Martin McDowell's Blog

As mentioned in my I had my FAI paperwork done after completing the FS1 certificate. To on the safe side and prevent from the mail to BPA with the paperwork to get misplaced (as it likes to get with the Royal Mail) or get severely delayed I decided to use the local DHL servicepoint in [...]

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Back here again, desperately trying to find an FS-1 coach to get my FS-1 license done. Only did one jump today as I developed one very nasty headache and it seems this is one of the rare times I didn’t bring any painkillers along. Oh, what fun Beside that the Friday night jumps will commence [...]

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After waiting for 11 months and practically giving up on the notion of jumping out of a plane for the foreseeable future. The given opportunity came last week, Friday off and a sunny forecast. Great weekend. Managed 7 juat the Netheravon DZ. Now all I am left to do is to get my FS1 licence [...]

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My recent visit to the motherland gave me the opportunity for yet another skydiving session, I joined my instructor and mentor Aleš Debeljak from the Paranoia skydiving school. All went well and on the third jump of the second day just as I exited the Cessna 206 I apparently managed to hook my rig on [...]

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Channel 4 has been showing adverts names »Difficult is worth doing« introducing skydivers jumping from an airplane and make formations in freefall and one canopy formation. It columnated on May 29th 2008 when a live TV add was broadcast from the Spanish DZ Lillo at 20:10 local time (CET). After exiting the aircraft 16 jumpers [...]

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After finally settling for DeLand being the DZ we will be jumping at we have now also have a definite place where we will be staying. Now you skydivers among you probably know what the usual level of accommodation comes during skydiving trips. This time we will live in near luxury. We will have a [...]

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As mentioned in a previous post, this is the DZ (dropzone) where we will do our skydiving in Florida in 2008. There are quite a few of us booked for the SkyDragons tunnelcamp and all will skydivers will also be doing jumps as well. Why on earth would you miss skydiving in Florida and the [...]

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Last weekend I did what I wanted to do for a long while – to actually skydive in the UK. I’ve been putting it off for a long time, lately mostly due to the weather we have been having. Last weekend the weather was OK, no flu lingering in the background and no lameness in [...]

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I have just read on the Paranoia website, that their skydiving school in Ljubljana will soon be continuing classes, just as soon Aleš, the school’s instructor, will come back from a skydiving trip to the US. Aleš has been away for a few weeks now and am sure there were a lot of anticipating skydiving [...]

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Now it seem to be all happening. I received the PD reserve 160 and the Cypres 2 Expert 1-pin AAD last week. I would expect the Cypres to come in a nice packet, which it did, but I didn’t have a clue how the parachute would be packed. Well, it literally came “as is”. I [...]

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I was so glad to have finally got it. There was a bit of a delay but it is in my hands now The company that manufactured it is based in Tampa, Florida. What I am talking about here is my brand new skydiving rig, also called a harness, container… It is made by Aerodyne [...]

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This was the third Slovene annual Skydiving Film Festival and it also coincided with the first freefall Skydive Photo Festival. It took place yesterday, December 8th 2006 at the KMŠ (Klub Mariborskih Študentov). I had the pleasure attending last year’s festival and this year it proved to be even better. The ambient was great and [...]

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