gus

I just spent the weekend up at BKPC and had a really great time. Phil the CCI and Jeff the dz manager were friendly and helpful and looked after us at manifest. All the regulars were friendly and the whole place just had a nice vibe to it. On top of that they have possibly the best jumpship in the country, a bad-ass porter that was taking us up to 14k in about 10 minutes. Even the pilot was happy and smiling and his spotting was great.
I really don't have anything bad to say about the place, I just wish I lived a bit closer. They could do with a bar but even that's not much of a problem - half way through packing from my last jump I had a cold beer put in my hand! I would be very happy to call BKPC my home dz.

I've been jumping at Langar for the last 3 years, I did my AFF there and I've done bout 450 jumps there since.

Langar is a odd place. What makes it odd? Well maybe this is the same everywhere but too often it seems the will of the jumpers to jump is greater than the will of the staff to get lifts up. The first lift of the day is allowed to take off no earlier than 9am, so if there's plenty of people and the weather's good why doesn't it take off at 9am every time? I know that working in manifest can be tough and that come 7pm on a gorgeous Saturday evening they just want to open the bar and chill out but I STILL WANT TO JUMP!
Having said all that, there are a handful of dzs closer to where I live and I still make the 300 mile round trip as often as I can. Why? Well in the summer we have a Let 410 in addition to the Grand Caravan (both 16 places) and the 206. At the last couple of boogies we've got a Skyvan in and even when it's really busy you know you'll get a handful of jumps in. In the winter it's still busy enough to keep the Caravan going and on a nice day you can do as many jumps as you would in the summer.
More importantly though, Langar has a great group of regular jumpers and most of the staff are friendly most of the time. Busy weekends are normally the best time to catch people in a bad mood - don't start asking the CCI for a spotting brief as he tears around trying to keeping everying running smoothly!

If you're into organised stuff then there's normally a sheet at manifest where you can sign up for flat stuff. The freefly scene is a bit more relaxed, if you want to join a group just go up and ask! The quality of the jumps is good and getting better as we all jump together more and more. There's a handful of birdmen, some skysurfers, even the occasional freestyler.

The facilities: There's a canteen that's open during the weekend where you can buy bacon butties, there's a packing shed, somewhere to pitch your tent, a tv to stick your videos on. The bunkhouse is pretty basic and the showers resemble some kind of spider sanctuary but you're not there to pamper yourself are you? Oh and there's a bar that serves something called al-co-hol which can be consumed once the last lift is down.

Gus