climberjumper

This DZ is located in a beautiful part of Switzerland, I counted five lakes and many mountains at jump altitude. The staff are very friendly and welcoming, considering that I don't even speak their language. They couldn't have helped me more and made me feel more at home in my new local DZ! Manifest was very efficient and friendly and the Aeroplane is simply the best one I've ever jumped out of. I didn't stay around for the last jump and beers but it did appear that serious partying takes place here!

As a native Irish Man I think it’s unfortunate that I find my self writing a bad review for this DZ.

As I arrived to do my level 1 AFF training I arrived in a room with at least 8 other people all eager to learn the ‘ropes’. Because of the number of people present the instructor was unable to give each individual the training that they needed. I felt that the whole day’s training was rushed e.g. for the dive sequence each person got down on the ground (one at a time) and quickly went through the sequence. As for the landing we were told to ‘flare at 10 feet’ when I asked “How will I know I’m at 10 feet?”, “What happens it I flare too early?” The instructor replied “Just put your knees/feet together if you think it’ll be a rough landing!”

When we finished the training in the evening we were told to put our names down on the manifest to get our place on the next aircraft. I thought this was crazy. Did they not forsee 9 students (and 18 instructors) needing to jump at approx 18:00 that day? The extremely ignorant and rude Manifest lady told me that “You’re not gonna get a place today so don’t bother coming up to this window again!”

I went back to next day and got the same gruff response from the same lady. After 6 hours of hanging around the DZ I eventually got on the (last) drop of the day. The instructors that I got were OK, but lacked that professional touch. Exit, dive sequence and pull went OK. But when I came into land there was silence on my radio! The guy eventually gave me some directional advice (as I started to stray close to a fence). At 25 feet I flared and the guy just screamed “PUT YOUR FEET TOGETHER!!” I released my risers and almost buried myself into the ground!

Over the next few months I went down to the DZ on 4 separate occasions to complete my AFF course, but unfortunately, I never got to jump again. As soon as I mentioned to the (rude) manifest lady the I was an AFF student, She just didn’t want to know about me. A bus load of tandem jumpers would arrive and they would be pushed to the top of the queue. Also, there were times when the instructors would be hanging around on the sofas not interested in taking me up, they seemed too interested in chatting to their friends.

In summary, this DZ feels like a private club. The instructors could not be bothered with students at all as they just want to improve their own skills. The other staff where wholly unfriendly and had an awful ignorant attitude towards anybody that they didn’t personally know.

Avoid this DZ if at all possible.