Military Expeds

Bob Sweeney returns with a group of 11 AFF Students and 4 Experienced skydivers to jump with us.

Vikki Sorrell came to Skydive Spain with the Expedition Tiger Rhino Skydive, a group of 2 AFF instructors, 8 AFF students and 5 fun jumpers during the late spring of last year.

Sean – On the 2016 York University Trip, Sean came to Skydive Spain during the early spring season with 5 AFF students, 4 RAPS students plus some experienced skydivers looking for the superb spring sunshine of Southern Spain.

Bob Sweeney – It was great having Bob again on board with his 11 students and 4 fellow experienced skydivers jumping with us.

Will – The RAP military expedition formed by 2 instructors, 5 students and one fun jumper visited us in the late Autumn of 2015, looking for the mild temperatures that Seville has to offer at that time of the year.

15 people group organized by Jeremy Denning. Jeremy brought 3 AFF instructors, 10 AFF students and a couple of fun jumpers to jump along.

Chris Bradhshaw came during the Spring of 2015 with his “Centurion 11” expedition. 2 AFF instructors, 5 AFF students and a group of 7 fun jumpers looking for awesome sunny jumps from 15.000ft.

James Garnett – The AFF expedition organized by James came during the summer of 2014 with 2 students and 4 fun jumpers.

David Dunne – 3 rd infantery expedition lead by David with 5 participants.

Sean Sapsford came to our dropzone with an expedition of 19 people, among which they were 11 AFF students.

Mick Riley of the British Army brought 12 AFF students, 4 instructors and 4 qualified jumpers for 2 weeks in June. All the students qualified without a problem and the 15,000 feet we offer made the instructors jobs even easier.

RAF Northolt’s Andrew Henderson returned for another military exercise to have 9 soldiers trained through the AFF programme, plus some already qualified jumpers progressing their skills.  Making nearly 400 jumps byt the group, the exped was a huge success.

6 special forces soldiers arrived to Skydive Spain specifically to complete a canopy flight course with Flight Foundation canopy school run by Jim Harris.  The information and experience they gained was invaluable to them and helped them move forward for their goals.

Skydive Spain instructors taught 5x students from RAF Northolt, brought to us by John Vietch.  After the ground training 2 of them began their Level Once jump the same day.

Dane Kenny and Kevin Coupeland brought a group of 15 SAS soldiers. 9 of which completed their AFF courses and 6 for FS progression.  Dane and Kev had a short turnaround time, but they managed a huge 365 jumps within the trip during 7 days.

Skydive Spain taught 6 RAF men through their AFF course and consolidation jumps. These boys completed their training and jumps in record times and the instructors and staff thoroughly enjoyed having them on the DZ.  The trip had been led by John Coating, but the trip was short and sweet, with them leaving us for Ireland within 7 days.

We welcomed an exped of nine this month from the Royal Engineers organised by Ben Smith. The group arranged BPA instructors Nick Brownhill, Steve Cavendish, Ian Rosenvinge and Jay Webster to assist with the trip and AFF Course. Paul Wright and Kennedy Sampson, two experienced skydivers joined the group for the trip from Germany along with Russell Scott-Scotty who did outside video on many of the students AFF levels.

2PARA, organised by Adam Wilson came to Skydive Spain at the beginning of August. The exped had arranged BPA Instructors John Horne and Dick Kalinski to take 5 on the AFF course. Adam got some FF coaching and Chris took the FS1 Course.

An RAF Exped of 6 joined us for the AFF course this month. They quickly progressed through the course, with 4 of the 6 completing the first 6 levels by the end of the second days jumping and doing their level 8 – Hop ‘n’ Pop on day 3.

For 2-weeks in March, a group of 12 RAF organised by Daz Thomas arrived at the dropzone. With 10 enrolled on the AFF Course, and two experienced jumpers for Freeflying and fun jumps. All 10 successfully passing the AFF Course before completing their consolidation jumps, including some comedy exits.

Paul Moore brought a group of his staff from RAPA in Germany for some training. An advance party of two arrived on the 9th with most others arriving on the 10th. Averaging around 5 jumps a day they have been achieving a lot. With such a large group, it is hard to find accommodation to suit them. Luckily they all stayed in the Gines house near the dropzone. It has 8 rooms all en-suite!

In October a group of 9 AFF Students organised by Richard Lewis came to Skydive Spain. They came from the 13th to 28th October. All the students completed Levels 1 – 8 in 3.5 jumping days. Congratulations to Rich Lewis, Rick Harrap, Robbie Mullany, Katie White, Dean Medhurst, David Graham, Louise Buxton & Jon Purchase. 4 of the group also returned to the dropzone in November to complete their consolidation jumps.

During April, Aron Jones and Steve Jelf brought out the Silver Stars display team for some pre-season training. They practiced CREW, flag jumps, 4-way and 8-way. In addition, Ian Cashman, Adele Murray and Dean Hoskins trained a group of 7 AFF students.

The 6 RAPA guys have left Skydive Spain today and completed a total of 251 skydives during their trip. Mike Gouldstone and John Bishop left a week earlier due to Military commitments but not before Mike had completed the AFF levels needed and most of his consolidation jumps. 4-way training with Paul, Opi, Iain and Stu continued and the guys also enjoyed some Canopy coaching from Brian Vacher of SafeFlight School and Iain and Stu some Freefly coaching from Jim Harris of Space Freefly School. Paul, Iain and Stu also spent half a day doing the Birdman ground school with instructor Alex Thomson and all completed their first wingsuit jump and many more. It was a pleasure to have all of you on the DZ and we hope to see you again soon.

A group from Bad Lippspringe have arrived at Skydive Spain on the afternoon of Tuesday January 24th for some pre-season 4way training and a bit of AFF. Paul Moore the Commandant at JSPC, Lippspring is doing 4-way with his CCI Dave (Opi) Openshaw, Stuart Storey and Iain Anderson.
Mike Gouldstone, Commanding Officer of Adventurous Training Group of Germany has been participating in AFF Level 4 onwards with instructor John Bishop.

We recently had a jumper called George come over from the UK. He serves with the Greek Paras and is currently based in the UK. During his time at Skydive Spain he completed AFF levels 1 to 8 and his consolidation jumps in 3 days!

Some dropzones simply put an advertisement on their website claiming to support military training with no experience. Skydive Spain has just finished running an Accelerated Freefall course for the RAF during October. Six AFF students and seven experienced jumpers took advantage of the Spanish sunshine to take up skydiving. Ian Cashman led the RAF group (ex-national Army 4-way team member) providing his experience as their BPA Advanced Instructor. Duncan McGregor put work in to organise his group with our dropzone.