For many years now, wearing a full face helmet has been a privilege reserved for those with at least a skydiving B licence. This has been due to safety concerns, most notably that many of the available full face helmet options limited visibility that posed a risk to skydivers of limited experience.
In recent years, helmet manufacturers have developed their designs so that full face helmets now offer much better visibility. Of course, no fully enclosed helmet is without its downsides, and skydivers wearing a full face should be aware of the potential for fogging up or problems with the opening mechanism which must never take priority over basic safety.
A licence skydivers can now wear full face helmets (with a brief)
British Skydiving have decided to allow A licence skydivers to wear full face helmets subject to CI’s discretion and they must receive a brief.
Not all full face helmets will be appropriate so to help you work out if your full face helmet is acceptable for an A licence skydiver, we have provided our guidance, based on our own Chief Instructor’s recommendations too, below. If you intend to wear a full face helmet, please speak to an instructor and we can make sure it’s suitable for you.
Full face helmets that A licence skydivers can wear
The best definition we have come up with for what an A licence skydiver can wear is that your full face helmet must have a visor that can be opened.
Our review of as many full face helmets that our team could think of showed us that we’re happy for A licences to jump a full face that opens, providing it fits well and does not inhibit visuals, especially for finding the cutaway and reserve handle.
This means that most openable full face helmets are going to be fine – Cookie G3s, G4s, G35s, Kiss, Tonfly TFXs, all of these popular current brands are good, as well as some older brands you might come across like Bonehead or even the Oxygn, providing it is well fitted. If you have an openable full face helmet and intend to wear it as an A licence skydiver, double check it with your instructor and you should be good to go.
Some people don’t realise that it is possible to tighten your full face helmet so that both the clip and the string which goes around the head are appropriately tight to keep it securely on your head. If you have any queries about how to use your helmet, speak to an instructor.
An openable full face means that either the visor opens, or the full front of the helmet lifts up, like a TFX. Either option should be fine.
Full face helmets that A licence skydivers cannot wear
Any full face helmet which does not open should not be worn by an A licence skydiver. This is because the risks associated with the visor fogging up are much greater when the visor cannot be removed.
There are very few full face helmets which do not open these days. The only example we could think of was the Factory Diver, which was popular in the early 2000s but you don’t see much today.
Full face helmets – pros and cons
There are pros and cons to wearing a full face helmet and with the new ruling from British Skydiving comes a new opportunity to educate yourself and make decisions appropriate to your experience.
When considering wearing a full face helmet, it’s worth considering the pros and cons.
The biggest benefit of a full face helmet, especially for those of us living in the UK, is that it has the potential to keep you warmer on days where it’s very cold.
But this is also the biggest downfall! While the visor can keep us feeling nice and snug, it can also fog up partially or entirely when we breathe into it during cold weather. Each helmet has its own method for dealing with this so be sure to learn how best to breathe in your specific helmet to avoid this issue.
The other big benefit to a full face helmet is for protection. Especially if you’re thinking of moving into a discipline like advanced level 4 way FS, or becoming an instructor, having the additional facial protection can be useful.
The flip side to this of course is that the helmet covers more of your face and can therefore inhibit your visuals. When fitting your full face helmet, spend some time looking at how it changes your field of vision and in particular, how it affects the visuals you have of your cutaway and reserve handles.
Why has British Skydiving made this change?
One of the questions we’ve already been asked in the few days since the rule change was announced is quite simply, why?
In short, it seems the Safety and Training Committee have recognised that helmet designs have evolved significantly since the original ruling around A licence skydivers and full face helmets came in. What was once a legitimate safety concern is now, on the whole, resolved, and the desire for jumpers, especially in the UK, to wear a full face means that, with proper briefing, BS is now happy to allow that to happen.
The other benefit to allowing full face helmets prior to B licence is that it should allow the other benefits of a B licence to come more to the forefront of people’s thinking. It’s common for us to hear “I’m only getting my B so I can wear a full face”, but there are so many more reasons to continue your education as a skydiver that perhaps, by removing that specific benefit, the others can be better understood.
If you have any questions, please speak to an instructor who will be happy to help. You can expect the topic of full face helmets to be part of your A licence brief from now on.