Joellercoaster

I first met the FFA crew when they were working for someone else at another DZ, and I was doing AFF. Since then they have branched out on their own and moved to Seville, and the next time I wanted skydiving instruction I remembered how well they treated me and how much fun I had with them, and I looked them up.

Since then I've done a canopy course with them and my FS1, and bought a rig as well (love my Pilot, BTW). Each time I've come away very happy, and a much better skydiver than when I started.

Nowdays I get out to Seville and jump every now and again because it's just somewhere I love to go. Certainly beats London. Skydive Spain has wicked planes, a lot of cool locals and a very relaxo selection of places to go unwind afterwards. Empuriabrava the party town it ain't, but Empuria doesn't have Giant Haystacks either. Even on fun jumping trips I try and make it out to see Freefall Addicts - they are genuinely some of the nicest people you could hope to meet, and the enthusiasm they pass onto their students seems to be infectious when you're all out for a beer.

Go FFA :)

Reopened under completely new management, this is a little weekend DZ on a little airfield in a little field in Swindon. I love it.

There's not much in the way of facilities - a plane (Airvan (piston 8-seater) in Summer, 206 at other times), a hamburger stand (with connections to the local organic butcher - oh yes), a hangar and a bunch of picnic tables. But that's not the point. It's a new place, so it seems like experienced jumpers are only just starting to trickle in, and Geordie and Brucie and co are working hard to make it into somewhere lots of people will want to jump. I turned up there with 40-odd jumps to my name and was pretty quickly taken in; the locals are welcoming and keen to impart skydiving wisdom to the fledgling jumpers there (of which they're getting quite a collection now).

You have to love a DZ with little kids running the canteen.

The one thing I would change if I could is the altitude restriction. Jumps are from 10 grand for air traffic reasons, maybe a little higher on a good day. I realise this is how a lot of people do all their jumping, so I suck it up and don't really mind that much.

There's a few AFF students floating around, but the majority of people coming through the DZ seem to be static-line students. For some reason, this gives the place an old-skool feel that I really like too, despite being a turbine AFF brat.

So. Come for the atmosphere. Eat a lamb and mint burger. Drink a lot of tea. Come back the next week and find you're a regular :)

Skydive Lillo is the home of Freefall University (http://www.freefalluniversity.co.uk), a canopy piloting school and probably a few other training organisations, so at any one time there will be a large number of students around. This is nice, there's a lot of excitement end enthusiasm around and everyone is looking out for each other. It also means there are lots of team rooms with video facilities, and many ninja-like skydivers around with the attitude that they have something to pass on.

Since Lillo is a very small town, fun at night is generally had with the same people you train with during the day, and that's all good. I highly recommend the pigs' ears at Cafe Latino, with its odd assortment of Bulgarian staff and shockingly cold beer.

Aside from the students, the DZ has quite a few fun jumpers and longer-term residents training for competition and whatnot. None of these people gave me even the slightest hint of Elite Skydiver attitude, despite the fact that there were ironically some genuinely Elite Skydivers there. In the hangar, in the bar, in the plane, everybody was kind and fun and never too busy to give a student a pin check or just a slap on the head out the door. Max praise to the locals.

The bunkhouse is actually pretty good, despite looking like some sort of lunchbox. Plenty of space and nowhere near as hot as it looks, and hey - the price is right. I'd actually suggest taking a sleeping bag, because it somehow manages to get cold at night! Bring a pillow too.

The bar is really good. You will spend a lot of time there, so make sure you get along with the staff. They'll teach you Spanish at no charge, at least enough to cover the menu (food plentiful and tasty, BTW) :D

My one complaint? It's a small one: they really need to replace the shower head in the male shower.

Oh, yeah. Take a car. The town is less than a klick away but the sun is baking. I'm from Adelaide, I know that of which I speak. If you're not going to be jumping all day every day, you will want to take them up on their offer of car rental. Even if you just want to go to Lillo (not that there's much to do there). Didn't try the pool but there was happy splashing coming from it from time to time when it got really hot.

The baking sun is its own reward, though. It motivates you to get off the ground and into the cool air at 12k, and it means you will almost never find yourself on a weather hold (I was there a week and was on two wind holds, both just for AFF students). Oh yeah, and there are some cool thermals ;)

Despite first jumping out of a neato Caravan, I find I really miss that Porter and its denizens. I'll be back, sooner rather than later.

FFU is not a dropzone as such - it's a business run by Barry Maple out of Skydive Lillo, which is the DZ proper. I'll probably copy-n-paste much of this into my SDL review later.

If you're looking at this review, then you're almost certainly wanting to do AFF there, and all I can say to you is: Do it. Do it now. The instructors (some shared with the DZ) are all incredible, and their advertised progress rate of three days from arrival to solo is neither exaggerated nor overly fast. You have one instructor from beginning to end, and they are extremely thorough in the training and debrief. Someone has clearly thought about what's been wrong with AFF programs and gone out to rectify it: video with every jump, very personal training, and the students are around until the course is done.

You probably won't be able to go out across a few weekends and do a stage here, a stage there, and that's all to the good. You're focused on the task at hand - learning to skydive - and they give you what you need to achieve that goal quickly. Lamorna, who will be your first point of contact when you get in touch online, will have you, your trip and your entire life sorted in no time.

It's definitely nice to be in a place with so many other students, too. Immediately you have people sharing the same experiences, and it quickly becomes a very social place, with everyone cheering everyone else on. Since Lillo is a very small town, fun at night is generally had with the same people you train with during the day, and that's all good. I highly recommend the pigs' ears at Cafe Latino, with its odd assortment of Bulgarian staff and shockingly cold beer.

Aside from the students, the DZ has quite a few fun jumpers and longer-term residents training for competition and whatnot. None of these people gave me even the slightest hint of Elite Skydiver attitude, despite the fact that there were ironically some genuinely Elite Skydivers there. In the hangar, in the bar, in the plane, everybody was kind and fun and never too busy to give a student a pin check or just a slap on the head out the door. Max praise to the locals.

The bunkhouse is actually pretty good, despite looking like some sort of lunchbox. Plenty of space and nowhere near as hot as it looks, and hey - the price is right. I'd actually suggest taking a sleeping bag, because it somehow manages to get cold at night! Bring a pillow too.

The bar is really good. You will spend a lot of time there, so make sure you get along with the staff. They'll teach you Spanish at no charge, at least enough to cover the menu (food plentiful and tasty, BTW) :D

My one complaint? It's a small one: they really need to replace the shower head in the male shower.

Oh, yeah. Take a car. The town is less than a klick away but the sun is baking. I'm from Adelaide, I know that of which I speak. If you're not going to be jumping all day every day (and you should, but I ran out of cash because they got me through AFF so damn fast - curse the perfect weather!), you will want to take them up on their offer of car rental.

Despite first jumping out of a neato Caravan, I find I really miss that Porter and its denizens. I'll be back, sooner rather than later.

[edit: As the author, I am bound to admit that the entity that was the Freefall University when I attended bears no relation to the current iteration other than the owner. Different instructors, different DZ, different everything. Skydive Lillo still rocks without FFU. Make of this what you will. J.]

I did a tandem and most of AFF at Nagambie a couple of years ago, so this review may be somewhat out of date. I didn't want to write it then because I had no other DZs to compare it to, but now I do.

To start with, the location is pretty much perfect. The drive to Nagambie from Melbourne is pleasant, and as you get closer you pass wineries and country pubs, not to mention the rickety bridge across one of the lakes next to the DZ.

Don (DZO) and Louise are welcoming to students, and I felt extremely confident in their AFF instructors and the TMs taking me and my friends to 14k in their (very nice) Cessna Caravan. Someone said the Caravan was hors d'combat and they have a PAC now, but I can't confirm that.

The view on the way up is stunning. Lush fields as far as the eye can see, and on early morning loads the lakes shine copper and gold in the sun... nothing better to give you an appetite for that bacon and egg sandwich you thoughfully ordered before you got on the load ;)

The bunkhouse is very basic and a bit rickety-looking, but very roomy. Food onsite is limited to a guy operating out of a trailer, so you get the usual selection of fried things (yay fried things!) and if he's not there, it's into Nagambie town to the pub. But frankly, you're not there for the food.

As an AFF student, I found the local jumpers a bit l33t and didn't have much luck finding people other than my own JM to talk to or answer questions. It wasn't a big deal, but further travels have revealed that there are much more welcoming places. Having said that, returning to Australia as a more experienced skydiver some time in the future, I'm sure it'll be much easier and Nagambie struck me as a brilliant place to go further into your career. The staff really do know their stuff and there seems to be a dedication to skydiver education there - courses, safety days and the like. And I really did like that Caravan.

If you are going there to do AFF, keep in mind that in 2003 they were training on the SOS deployment system, which will require re-training (in both main *and* emergency procedures) to get you onto a sport rig after you're off student status. As a newbie I have no comment on its goodness or badness, but my instructors elsewhere have said that it's been abandoned outside Australia.

This review sounds a bit critical, but in all honestly I intend to make Nagambie my home DZ when I get back to Melbourne. It's a lovely place, and I have good memories of my trips there.