertaken on the day of the course. Courses can be run on other days for groups of 5 or more if arranged in advance. Once trained, given suitable conditions and providing they remain in date with their training, Solo Student Category System Parachutists can undertake jumps on any opening day; generally weekend days from February to November and during British Summer Time on public holidays and several other mid week days as detailed on the booking calendars. Prior to jumping on any day student parachutists must attend daily revision training during which their ability to undertake drills and actions will be assessed - this is generally run at 09:30am on Saturdays, Sundays, Bank Holiday Mondays and at 1:30pm on Wednesdays & Fridays. Participants need to be aged 16 years and older (16 & 17 year olds require parent/guardians written permission on two specific forms which can be provided upon request) and satisfy some basic fitness criteria (outlined on specific forms which again can be provided upon request). Whilst we may take participants weighing up to 16st 7lbs/105kg we require any aspiring participants weighing over 14st/88kg to contact us before booking in order that we can make an assessment, some may require a larger parachute or some may be unsuitable until some weight i

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