andym148

I've read lot's of reviews on here ref Nethers, some good and some bad. But a lot of the negative post's are over 2 years old, I thought I'd try and give an up to date review. First thing's first, I am a regular Nether's jumper and have been for some years and I'm there most weekends, so you could say I am bias towards the DZ, but I'm going to be fair. The DZ is housed in a grade 2 listed building, with lots of scaffolding holding it up. But as long as you don't intend in living in there it serves it's purpose adequately. The instructors are mostly military, so surprise surprise they act in a military manner OCCASIONALLY! If you are rude to them don't expect them to kiss your ar*e, but again there is no reason for them to be rude to customers. As for local cliques, yes there are groups of friends that jump there who have known each other for some time. If you were visiting from another DZ and don't make the slightest effort to talk to the local jumpers, then the blame cannot be laid squarely on us. What if it was reversed and I came to your DZ would come up to me if I was sat on my own?? And for none jumpers, do you go up to random strangers in your local pub, and drag them into your group when your with your friends? If both party's make an effort which does happen LOTS, everyone is made to feel welcome. We have a good cafe serving hot and cold food, run by a lovely lady called Den. We currently have 4 planes,1x grand caravan, 1x caravan and 2x Islander's. But even with much lift capacity you still have to wait occasionally, thats just life. As for preferential treatment, if you plan on doing 1 to 2 fun jumps a day, and say a team needs to do 10 lift's a day and there their every weekend, training for a competition then of course they are going to get on the lift first... it's the same at every DZ. We have load organiser's for FS,big ways,FF and wingsuits. The emphasis is now to try and bring back freeflying to the DZ with coaching from Team Euphoria. There are tunnel coach's for FS and FF available every weekend, if you want to do tunnel and sky coaching. I hope this is a fair balanced view? Every DZ has it's fault's if you dig deep enough and nethers is no exception. So come and give Nether's a try, what have you got to loose?? And if you think there's a click you can always come freeflying with me!

Skydive Sebastian is a very friendly DZ. We arrived on a Sunday morning to do some team training,a quick doc's check and we were on the next load. We spent the last 3 weeks on and off at Sebastian and we have been made to feel very welcome by the staff and other jumpers. I have seen no local clique, after finishing team jumping for the day we were invited on lots of jumps by the locals. Having jumped at Eloy and been made to feel less than welcome, it was the opposite feeling here. The only downside to Sebastian is it can be quite during the week, i would recommend ringing first to see if they have any tandems booked in. But overall an AWESOME DZ!!!

Over the last week i have been in Airkix (UK). And saw team future polishing up there routine for the world meet in Bodyflight Bedford. And all i can say is "wow" those kids can fly! There 9 and 12 i think, and do an hour a night in SV Colarado, and these guys are the future! If i could afford to put my nephew in the tunnel to get him to that stage i would! He's 5 and i'd like to get him started on the road to succes now! Get the kids in now, so by the time they finish their AFF the should be ready for a world meet! lol At long last the light at the end of the tunell isnt an on coming train!!!

I picked up a second hand Sabre2 150 a few weeks back from a friend. I'd previously flown a 190 and a 170 sabre2 so I had an idea of what to expect. The canopy had shrunken brake lines so the canopy was unable to achieve full forward drive, but the canopy was still responsive and produced a good flare. After a new set of brake lines were fitted the differance in the canopy was massive! If I thought the canopy was snappy before, this was like giving it fuel injection. The canopy is only wing loaded at 1.3, and landings in all wind conditions were fantastically soft. I bet given a bit more riser pressure im sure you could easily perform a modest swoop landing!! The openings are soft and on heading, evan after a bit of trash packing. In the last couple of weeks Ive jumped - Pilots,Safire2,Spectre's and a sabre all 150, and I can say I enjoy flying the Sabre2.. well in PD.

I've had my Icon for a little over 2 yrs, it is the second one that ive had. I finally got my rig just before xmas 05 with a look to jump it over the xmas boogie in Seville. Initally I was impressed with the rig, all looked good and I was quite happy. Over the first few jumps with it i noticed that there was a slight delay on openings, up to 4/5 seconds on some occasions.On getting the rig inspected by the rigger at seville we came to the conclusion that the pilot chute was at fault, so I payed for a new pilot chute to be made out of ZP, the original was made from F111. This cured the problem. My rig was one of three that me and some friends had made. While I was busy working through my problem in spain they were busy jumping in the uk. One container was fine but the other was having the same problem, and becuse of this delay it caused him to cut away when he got to around 6/7k on his count, and the bag was still firmly lodged on his back. The problem we found out was the pilot chute had been made too small and egg shaped (manufacturing fault). One of the Aerodyne guys came to see us in the uk over easter to look at the problem. They looked at the PC and agreed to send us new ones. This took at least 12 weeks to happen but when we got them we had new PC, bag and freefly pad, all for free so quite happy there. How ever I was still financally out of pocket due to paying for the new PC from spain. Now the rigs have been jumped for a year or two, the stitching is coming away on all 3 rigs, and all in the same places. The mud cover on one of the rigs was put too high on one shoulder. This was replaced free of charge by Aerodyne with free shipping. Also my rig was made to measure but it moves around alot when im freeflying and back tracking/back flying and is not what you want happening. Could be cured by cut in latterals, maybe? I leave it up to individuals to decide on what container to get, but im not going to get a third one when i order my new container. That should speak volumes!

I ordered my Freedom plus from Chris who runs headsheild over a year ago, and i have to say i have had no dramas at all with the helmet. I used the on line order form to submit the initial order, and this was followed up by a telephone call to talk about what the paint job would look like. The fur lining is a nice touch and it keeps your head warm on those long rides to altitude. The chin cup holds the helmet securley in place and the ratchet is easy to use, even with thick gloves on. A nice helmet, and one happy customer.

I've had my Pilot 150 now for a little over 300 jumps, wing loaded at 1.26. And still find it a good canopy. The openings feel like they take slightly longer than they should do, but the openings are nice and soft, no aching neck after a weekends hard jumping. I do have end cell closure's quite often, but this is due to my choice of hiding the nose right at the back of the canopy. I've tried differant ways of packing it, laying the nose across to the letf and right and then rolling the nose. This was to see how it effected the openings. The openings were just as soft but they consistantly gave me twist's to which ever side i'd layed the nose. Flying the canopy can be as exciting or as docile as the you want to make it. Hard toggle turn the canopy is quick to respond, and on letting up it's quick to recover into straight and level flight. The only over steer i find is after 4/5 hard 360 turns, but only by about 45 degs. On the front risers 90/270 are ok, and the recovery arc is swift. Go for a 360 and it's very hard to keep the riser down, you have to fight to keep it down, the canopy just wants to plane out into level flight. On double front the canopy builds up some good forward speed, and released in a timely fashion allows eough time for it to recover and give a good flare. The flare on the pilot is nice and soft, i'm still finding new depths to the flare and getting deep into it before touch down. I've had some good surfs in when ive wanted to, and when i want a straight in approach it offers a nice tip toe landing. And if like me you get it wrong every once in a while, it's very forgiving in all respects. In conclusion the Pilot is forgiving in the opening, forgiving of bad body posistions. A nice snivel, and flying the canopy can be as exciting as you want it to be. With good landing charicteristics a good all round canopy for beginers to intermediate and with a higher wing loading experianced pilots too.

Hi just a quick Q, i recently had a mal during the Nationals in the UK, and my question revolves around the redesigned three ring system. I deployed my main after an uneventful jump, and as usual carried out the mandatory 4 sec count! As i passed the 6 second stage of the count, i still had not felt the reassuring jerk of the main deploying, so i carried out a cut away; this is where it my Q's arrises, i pulled my cut away cable to a full arms extention, and then deployed my Smart reserve ( which opened with break neck speed ). I then noticed a set of risers going at a 90 degree angle out to the side and rear wards, on looking back i still had my main attached, which started to deploy and created a down plane, with severe oscalation, but while the main was still deploying i could not cut away the main; This was only achevable once i had a spinning biplane at 1800ft and the canopy was above me. So has there been any further instances of hard cut aways with the main at a 90 deg angle to where it should be. And if so, is it a design flaw in the new 3 ring system? The teflon cables have now been reduced in size to eleviate the problem of lenth. At long last the light at the end of the tunell isnt an on coming train!!!

Just returned from a weeks jumping in Lillo, and my fist impression was of a little DZ in a small town. How ever from the moment we arrived; we were made to feel very welcome by the staff, who got us breifed and documented within a matter of minutes, and 20 mins after arriving we were on our way to altittude! The insructors were very professional and no problem was too trivial for them and they bent over backwards to accomodate us, seven of us walked away with FS1, in a matter of days! As a personell thanks to Marcus,Steffan,Mike,Barry and the manifest team, who made it a memerable trip,and even more memerable big ways!