WHAT WENT ON
After a 10 day shutdown, giving our staff a little holiday and a chance for us to freshen up our DZ we then kicked off with our Safety Day held on the 29th February, inviting all to attend to get involved and learn more making our skies a safer and more enjoyable place to skydive.
We wanted to make it fun, interactive and a chance to get to know our staff better so each of our topics was delivered by a different member of staff. Throughout the day skydivers came together, made new friends making plans to join each other at the DropZone for some fun and new Skydives. It was not only a day of safety to learn and grow it was a day of coming together, introducing the newest of skydivers, our Spanish community here is marvelous and we had a great time interacting with everyone, hearing the questions that we haven’t heard for a while and seeing you all back ready for a great 2020 of skydiving! Our SO victor “It was great to see so many attend, lots of new faces and many we knew, the questions of the customers, interacting with each other and the staff was a highlight.”
OUR EQUIPMENT KEEP IT UP TO DATE
We had our very own Rigger, Goncalo who provided us with a detailed and professional talk on parachute equipment, what to check, how to maintain our rigs and a general overall reminder of what it is we need to be looking out for. The reception he received was full of interest, questions, and interaction. After speaking with Sergio of 68 jumps who started his AFF with us back in October 2019 “Goncalo reminded me what I have forgotten and some new things I didn’t know” Sergio is out looking for his first rig and we feel he may have a greater chance of being successful in buying what he wants, now knowing what to check, Good Luck Sergio!
HELMETS ON, CHEST AND LEG STRAPS FASTENED
Do you know we do not allow anyone to pass on to the runway without being a fully prepared skydiver? Manolo, head of the DZ ground crew made sure you knew exactly what is expected to keep you safe. We can have big groups, big events and lots of people at the DZ, here the staff we are always making sure you are safe however guys, look after each other, check each other and have an understanding of what we are looking for. A safer skydiver is a better skydiver, Manolo delivered just that and we loved that you interacted with us.
RED LIGHT……CHECK SPOT / GREEN LIGHT……LET’S GO!
Our guru of safety, our very own Safety Officer, Victor, who has been with Skydive Spain for over 6 years and holds over 6000 skydives stood in front of you and told us all about the ‘do’s and don’ts’ in the aircraft. Our Dornier G-92 planes, a thunder of fun in terms for us Skydivers, fitting a max of 15 people, taking us up to 15000ft / 4600m, we have to make sure we know how to behave inside them, how to watch out for our other jumpers and to look after ourselves while flying and exiting them. Victor was very informative from making sure we knew the red light is not a let’s go, climb out the plane light but hey, let’s open the door and check the spot and that with such sadness we cannot be expecting anytime soon air hosts on board that we are responsible to behave and follow the rules inside the aircraft, “buckle-up.” A great talk, a great refresh on safety in the plane.
WHOS IN YOUR CROWD?
Jhoan, who is a popular man within our Spanish community he converted from being a daily fun jumper to “cutting away” and becoming a full-time member of staff. Alongside we had Iryna, one of newest members of staff, both are seen jumping all day long if not work jumps they are squeezing in every possible moment to fun jump with their buddies, tracking jumps are a favorite so who not better to help us understand this discipline. Both bubbly and knowledgeable we understood more to be safer getting our technique directions and making us cool!
Our passionate Italian Roberto, AKA “Saddi”, who has a lot of knowledge about all disciplines and particularly loves Freeflying kicked off with a great talk about freeflying, we all know that to master this discipline can be challenging and very rewarding. It’s a very popular discipline here and important to know what can go wrong and how to avoid these situations but still to have fun and look super badass in the sky! Fun fact, did you know Saddi often comes to the DropZone with his daughter Ludo flying together mainly some serious impressive head down jumps?
We all started this way, it’s the most natural skydiving discipline it’s Belly / Formation Skydiving with Adrian. It was great to have everyone still interested to learn more about this topic. We often hear people wanting to skip this part of learning as they think all the cool kids are the Freeflying people however with Adrian explaining the techniques and reminding us that FS is still cool.
We wrapped things up with Robert and Juan giving us lots of information on wingsuiting and Tracksuits. Wearing extra material can lead to more technique opening sequences and guiding us through was 2 of our experts.
PILOTING OUR CANOPIES AND KEEPING COOL THROUGH OUR MALFUNCTIONS
A very important part of your skydive, keeping safe, keeping cool and looking after each other. How often have you yourself gone through your malfunctions drill? Students do every day for a quick refresh, Instructors do their tandem drills every month under supervision but you yourself, check your handles before exiting? How many canopy courses have you attended, never? More than one? It was great to hear a refresh on these very important subjects, SO Victor practically enjoyed this topic “the freefall and canopy talks, I found to be most useful to my myself and for everyone that was there”.
Wrapping things with Dani giving us a gentle reminder on how not to destroy our canopies, dragging our pilot chutes back to the hanger. Followed by Mario on how to keep the packers happy… set it, collapse it, choke it.
Our staff joined in to also learn, they had a great time and we hope those that attended also enjoyed! Until the next safety day! Keep safe, blue skies!