woppit

All I can say is that personally I have never had any problems with Lillo myself. I have been there quite a few times starting from 3 years ago as a fun jumper, last year team training and this year coaching. I have never been treat badly or ever had any problems with their operation. Yes fair enough, at the moment, they have no bar and the toilets are a mess...but they are very quickly turning everything around. After last summer they started to go through a bad patch and are starting to bring everything back together again. They have some great staff working for them from the office staff to the instructors and coaches. They have always helped me out when I needed it, they have a wealth of experience and knowledge at hand and their slick organisation and full time aircraft has meant ive always been able to get the jumps in I want without any problems. Its true that some websites can be misleading and not tell you exactly the true story to get what they want from you...but you also have to remember that the same can be said about posts made on this and any other forum on the internet. From reading the reviews and also meeting some of these people I can say that I think they had a not so good trip from the beginning. They originally planned to goto Ocana (15-20mins away from lillo) but this dz had problems with aircraft (this dz may have been better suited to their non-jumping partners) so they, the rest of Ocana's jumpers and a very busy aff school had to goto Lillo at short notice. I dont think Lillo were prepared for this and the office staff/instructors and packers were extremely busy trying to register other aff instructors, fun jumpers and a large amount of students in just a short amount of tiem...considering this I think they handled it extremely well and in my opinion this is not the normal standard of lillos operation. It has always been fast, efficient and friendly. Take from that what you will, its just my opinion...you can say i might be biased or a fake username or whatever but that is my true opinion.

my mate who rang me from spain today said ocana are having troubles with aircraft and the air traffic control guys in madrid airport. they were closed the other week because of some sort of problem with their aircraft, not sure what, and they also have been having repeated problems with air traffic control in madrid not letting them climb above 5k ft. apparantly the air traffic lanes have been lowered so that when aircraft, in madrid, have to land on a certain run way have to fly low over ocana as part of their approach, which can be quite often as has been found out especially today. i think i remember reading that the uspa have helped out dzs in the us to fight legal battles and stuff to help dzs keep running, does anyone know if ocana is a uspa dz (they are mainly uspa intructors) and if so can the uspa help with this in anyway? or if not what is the spanish skydiver board like? do they step in with anything like this?

In short, this has been my first trip to Lillo and I loved it. Yes they have some problems with a bar/cafe but after overhearing conversations from staff that will be fixed very soon. They have 2 very fast turbine porters, 1 of which is brand spanking new and takes 10 of us loons to altitude in no time at all. They have a very efficient and well run manifest/office system meaning everything from kit/docs to getting 8/9/10 jumps a day is no problem at all. The experience and knowledge at the dz is incredible, everyone was welcoming and offered advice when I asked for it without shoving it in my face and giving off the big ego thang. The town of Lillo itself, although kinda small is just perfect, there are plenty of bars and resteraunts around to get some grub and drink in the evenings and after the amount of jumping I did there I didnt want to be out into the wee hours of the morning. All some of the guys did in a few of the clubs that are open later. I was a little dissapointed that there was no freefly coach, apart from one of the Spanish staff who was very busy with aff, but I was told a well known school is starting/moving there sometime this autumn. So i'll definetly be back to meet everyone again and hopefully have a crack at this sit flying lark! In summary: a friendly, experienced, efficient and well run DZ with everything you need to either jump lots or learn more about your discipline of choice no matter what it is.