Mikevetter

The place in the south is called paracentro, it is 2 hours south of zurich by car and is one of the most beautiful places in europe. www.paracentro.ch. Interlaken is nice too, its mainly tandems but you can jump there, there are 3 operations. check www.skydiveinterlaken.ch or www.justjump.ch, closest ones from zurich (within 1 hour) are triengen, www.psctriengen.ch, beromuenster, www.paraclub.ch, sitterdorf, www.skydive-fgs.ch or grenchen, www.skydivegrenchen.ch, grenchen has a lot of links on their page to all the other dzs. almost all the dzs in switzerland operate porters, except beromuenster they have a pac750xl and are currently the place where everybody seems to be going. paracentro is fulltime open from march to november, the other ones have usually fulltime 2-3 month in the summer and from march to november on the weekends. prices are quiet high in switzerland, a single jump is approx. 42 sfr, which is approx. 32 usd right now. good luck mike

it was very well organized, with pac750xl, the porter, a helicopter and i believe 4 ballons on sunday morning. 800+ jumps from saturday at lunch till sunday night. it looks like this is becoming the main freeflyers event in switzerland, gets bigger and bigger every year. i enjoyed it, very friendly atmosphere and the dz is becoming more and more professional. thanks for all.

Team Funkflyz the freestyle worldchampions are training this week as well - make sure you get a jump in together with them. Mike

Hi Michael contact Andi Duff from switzerland, his homepage is www.duff.ch. he used to work together with patrick for many years and has some very nice footage and could tell you a lot about the person patrick de gayardon. when you contact him feel free to mention my name. good luck. Mike Vetter

hi plucky the trainsystem in switzerland is perfect. between lugano and locarno you have trains every hour. if you fly into milan it is approx. 2 hours by train, from zurich approx. 3 hours and very nice scenery. the dz in locarno has one of the nicest sceneries in the world. jumps are bit expensive (29 euros approx./4000 meters). 2 porters and sometimes helicopter on sundays. the best around locarno after jumping is the food, incredible. cheap accomodation are a few private places only minutes from the dz. call the office in locarno for details /www.paracentro.ch. they speak english. also simple hotels for approx. 30 euros only 2 minutes by car. enjoy and say hello to the people there.

hi phil Nils is currently coaching at skydive lillo south of madrid. he coached the english freestyle team tumbleweed and is now working with the swiss female freestyle team albatros. The first two weeks of april he is busy doing skillscamp for the danish federation and after that martin and nils are starting their training here in lillo for 2 weeks to the end of april. If you need more infos or need to contact him you can check www.skydivelillo.com. blue skies

Just had a phone conversation with them in zuerich and it seems that most of the fine tuning is close to finish. i be there beginning of april again and have been going to zurich regularly over the last few years doing coaching. in a new tunnel in takes some time to smoothen out the perfect airflows, but the team in zurich is very experienced, in fact i believe they were one of the first to have a tunnel in the world. so give it a try and i am sure you will like the new set.

hi karl i have been in national teams for almost 15 years and i believe it is most about the spirit the team has together. if a team is able to create that deeper spirit where everyone feels in the right place together with the right people this team and its individual members are "untouchable", not from the outside but from the inside. All of the teammembers have the fire to stay together, everyone feels proud to be a part of that special group. dont waste time to blame this guy or the other team - there are people out there who will share the dream of your team. keep up the spirit always blue skies mike

hi there my name is mike vetter and i am part of the skydive lillo management - so i am probably not 100% neutral.... cheapest and best choice for what you are probably looking for is theresas place. 10 min. walking distance from the dz, simple, clean and it has heaters installed (not commen in spain!!), 10E/night and person. best quality/price ratio is the convento in my opinion. 20 min. walking distance from the dz, a very nice, newly remodeled hotel/restaurant. 40E per room incl. a breakfast. the cheapest cars you find under www.pepecar.com. 3E for a smart and 18E for mercedes aclass at some dates per day - that is a good deal. good luck and hopefully we see you out here. mike

try skydive lillo for a change, they have the beech99 during xmas and a super otter fulltime february to end of april 05. only 50 minutes south of madrid - easy jet has cheap fares.[cool