cbowley

I did a head down coach jump with such a system in April. The voice quality was really good and I was surprised how calm the coach sounded. The big disadvantage was that the earplugs almost entirely masked out the beeps from my ProTrack resulting in a rushed separation and pull. If I was doing it again I'd want to try a single earpiece. At least I discovered that I can read my alti head down.

No. Raigmore, Inverness

Hospital porter working on the honey cart, collecting the rubbish bags in 1979-80. It was an open plan hospital dating from World War 2 so I had a bright yellow, electric buggy and trailer to transport it, to which they added L plates because I hadn't passed my driving test then. That was the fun part. Worst parts of the job were hoping that the bags containing the afterbirth wouldn't burst, killing the lab rats that the labs had missed (running over them in the buggy) and watching out for needles in the bags (supposed to go in sharps boxes but some of the nurses weren't too careful). Picking up a paper rubbish bag and having one of those 9 inch amniotic fluid sampling needles burst out the side towards you has a very sobering effect. There were cockroaches too, around the hospital kitchens, but we left each other alone. Best not to pick a fight with something that size. I was just the holiday replacement, covering for the regular guy for a few months while he recovered from the diseases he had picked up. Monday mornings were physically the toughest, collecting all the empty bottles from the nurses' hostel. The dregs of the alcohol would soak through the bottoms of the paper bags so they'd always be tearing. If there had been money back deposits on the bottles I'd have made a fortune. One time they were considering having me pick up the dead bodies in the buggy rather than having the other porters push them in a covered trolley a few hundred yards along the road. I was going to have a pager. When the pager went off I was to empty the rubbish from the buggy and nip round to pick up the trolley. It seemed to add a bit of prestige to the job so I was disappointed when they scrapped the idea after a trial. Another time I crashed the buggy into the operating theatre block having fallen asleep at the tiller (instead of a steering wheel). My second job at night was leaving me tired. The buggy wasn't large or fast but its base was made from steel girders and it had a hell of a lot of batteries so it made an impression. I've always wondered if there was a surgeon just about to make the vital incision at that moment. Didn't stay around long enough to find out. At least it taught me the importance of washing your hands before eating.

Kayla, Met your mother at the 2004 Perris Xmas boogie. She was very proud of you and was giving out your ASS Inc business cards. Nice picture. Somebody had to explain to me what the DPs statistic on the back means. I've obviously had a sheltered life.

I did two jumps with them a year ago while passing through on a round the world skydiving holiday and found them very friendly. I'd contacted them by email before arriving and got the OK provided there was room in the plane alongside the tandems. There was a four day wait due to high winds until the conditions were right. In the end they put the plane up just for me first thing on Christmas Day. AIUI the plane was about due for its regular inspection but the engineer was leaving the island the next day so I lucked out. Two of the staff jumped with me. It was great fun. We landed on the beach outside my hostel near the end of the runway rather than their regular landing area which is close to the tourist resorts. The other tandem instructor was ground crew, laying out the cross and the wind indicator. For all that, they only charged me a regular solo slot price although I coughed up for some firsts - first Fiji jump, first Christmas jump and first beach jump - and doubled it with beer money. They had even arranged the aircraft's maintenance inspection around the jump, calling the engineer away from his Christmas lunch afterwards. I was jumped, packed in the lobby, had a dip in the pool and eating breakfast by the beach by 9am. That was the best jump of the whole two months and well worth waiting for. It even beat out the following two weeks at Perris with the record breaking rainfall Even better they phoned up later to ask if I was interested in jumping the next day, sharing the plane with a tandem so I got a second jump in. Here are the caveats as I saw them. It is a tandem operation. They pulled out the stops where they could but expect to work around the tandems. Jumping is usually early in the day before the winds get up. Beware that you may not find out until evening whether you may be jumping the next day. I found that too late to organise an alternative activity. There isn't a lot to do around that area of Fiji. Most people either head out to the islands or further round the coast. I'd be interested in how many other skydive operations operate out of international airports. On that trip I jumped out of two, Nadi and Cairns. It feels weird being queued up behind a Jumbo jet.

Don't forget to mention that raindrops may be ice crystals within the clouds so if you are wearing an open face helmet you end up sort of sand blasted. The resulting smooth chin can be interesting once the pain has subsided. Also, if you sit fly to avoid the sand blasting you end up with a soggy arse/butt which isn't fun if you have the best part of a half mile walk back from the landing area to the packing hangar. It gets very hard to maintain the cool skydiver look to the spectators in such circumstances. From Travman From what I saw of the Australian system it was mostly about paperwork and documented procedures. It was interesting that it was seen as a commercial advantage over operations that didn't have it so the contents had to be kept secret. As a visitor it felt really privileged to be one of only about 10 jumpers in northern Australia allowed to jump through cloud at the time.

Hi Fish, I finished my world skydiving tour just over a week ago travelling the other way round to you, visiting Thailand, Australia (3 DZs), New Zealand, Fiji and Perris. It was only a 2 month trip. Unfortunately I was a few weeks early to jump in Thailand (the DZ near Pattaya didn't get the paperwork sorted out in time) and the bad weather was breaking records in New Zealand and Perris. You asked about jumping in Fiji. There is a small tandem operation. You can find them at http://www.skydivefiji.com.fj/ I did two jumps with them, one on Christmas Day and the second the day after. The Christmas Day jump was the highlight of the whole trip. After spending three days sitting by the pool waiting for the conditions to be right they arranged a load just for me and only charged me 30 Fiji dollars. (I was expecting to take a spare seat on a tandem load. Since it was my first Fiji jump and first beach jump I gave them another $40 for beer.) They even arranged the plane's 100 hour service for after the jump. The lift was about 7am. Paul (tandem instructor) and Tiff (video) jumped with me. The landing was on the beach near the hotel. I had jumped, packed in the hotel lobby, had a dip in the pool, eaten breakfast and emailed my friends to tell them about it all before 9am. It felt so good. The second jump was on a tandem load so I did a solo and we landed at Denarau a few miles further round the coast. Fiji was interesting. Every morning it took a while to get used to how much blue there was. I was only there for five days so didn't have time to go round the islands. I'd definitely recommend doing that rather than being cooped up in a resort on the mainland all the time. In the top right of the first attached picture you can see a little bit of the main runway of Fiji's international airport. The middle of the three buildings right on the beach is the hotel I was staying in (Aquarius Pacific) and the beach is where we landed. Have fun, Chris

On the plus side the bunkhouse is cheaper than the IHOP and is free when it is flooded. I was there for two weeks from the day after Christmas to last Saturday and paid nothing but I was assured that the weather wasn't typical. (I actually booked the IHOP in July but apparently there was a problem during a software upgrade so I ended up in the bunkhouse.) We gave up clearing the water away after the third flooding. It only floods to about 3/4 inch so depending on your footwear your feet should stay dry. The main problem is keeping everything off the floor, tying your shoes up on a rail when you go to bed, etc. On the minus side, with no easy rest area, you may end up spending all the money you saved on alcohol in the Bomb Shelter. From a UK perspectve this was a futile exercise. It doesn't seem possible to get drunk on US beer. My thanks to Jan and his Finnish Vodka without which New Years Eve would have been a lot less fun. The showers are OK. The toilet/shower area is the one part that doesn't flood. They are kept in a very clean condition. The funny looking brown stuff on the shower floors is solid. Don't let it scare you. One slightly weird feature is that the sink outlet is plumbed in to the wall of the right shower so if somebody is brushing their teeth while you are in that shower it can get a bit gross. The lack of windows is also weird. I swear that one morning when I opened my eyes it was darker after I opened them. A torch is a must. The rooms do have air conditioning so the lack of windows doesn't result in stuffiness. You also have the chance to appreciate Misty's artwork. Anything else you need to know?

Just to clarify, I wasn't referring to BPA insurance but to extreme sports travel insurance - Axa most recently. I've met a couple of UK skydivers in the US that didn't have insurance. Both were travelling alone and with low jump numbers. The first one I spent a while holding his foot up trying to figure out which way it was meant to fit on the end of his leg. He got medical treatment but only after threatening to walk out of the hospital despite the obvious impossibility. The second one I showed where the phone was, gave him the contact details and waited around until he got himself covered. So asking again, does anybody know if Perris insists on USPA membership for overseas jumpers even if they have their own insurance cover? If so, why the difference to other dropzones?

I'm from the UK and have jumped at Deland and Eloy plenty of times in the past and not been required to join USPA. Has something changed since the beginning of the year? If it is an insurance issue, the normal policy I take out has about $3.5M liability cover at current exchange rates which goes a bit further than the $15K that AIUI USPA membership confers. Out of interest does Perris have a stricter USPA membership requirement? I'm hoping to be there for New Year.

This reminds me of a trip to Deland when Bill Booth mentioned that RW used to have an internal ugly rig of the month competition but it was stopped when the award was accidentally left in with the rig on dispatch and the recipient phoned up to ask what was going on. If only Bill hadn't been looking at my rig when he was reminded of the story.