Katherine

We arrived on a busy weekend, but were made to feel very welcome, with everyone working super hard packing hire kit etc to get us in the air. The rigs at the centre are very nice and new and there was some demo kit available as well.

Even though there are only small planes that climb slowly you can still get in the jump numbers and a Cessna 182 and Cessna 206 were both operating when we were there. During the ride to altitude there are great views over the coast the surrounding countryside. On most of the loads altitude was 9000ft, but on two loads we got 10500ft. The landing area is huge so ideal for students / those with poor accuracy. The manifesting system was fairly laid back, but it was easy to get on a load while also easy to fill a load. DZ control were always willing to watch people do their CH2 exercises etc even though there was a charity event with 20+ tandems being conducted.

We stayed over and camped, this was a little ad hoc with no actual camping area at the time, but we were shown a bit of flat grass around the side of the centre. The showers are actually hot and well worth the £1 required.

This is a great little DZ and well worth a visit for a few fun jumps.

Please bear in mind that I am a RAPs student, with only 20 jumps and have never jumped elsewhere, so this is written entirely form an inexperienced students point of view.

I have found this to be a really friendly and encouraging place to jump and train at, all the instructors and staff have time to chat to you and there is a nice vibe about the place with pretty much everyone very friendly.

The planes are good on busy days and during the week when there have been no tandems and no one else wanting to jump then they have put the Cherokee (sp?) up for 3 of us.

The facilities are good, a nice bunkhouse with heating and TVs and there are warm showers. There is free wireless Internet in the bar area. The café does adequate food, sandwiches, baked potato as well as the always-welcome bacon sarnies and full fry ups.

I can’t comment on the services as I don’t know enough about what is on offer and quality to make any kind of judgment.

It very easy to get to off the motorway.

The only point that could be perceived as bad for some people is that they are very strict on refresh dates for students, if you are over 2 month without a refresh and it is quite expensive. But this hasn’t affected me, you can’t keep me away!
The weather is not great either, – but where in the UK is!?

All in all, I really enjoy jumping here and found this a very welcoming place to get an introduction into the sport.