Adriandavies

You could try asking the same question here

FWIW on the topic of "saving the sport", I perceive a small surge in Canadian skydiver skills due to the stronger Canadian dollar as well as the recent emergence of a windtunnel within 5 hour drive of the Canadian border (Skyventure New Hampshire). The CDN dollar recently became more valuable than the U.S. dollar by a little and is now maintaining rough parity, and many of us Canadians taking advantage of the lower U.S. dollar to jump cheaper. In Canada, we pay $35 for Twin Otter jumps but we can do so at $20 (either USD or CAD) the states.... The same can be said of the UK if you take quality as a benchmark. Since Airkix and Bodyflight opened there has been a huge improvement in 4way FS scores. Freeflying also seems to have benefitted in terms of quality if Outbreak's recent silver medal is anything to go by. However I don't think that there has been a marked growth in the quantity of people taking up skydiving. Maybe time will tell and the teenagers who are trying tunnels today will take up skydiving over the next 5 years or so?

None of the pictures on their website were taken in Iran, but according to their press releases and posts on DZ.com and UKskydiver PAA had bought an Islander which they were going to use for a tandem business based at an airport 40 miles west of Tehran. The Headcorn club in the UK still uses an Islander and I think the Red Devils also has one for use on its demos.

Tash i wish i had the experiance and the time to even look at being on the council, unfortuntly i run booze emphoriums in london which means hardly enough time to even jump. (1 - 2 days a week max) ( and i tend to rant on about things) And your right ranting won't help... but it was meant only for general disscussion purpose. only 3 people agreed about the shite attitude at some DZ's. a lot more, like yourself, seemed to be ok with the fact that that attitude prevails.(rather than be pissed off about it) And I still stand by the opinion that bad attitude's and wind tunnels(be it for there great customer service) will reduce active jumpers in the uk further more.... but i really hope i'm mistaken! I don't have a lot of experience of jumping at different UK DZ's so you can take this observation with a pinch of salt. Most DZ's are owned, run and managed by skydivers which means that they may not have a lot of general business experience. CCI's also tend to set the tone of the DZ so if these are ex military then you might expect a rule based mentality to prevail rather than a customer focus/custom service ethos. Maybe that is what you have observed and has led to you pointing out poor DZ service. If it is the case then I can't see the situation changing until you get more businessmen involved in DZ's. However when you listen to people like DT at Sibson or Ray Armstrong at Brid you will realise that there is not a lot of money in running DZ's in the UK meaning that by and large entrepreneurs are not interested in getting involved. To answer your other point about windtunnels. Both UK windtunnels also try to feed people into DZ's to jump. Airkix has recently hooked up with Sibson in order to arrange discounted tandems whilst a variety of DZ's advertise at Bodyflight. They are trying to get whuffos to jump for real. Also have a look at Kallend's thread with the link to the Wall Street Journal story about Dan BC. The general tone is that the USPA sees tunnels as a great tool to encourage the next generation of skydivers by introducing them to the sport at a younger age and to build up the skills they need before skydiving.

Fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it it is not the BPA's job to promote or market skydiving in the UK. It oversees the sport but leaves getting punters into the air up to each individual DZ. Some would argue that if the BPA did have responsibility then skydiving would actually cease to be here. As it is it neither has the funds or the expertise to grow the sport in the way you seem to suggest. As for the Airkix fund it was set up to try to replace the funds being lost when sports council funding stops in the next couple of years, but judging from the initial slow take up you have nothing to worry about regarding Airkix diverting people into the tunnel rather than to DZ's. However if it ever works like Simon Ward envisaged, it would be a great tool to promote skydiving. His ideal is that DZ's would promote it then take bus loads of people to the tunnel with the whuffos being so enthusiastic after their two minutes they would immediately want to sign up for a tandem, RAPS or AFF.

I can't really see where you are coming from apart from a skydive = good and windtunnels = bad point of view. DZ's come DZ's go. We've had about 20 in the UK for the past 10 years or so and at the same time we've had about 5000 BPA members p.a. Since the tunnels opened there hasn't been any overall change in numbers of DZ's or BPA members. Both tunnels advertise in the mag and both tunnels get coverage on a regular basis so I wouldn't say that either has received any bias. They are commercial organisations just like every DZ and every TI or AFFI and in the same way they also promote skydiving. They are also a tool to improve skill levels from basic to world champion level. Sure they may lack the ambience of a DZ but Bodyflight has tried to create a laid back DZ like atmosphere, but they are not DZ's and don't pretend to be either.

...Loads are going but they're all discussing it at UKS rather than here. http://www.ukskydiver.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=7176

There are two or three now in the UK so why not try posting on www.ukskydiver.co.uk to see if you get a response. Peterlee, Skydive Jersey and Skydive London (?) have them. Pete Marsden who lives in the UK seems to be their importer so tracking him down would be a good move. From his website his details are... 01932 701321 [email protected]

Some guy on the prairies, come on Rob. Here is a picture of it jumped and not too long ago. That Thunderbow I got off your boss is more of a show stopper then the Delta II. That slider is a paradactyl slider. It also had half a nose slider for a paradactyl in the bag. ...another old parachure for beatnik to try? http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=guestpass&id=4ktt5

For someone who reportedly doesn't go out of his way to knock Great Britain you seem to spend a hell of a lot of time looking for articles which point out things which are wrong with the country. Well at least this article has nothing to do with guns for a change.

My in-laws live in Tehran and so far this crackdown hasn't made one bit of difference to them or any of their family or friends. They still have their satellite dish, mini head scarfs and short mantos (tunics), they still party most weekends and can still get booze if they want, in fact one of them is still as gay as he was before the crackdown. For the most part this sort of thing is just headline grabbing news which if anything pushes the people further away from the government. 12 million people live in the city so the percentage affected by this effort has been minute so far.

Personally I am no fan of Fox News but I couldn't read any right wing bias in the article especially as most of it was drawn from the British Guardian newspaper which is a left leaning publication. Apart from that tough you are right about it being an interesting article. I wonder where a break through like this will lead.

..and at the same time perhaps arrange for him to meet some of the relatives of those who died. He did two live interviews on British TV last week. During one he was asked by John Snow about the holocaust. He replied that more research about it should be done. Maybe after visiting Ground Zero he could also take the opportunity to visit one of the concentration camps, do some personal research and meet some of the survivors.

Last time I checked the going rate to convert was £50 and half an hour with a friendly Mullah. No messy operations required, no in depth tests on Islamic knowledge needed and absolutely no realistic expectation of the convert actually doing anything Islamic. I've done it and have got the certificate somewhere around to prove it. Does that make me a Muslim in anything other than name only? Not a chance. Do I feel like a hypercrite for doing it. Yes definitely. I did however do it for a very good reason as it allows me to travel to my wife's home country easily.

Ever get the feeling that unless your subject is about America, then none of the yanks on here either know what you're talking about, or care because they don't own a passport and so think the world revolves around the US of A ...errr Kallend IS British but lives in the US so I dare say that he knows more about the US and the UK than you or I do, so maybe he was being sarcastic about the change in terminal.

[edit] Medals awarded The U.S. government issued notes of regret for the loss of human life but never admitted wrongdoing, accepted responsibility, nor apologised for the incident. Officially, it continues to blame Iranian hostile actions for the incident. The men of the Vincennes were all awarded combat-action ribbons. Lustig, the air-warfare co-ordinator, won the navy’s Commendation Medal for "heroic achievement," noting his "ability to maintain his poise and confidence under fire" that enabled him to "quickly and precisely complete the firing procedure"[16] The Legion of Merit was presented to Rogers and Lustig on 3 July 1988, according to a 23 April 1990 article in The Washington Post. The citations did not mention the Iran Air flight. It should be noted that the Legion of Merit is often awarded to high-ranking officers upon successful completion of especially difficult duty assignments and/or last tours of duty before retirement. The incident overshadowed U.S.-Iran relations for many years. Following the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 six months later, the British and American governments initially blamed the PFLP-GC, a Palestinian militant group backed by Syria, with assumptions of assistance from Iran in retaliation for Iran Air Flight 655.[citation needed] The cause of the crash was later determined to be a bomb associated with the Libyan intelligence service. The Flight 655 incident has often been compared to the downing of Korean Air Flight 007 by the Soviet Air Force in 1983. [edit] Compensation On February 22, 1996 the United States agreed to pay Iran US$61.8 million in compensation ($300,000 per wage-earning victim, $150,000 per non-wage-earner) for the 248 Iranians killed in the shootdown, but not for the aircraft, which was estimated to be worth approximately US$30 million. This was an agreed settlement to discontinue a case brought by Iran in 1989 against the U.S. in the International Court of Justice.[17] The payment of compensation was explicitly characterised by the US as being on an ex gratia basis, and the U.S. denied having any responsibility or liability for the incident. [edit] References

You could try posting this request on the www.ukskydiver.co.uk website. Any idea where he used to jump?

You can start cutting down the 410 DZ's by ignoring all the UK dz's as none of these will allow you to use a base rig.

http://www.ukskydiver.co.uk

I'm going for a friends wedding. We are also going to Rio and Salvador. I'm not planning on taking my rig but I will take my licence and log book and hopefully to get one or two jumps in here and there.

thanks for the link.

but they all look the same (rag heads) so that's good enough for me I've never seen an Iranian wearing a dishdash or a burka for that matter. I know Ahmadinajad is generally not that well dressed but I've never seen him cover his head. Sure Mullahs cover their heads so i guess by your thinking that the Pope is also a rag head? And I know my wife very well (born and bred in Theran) so I'm sure that she doesn't look the same as any Arab or even an Afghan.

According to tourist information skydiving is available in Cuiaba but I've looked on the DZ's listed on DZ.com and tried Googling to get info but so far I can't find any skydiving in or near the town. Does anyone else have any better info than this?

I've just checked thgeir website and stand corrected. In 2006 they achieved 134010 jumps.

230,000 p.a. in Empuria, Spain.