Skydiving Gear Explained: What's Actually in a Complete Rig

The first time you see a skydiving rig up close, it looks like a lot. Straps, handles, a backpack-looking thing, a small instrument on someone's wrist, a helmet that may or may not have a camera bolted to it. If you're new to the sport — or thinking about getting into it — the gear can feel like a wall of jargon between you and the sky. It isn't, really. Every piece does a specific, sensible job, and once you understand what each part is for, the whole system makes a lot more sense.

Here's a plain-English tour of what's actually in a complete skydiving rig, and the gear that goes with it. (One note up front: this is a general overview to help you understand the equipment, not a substitute for proper training. Your instructors and your drop zone are the authority on the gear you'll actually use, and the USPA Skydiver's Information Manual is the reference everyone leans on.)

The container (the "rig" itself)

The backpack-looking part is the container — sometimes just called the rig. It's a precisely engineered harness-and-container system that holds two parachutes and keeps them organized, protected, and ready to deploy. The harness is the webbing that wraps around your body — over your shoulders, around your hips, between your legs — and it's what actually connects you to the parachute. When people talk about a rig being comfortable or fitting well, the harness is a big part of what they mean.

Containers are custom-built to fit a specific person and a specific pair of canopies. That's why experienced jumpers' rigs are fitted to them — a rig that fits properly sits snug against your back, doesn't shift around in freefall, and puts the handles exactly where your hands expect them.

Two parachutes: main and reserve

Every sport rig carries two parachutes, and this is the single most important thing for a newcomer to understand about safety. You are never relying on one canopy.

The main parachute is the one you deploy on every jump. You pack it (or have a packer pack it), you deploy it, and it's what you fly down and land under the vast majority of the time.

The reserve parachute is your backup. It lives in its own section of the container, it's packed by a certified rigger (not by you), and it's inspected and repacked on a regular schedule whether you've used it or not. If something goes wrong with the main — a malfunction, a bad deployment — you cut away the main and deploy the reserve. The reserve is meticulously maintained precisely because it's the system you trust when the first one doesn't cooperate.

The AAD (the automatic backup)

On most modern rigs there's a small electronic device called an AAD — Automatic Activation Device. It's a computer that monitors your altitude and your rate of descent, and if it senses you're still falling at freefall speed below a certain altitude — meaning, for whatever reason, you haven't deployed a parachute yourself — it automatically fires the reserve.

Think of it as a last line of defense. The overwhelming majority of jumps never involve the AAD doing anything; you deploy your own canopy at the right altitude and the AAD just rides along, watching. But it's there for the worst-case scenario, and it's saved lives. Most drop zones require one, especially for students.

The handles

A rig has a few handles, and knowing what each one does is a core part of early training:

• The main deployment handle — what you pull to deploy your main parachute. Depending on the system, this might be a pilot chute you throw or a ripcord you pull.
• The cutaway handle — releases the main parachute if it malfunctions, so you can deploy the reserve into clean air.
• The reserve handle — deploys the reserve parachute.

The location and feel of these handles is drilled into you in training until finding them is automatic, because in the rare event something goes wrong, you want your hands to know where to go without thinking. This is also one reason apparel matters more than people expect — anything loose or flapping around your torso can interfere with your handles, which is exactly why jumpers wear fitted, anchored clothing rather than baggy shirts. More on that in a moment.

The instruments

Skydivers fly with instruments because human perception of altitude in freefall is unreliable. The main ones:

• An altimeter — tells you your altitude. It might be a wrist-mounted analog dial, a digital readout, or both. This is the single most-checked instrument in the sport.
• An audible altimeter — a small device, often tucked in your helmet, that beeps at preset altitudes to alert you when it's time to deploy, time to break off from a formation, and so on. It's a backup to your eyes, not a replacement.

The helmet and goggles

A helmet protects your head — on exit, in freefall if you bump someone, and on landing. Styles range from open-face to full-face, and many camera flyers mount cameras on top. Goggles keep the 120 mph wind out of your eyes so you can actually see your altimeter and the horizon. If you wear glasses, there are goggles designed to fit over them.

What you wear: the soft gear

Here's the part people overlook, and the part Jump Slut cares about most. Beyond the rig, instruments, and helmet, there's what you actually wear — and it's not an afterthought.

Many jumpers wear a jumpsuit or, increasingly, purpose-built skydiving apparel — jerseys and tops engineered for freefall rather than borrowed from the gym. This matters for real reasons:

• Fit and drag. What you wear changes how you fall. Loose, billowing clothing catches air, flaps, and can affect your stability and fall rate. Fitted apparel flies clean.
• Staying put. A regular shirt rides up the instant you hit the relative wind, bunching around your chest and exposing your midriff. Apparel built for the sky — with a silicon-banded waistband, mesh sides that vent the wind, and a longer cut to tuck into your leg straps — simply stays where you put it.
• Handle clearance. As mentioned above, loose fabric near your hips and chest can interfere with your handles. Fitted apparel keeps everything clear, which is a genuine safety consideration, not just a comfort one.
• Temperature. It's cold at altitude. Breathable apparel with venting keeps you cool on the ground waiting for the load and comfortable in freefall.

The point is that your clothing is part of your gear system, not separate from it. The rig keeps you safe; what you wear affects how you fly and how the day feels. (If you want the deeper version of why ordinary clothing fails up there, we wrote a whole piece on why regular jerseys fail in freefall.)

Putting it all together

A complete setup, then, is: a fitted container holding a main and a reserve, watched over by an AAD, with clearly-placed handles, an altimeter (and usually an audible), a helmet and goggles, and apparel that's actually built for the air. Every piece has a job. Nothing on a well-set-up jumper is decorative.

When you're starting out, you don't need to own any of this — your drop zone provides student gear, and you'll learn each piece hands-on with an instructor. But understanding the system early makes everything click faster, and it makes you a more confident, more aware jumper. The gear isn't a wall between you and the sky. It's the thing that lets you go there and come back grinning.

When you're ready to think about what you'll wear up there — apparel built for the way skydivers actually fly — that's what we do.