Skydiving Spain - Latest news about our AFF courses, Tandem & RAPS courses


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June 2009

Skydive Spain is pleased to announce that one of it's fleet of Dornier G92's - a twin turbine aircraft reaching an altitude of 15,000ft in under 13 minutes - is based permanently at Skydive Spain for the spring and summer season.

This month´s newsletter was provided by Jonno Horne, Skydive Spain resident FAA Master Rigger, BPA Rigger, USPA and BPA AFF, Static Line and Tandem Instructor and BPA FS Coach and Canopy Coach.

Read on for more of what´s been happening at our DZ this month.

Photo News

Here are instructors Pete and Ian with Ben and Tom. They are just about to board the Dornier for a 12 minute ride to 15,000ft (highest normal jumping altitude in Europe) for their AFF level 5s.

Ben flaring his parachute for a soft touchdown landing

Ben and Tom after Toms level 8

Susie manning DZ control from our bay watch tower.
Today its 32 degrees

Here is Ben and Tom boarding the Dornier. Tom is doing his 1st solo jump after AFF called a consolidation jump. He needs to do 10 of these solo consolidation jumps before he gets his “A” licence.

This is Volare,,, erm.... dirt diving something

Volare and other jumpers on the way to 15,000ft (4700m) on our twin turbine dornier.

Skydive Spain is the only dropzone in Spain who go to 15,000ft (4700m) on every flight. Most dropzones only go to 12,000ft (3700m). From 15,000ft (4700m) you get an extra 15 seconds of freefall..!

Charles McKenna landing on his 10^th consolidation jump. A BPA “A” licence can only be signed by an advanced instructor. Luckily we have our own resident Advanced instructor Ian Cashman. The next move for Charles is to go to the bar and buy a case of beer. Congratulations Charles...!

This is Hans Christian Anderson just before landing. Hans is a qualified USPA coach, and you will usually find Hans with a group of free fliers.

Mikey Carpenter from Volare landing after another training jump

Los Galeote - Serves excellent local sea food and cold drinks

Ben and Tom in the bar celebrating the level 8.

Here is Jacobo experimenting with new types of jumpsuits (Right).

Tom under canopy, on final approach ready for landing

Tom after his AFF level 8

Mikey Carpenter having landed after another team jump with Volare

Adam Mattacola, of world famous Volare freefly team using his rear risers to land his new PD Katana canopy.

Volare train at Skydive Spain several times a year in preparation for the British National championships held at our sister drop zone Hibaldstow in the UK. Hibaldstow also use twin turbine Dornier Aircraft and go to 15,000ft highest altitude in the UK.

Carlos landing from his AFF level 6. Carlos jumped with Bego one of our Spanish instructors. Bego also speaks English fluently and has about 1500 jumps.

Here is Sissi doing an AFF ground school with Maite. The Ground school will take approx 6 hours and cover 12 different lectures from how to fly your parachute to communicating with your instructors in freefall. She will finish the ground school today and will make her first AFF jump the next day.

Instructor Pete Huskins riding his horse, sorry, I mean landing his canopy. Pete is a qualified Physio therapist and works here is Sevilla all year round.

Here is Jordi, Hans and Carlos - all three are experienced & local regular jumpers here at Skydive Spain

Here are a few photos from the “Triangle” (Bermuda). The Triangle is an area in the local town of Skydive Spain and within 100meters there is 6 bars that are very lively in the evening. One of the bars here is called the “Pump bar” as inside every table has its own beer pump and the wide screen TV on the wall tells you how many litres of beer your table has drank (very dangerous).

Here is Jacobo Medaro. Jacobo is currently training for the Eurovision song contest.

This is Charles, Pete (AFF Instructor) and Stewart

To start this day the guys are now on AFF level 4. They started jumping yesterday and should be qualified to jump on their own by the end of the day. Accellerated Freefall (AFF) is a method of learing to skydive that qualifies you to be a solo skydiver in just 8 jumps taking approximatly 3 days to complete. Do you have the balls to skydive on your own..?

Ben and Tom just started the AFF course today. They will spend all day with their instructor Ian Cashman. Ian is a British Parachute Association (BPA) Advanced Instructor Examiner, so he teaches people to be instructors.

Here is Ian introducing the guys to the Dornier on their groundschool

Here you can see Ian doing an equipment lesson with Ben and Tom. He is using a mini replica parachute as his training aid made by our Master rigger Jonno Horne.

Ben Alsford waiting for the aircraft for his first AFF jump

Carlos Marin with AFF Instructor Bego Lopez. Carlos finished five AFF levels in 1 day. And passed them all!!! Nice job Carlos, now get the beers in..!

Pete de briefing Ben after his AFF level 3 while chilling on the bean bags and watching the video on one of the 42” wide screen Tvs. During your AFF course all of our instructors jump with video cameras mounted to their helmets to record the action. Instructor Pete says “video of jumps is priceless while doing AFF”

This is Tom and Ben finished jumping for the day they both did 4 AFF jumps. Now they are checking their Emails using the free Skydive Spain wifi. So when you come here dont forget your lap-top.

We bid fair well to Martin Hall, he has been with us for 2 weeks and completed 30 jumps. During his time with us he completed his BPA FS1 and, all his briefs for his B licence.

Remember only a BPA advanced instructor can sign your licence form, luckily we have Ian here to do just that. Congratulations Martin and we look forward to seeing you next time.

We welcome Volare to do some team training

Volare took bronze at the last world meet. They come to Skydive Spain to train because of our fast comfortable aircraft and the extra altitude of 15,000ft on every flight.

When they train here they also get their own team room to de-brief, keep their gear and to relax. If you want to bring a group to Skydive Spain and want a team room then email us ahead of time so we can arrange it for you.

Tom Dixon gets a gear check before his first AFF jump

Brothers Charles and Stewart McKenna have now finished the AFF course in two days and are jumping solo to improve their skills. Congratulations guys, well done.

Anders Sjaastad and Stian Ullaland are visiting us for a few days from Norway. Both of them are hiring Skydive Spain equipment. Our equipment ranges in size from 288 sqft to 170 sqft. If you want to hire our kit while visiting us then send us an email. info@skydivespain.com

FS Weekend and Dropzone News

This last weekend (20^th - 21^st) at Skydive Spain, we welcomed a 4 way camp ran by our resident FS coaches Manolo Marques and Bego Lopez. They coordinated 8 people into two 4 ways all weekend ending up with a total of 10 coached jumps, 5 on Saturday and 5 on Sunday.

Their last jump on Sunday was a 12 way that included staff of Skydive Spain. Pretty impressive as 2 of the 8 had only 70 jumps..!! Keep an eye on the Skydive Spain website for another 4 way event in Oct. Below you can see some of the photos from the camp. The participants were Manolo Marques, Bego Lopez, Patricia Granados Royo, Francisco Kito, Jo Lammens, Diego, Oliver, Éder Navercerrada Paris and Augustine.

Manolo, Jo, Oliver, Augustine, Diego, Francisco, Patricia, Bego and Éder

The Team after day one having completed 5 jumps and now relaxing with a beer

The team dirtdiving an eightway on their second day

The first of two 8 ways on the second day

Bego dirtdiving with her group Augustine and Patricia

The groups´ 12 way to end the camp with the Skydive Spain instructors. If only Pete had taken the correct grip..!

After the last jump of the weekend, now time for the pool and a beer. Paid for by Pete obviously..!

Ok... here is a few photos of our Office girls doing what they do best..! Meeting the customers, running the manifest and office. And of course sneeking the odd jump in here and there. Ainoa Boyd has 400 jumps and Susie Lovemore has 500 jumps. Between them they speak 5 different languages and always have a smile on their faces.

Ainoa

Here is Kingsley walking back from his trip to 15,000 ft. He has been hiring one of our centre rigs a Javelin with a Navigator 200. All our centre equipment is maintained by our rigger Jonno Horne who is qualified as a BPA rigger and an FAA master rigger.

Éder our chief pilot taking time out to jump while our other pilot Javi, flies for the day

Here is Pete just before a Tandem Jump

Bego and Jo kitted up Bego y Jo equipadas

One of our camera stations built by Andy Lovemore. It has the chargers built into it and they sit just beneath the 42” wide screens for de-briefing.

Two people came to visit, he jumped she sat in the sun.

Juan Luis on our DZ control platform controlling the landing area and jumpers. From this extra height he has a better view of our landing area. And doesn’t he look good. Flex those arms big guy.

Giaconte Neu-Pietri is here for a few days jumping from Morrocco

Bryan came to visit us for the day from Andalucia, he has a USPA licence and will be here in Spain for the next year.

Here is Pete doing some Tandem Briefs on the weekend. It takes just 10 minutes for the ground school to do a Tandem skydive. Then its straight to 15,000ft in 12 minutes for more than 1 minute of freefall with your tandem instructor and 6 minutes under the parachute and a comfortable touchdown landing.

The two 4 ways on the way to 15,000ft (3700m) in our twin turbine Dornier that takes a mere 12 minutes to get there and a door bigger than a twin otter

Here you can see the guys relaxing on the 4 huge bean bags in front of one of our 42" widescreen tvs

Manolo dirtdiving with his group. Oliver, Diego and Francisco

Relaxing on the bean bags

Atle and Katherine have come here from Norway for a weeks visit both ready to board the Dornier

Susie

Ainoa

Susie

Ross just finished his AFF and completed about 25 jumps in 1 week. After his aff Jonno jumped with him to take 50 high quality photos that can be blown up to A2 size with no distortion..!

This is a creation by Jonno for teaching jumpers how their canopies fly. It is a 24 sq ft mini elliptical canopy with all the correct lines ABCD and control lines. It has a slider, bag, pilotchute and bridal. You can actually pull the tiny steering toggles down and turn the canopy. The small risers have a 3 ring cutaway system that actually cuts away the suspended weight. With Skydive Spain instruction you get the full works and so much more.

Patricia looking all colour coordinated..!

Sissi after doing a tandem DVD.

Sissi, Jacobo and Danny after a hard days jumping relaxing in the DZ pool with a few beers.

Javier, one of our pilots refuelling the Dornier using our own 24,000L bowser. Javier can get our refuels down to 10 minutes so our time on the ground is kept to a minimum.

Daniel from the Algarve comes with Carlos for a days jumping

Danny after another shorts and T-shirt jump

Left: Khali Demouni the Dentist from Morocco came for another weekend of high altitude fast plane jumping