If it is so cold at the top of mountains, I’d assume it only gets colder, the closer you get to space? I started this post with the question ‘how do planes not freeze when they fly.’ Did a search and found that planes use heating elements. Did another search and found that skydiving can happen at the same general altitude as any other flight. So how do people not freeze when they jump out of planes?
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>Did another search and found that skydiving can happen at the same general altitude as any other flight
Maybe a general aviation (small plane) flight but not at the level a jet airliner flies at
Skydives are at 10k-14k feet, anything above 15k and you need supplemental oxygen. Jet airliners fly at 30-40k feet
Its cold at 14,000 feet but the air is thin so it can’t pull heat from you that fast and you’ll go from cold 14,000 feet air to much warmer 5,000 feet air in about a minute of freefall. You can walk outside in the winter without a coat for tens of minutes without freezing, a single minute isn’t an issue
The suits used when skydiving is quite warm. In addition it is common to wear a warm cap and gloves. The clothes can not keep someone warm at those altitudes for very long, but the skydivers do not plan on hanging out very long.
From some google searches: air temperature decreases by 3C every thousand feet. So at the height of your average skydiving jump (10,000 feet), it should be 30C cooler than ground temperature. This is a *much* lower altitude than typical airline flights, which are at 30-40,000 feet.
At 10,000 feet, the outside temperature is probably around 0C on a summer day. Pretty cold, but not enough to immediately freeze a person. From other searches, it sounds like for a typical skydive, you’re only in free fall for about a minute, with the rest of the time parachuting. At that height (5,000 feet), you’re already halfway down, so the temperature would only be 15C cooler than the ground. It would be chilly, but not terrible. So you’re only in really cold temperatures for less than a minute, and even then, it’s not enough to freeze a person.
When I did it, I was in t-shirt and shorts, a little over 10k up… the free fall from jumping to pulling the chute isn’t long, less than a minute… the last 5ish mins was gliding down with the chute, quite a cool view imo at that point (I went in duluth so I could see the great lakes and stuff)… so I’d say it’s like running out in the winter in pj’s to start the car, it was cold and for the first few seconds as you’re getting out, but once I was out and falling, the temp wasn’t really a main focus… more just gather bearings and trying to sprawl out right so you don’t tumble.. I was back in the warm air before I realized how it felt like I’d went into the walk-in fridge at my school to quick grab something and left
I’ve been skydiving since 2009. The air is cold, but the freefall portion is over quickly, so you don’t really have time to get that cold. If it’s below freezing at the jump altitude, we wear gloves. We also wear other clothing as appropriate. Planes thankfully generate tons of waste heat which can be blown into the cabin, but sometimes the door is leaky, and I find that getting cold on the ride up is more common than during the jump itself.
Skydiving when it’s cold on the ground as well is less fun, because then you have to stay warm while flying your canopy, packing, and waiting around for the next skydive (unless you have heated rooms for this). It can still be a nice experience, and I love autumn and sunset skydives because the view is unreal. In fact, the view is probably my favorite part of the sport. Coaching, and the close friendships we have, are also some of my favorite things. Skydivers are a very diverse bunch, but every single one has some small extra spark that other people are sometimes missing.
I did a high altitude jump from 25,000 ft back in the early 90s. It was the only time I can remember getting out of the aircraft and thinking “damn, it’s cold”. The air warmed up quickly during descent however. I could feel it getting warmer and warmer as I got closer to the surface. As others have stated, most skydives happen below 14,000 ft so the temperature is rarely an issue. I did do a jump in below freezing weather one time. The biggest issue was actually not in freefall but rather after I deployed the canopy. I did not wear gloves and my hands got frostbitten. Also, interestingly, my nose began running and it froze on my face. When I landed I had snotcicles and my hands were so numb that I could not get my helmet off.
It does get colder the higher up you go. At typical skydiving altitudes, it can be around 20 degrees colder than it is on the ground – so in summer it’s nice and cool but in winter temperatures can be well below zero.
Nonetheless, you’re not up there very long – not long enough to risk hypothermia, although frostbite could be a danger when it’s really cold. The plane isn’t usually heated, but until the door opens you’re mostly protected from the elements. The freefall only lasts a bit over a minute – once the parachute is open you’re at a lower altitude so it’s not quite as cold (still colder than it is on the ground, though).
You just have to be aware that it will be colder at altitude and dress accordingly.
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