As mentioned in my [intlink id="1335" type="post"]previous post[/intlink] 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 WH Smith and send it through them for £5.95.

This turned out to be a great idea. not only did it arrive for sure, it got to them on time (DHL states it arrives in 1-2 working days).  This morning I already received the necessary stuff back from the BPA, also considered myself lucky as they used the normal mail. I received my FAI National Parachute Certificate booklet with all the necessary stickers in it, minus the FS1 I received last week which I had to attach myself. I also received a new BPA card that now includes my FAI certificate number 108453.

To be honest this is probably not a very busy time for the BPA (I presume) as the skydiving season is slowly coming to an end. Nevertheless , kudos to the BPA.

So now I am a bit more official in skydiving in the UK

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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 soon, preparations are under way as I speak (I mean write).

Stonehenge
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Stonehenge	Stonehenge

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 as its needed in the UK for jumping in groups.

Didn’t take any photos, was a bit worried would get nicked as the DZ is situated on an active military base (technically its an airfield camp).

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 the side of the door which resulted in a nasty tear in my container on the reserve parachute flap. I am suspecting poor stitching but will have to send the whole thing to Florida to be fixed.

Here are photos of the my sad-looking Aerodyne Icon Sport container:

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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 made 5 consecutive formations in the shape of letters H-O-N-D-A.

Here is a flash film on the Honda Accord website made about the advert.

A documentary on the whole project was made. See it by clicking the Youtube link here.

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 whole house to our self and we also received some pictures of the place.

I hope it all stays as planned and that this lucky bubble won’t burst. I hope to get more pictures once we’ve stayed there.

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 prices compared to the UK, where I live at the moment, are much lower.

Here are the basic details of the Deland DZ:

• airfield ID: Deland Municipal Airport (KDED)
• website: skydivedeland.com
• address: 1600 Flightline Blvd., DeLand, FL
• aircrafts: twin otter, skyvan

The DZ is about an hours drive (50 miles / 80 km north) from Orlando, where we will be using the Skyventure wind tunnel.

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 any of the legs
The Skydive London dropzone is situated about 3 hours drive away from Haverfordwest, adjacent to the town of Swindon. Being used to relatively small dropzones in Slovenia I was surprised that the DZ which bares the name of the nation’s capital is smaller than most of the DZs in Slovenia. But that is not relatively a bad thing. The environment is very friendly, everybody knows each other by their first name and there is no large scale manifests to have to battle with. The only real drawback for me, as a skydiver, is the focus on tandems which means you probably have to wait a while to get a seat on the next lift.

I heard from some skydivers, that the DZ only has an Airvan and that it takes about 20 minutes to get to 12,000 feet – I must be pretty unspoilt as I though the flight was relatively fast and comfortable. My last high altitude jump was in the Antonov-2 which needs about 30 minutes to get to 3,000 metres and you usually have the opportunity to enjoy diesel fumes and turbulance (with all due respect to our lovely Fata). In fact the Airvan very much reminded me of the Canguro airplane although the two planes are quite different from each other.

I made two jumps and unfortunately the second did not end with a very great landing. Just metres from starting the second stage flare I dropped what felt like about half a meter which resulted in me landing on my knees and not my feet. Ouch! I still have a lot to learn about landing in zero-wind conditions
It definitely is my fault as the parachute is quite stable and forgiving to my mistakes so you should deduct from this that it is NOT “idiot proof”. The good thing I found about the parachute is that I am slowly getting the hang on the packing. Not long ago, in Prečna, the packing was a nightmare and the only respite came from the last pack of the day, when the increased evening humidity helped with wrangling with the still relatively new parachute material of my Atair Dragon 170.

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 wannabes just bursting to jump out of a perfectly good air plane. Please call him after March 23 to arrange classes. This great photo accompanying this post was shot by Miha Valenčič during their skydiving trip in Florida. It is just astounding how many facial expressions can be mashed-up into one
o:-)

Photo takem from www.mihavalencic.com

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 put it in a bag myself so it wouldn’t get stained or damaged – not that a plastic bag is any real protection.

The reserve parachute is made by a company called Performance Designs based in DeLandand, Florida, US and the Cypres AAD by a German company Airtec GmbH based in Bad Wünnenberg in Germany. I hope I never have to use them both actively, but its good to know they are new and hopefully in good working order. Now all I have to wait for is the main parachute from Škofja Loka and I am set to hand everything over to a rigger so he/she can put it all together.

The last piece of equipment is an audible altimeter + a jump data tracker in one. It is made by a Danish compancy Larsen & Brusgaard and the instrument is called ProTrack.

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 and the model is called Icon. The purchase was made through Ettore who is the owner of Sky Sport. He arranged everything including the correct measurements.

The container was made especially for me so I won’t have to worry about renting a rig that doesn’t fit me. The parachute container size it is made for is I5 which means it should be able to accept main rigs in the sizes between 150 – 168 and the reserve sizes 150, 160 or 175 sq. ft. The material from which the harness is made of is called “Parapack“.

It still looks a bit “empty” as is has nothing in it (main parachute, reserve parachute, AAD). I have dished out for the rig to have a soft reserve deployment handle and a special new design hand deploy chute handle (see photo on the right). The rig comes standard with articulated harness with hip rings and stainless steel hardware. More information on all this can be seen here.

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 the program started albeit a bit late, with a performance by a Didgeridoo musician.
After that came the introduction from our local chechen father Christmas who was followed by our local Bovec “representative” widely known as Gams. He seemed to be sharing the similar voice characteristics as is stage predecessor.

Then came the projection of the films, 9 in all. They were shown in the same sequence as they registered with the organizational committee. The films were not to be longer than 10 minutes and what we saw way very very good so deciding on the best three was very tough. After registering point on special cards and counting the point after the projection the results we in.

1. Ni nam lahko, by Maja Šalamun and Petra Jerebic
2. the film by Boris Pečnik (don’t know the title, sorry Boris)
3. A je to… by Vesmin Kajtazovič

Unuch also organized a donation for the http://www.padalstvo.com/ (Slovene skydive portal). The winners from the Photo Festival were also announced however I think the award was given to all 5 finalists. Oh yes, I almost forgot the Film Festival awards. It was one year’s subscription to the Slovene Playboy. After that it was partying till morning – for me it was to about 2 AM.

Thanks to all who helped with the Festival, especially to Emil, Tomaž, Darja, Matej, Gams… (please forgive if I had forgotten anyone. Additional names can be added upon request – a nice cool difference the web has compared to printed stuff).

Na photo on top of the pages takem from the KMŠ website