EOCS

Skydance Skydiving Went to skydance skydiving having not heard much about it after being severely disappointed by Hollister and ended up camping out there on the DZ the last 2 of my 3 month skydiving vacation to USA. I’ve decided to put together this review based on my experiences there so that others can have a good idea of what happens there on an average week. Aircraft/ALT: In the time that i was there skydance was running a Cessna Caravan that was configured to fit 20 people, all be it tight it was not too uncomfortable and it was not often that it was so full. I would say the average on the load is about 16-18. Aircraft had seatbelts for everyone which is something i was not used too coming from a small club in EU where we had no seatbelts. With 18 people and with the temperature around 37c/100f it took about 13-15 min to get to altitude which was regularly 4.2km/13,700ft. And of course the sunset load gained some extra altitude. With 10 people it was near 10 min to altitude. Jumping: Assigning exit order is something that I felt could use some improvement; it is determined by the jumpers when the taxi way call goes up and everyone should be getting on the plane. This works ok with experienced jumpers but there are often newer jumpers who are not sure where to go in the order and as they generally pull higher this can mix up the order as people are getting into the plane. Jump run is either North or South along the East side of the runway and is spotted by the pilot and GPS. Plane uses the Red light/Green light system but spotting yourself after green is very much supported and people will wait should you give them a good reason. Toys are allowed here if you get out last, talk to Morgan if you get the chance, he is one of the most creative people I have ever met and it shows in his skydiving. Go arounds are also an option if some how you are far off the spot, this only happened to me once during a boogie and it was because a 2 way took too long trying to hang from the Skyvan. They were scared of falling off or something  Jump days are Wednesday through Sunday and I was able to get at least 4 jumps each day, often times I we were able to get 6-7 jumps each day if desired. I totaled about 150 jumps in the 2 months I was there and I took it pretty easy, could have been a lot more. DZ Safety: I was really impressed in this area. Staff at the DZ are not afraid to address an issue if they see it, such as bad patterns or people trying to get in the plane without their gear tightened. They don’t go yelling at the person but try to offer suggestions on how they can do better or be more polite in the air. I didn’t get on his bad side but there is one person there who will let everyone know in a loud voice if you do something wrong but always for things you know you screwed up on and he just calls you out on it. Again advice is offered on what to do better. There is reliance on everyone in the plane to know what the exit separation should be. At most DZs ive been to they either tell you what the separation should be for the time/winds or its written in the plane near the door. You can find out the uppers yourself from manifest. This has led to some people opening closer to me then I would have liked but nothing too dangerous, and you can always discuss the separation in the plane or ask one of the staff. Manifest: Manifest here uses either a ticket based system or a punch card for jumps if you buy the packages. The manifest workers are pretty quick to get you on a load and the announcements come in the form of a 10 min gear call and then a taxi way call so don’t manifest unless you are packed and able to have everything on and tight in 10 min. The loads are read out by number and by the names on the list both at the gear call and taxi way. Facilities: Having lived at the DZ I made great use of all the facilities they have on site, these include clean toilets, sinks and 2 showers for each genders room. The showers are very large and have as much hot water as you can want. These area are also open for use on mon and tues when the DZ is ‘’closed’’ so don’t worry about staying there for extended periods. Manifest is also open during certain times aswell as the gear shop. There are a few vending machines on site for drinks and snacks however there is no real on site food as the café is open only on certain hours during the weekend and so you must have a car or be willing to walk/bike/hitchhike the 10km/6.5 miles to town for real food. There are a lot of people who will give you are ride but you cant bet your ability to eat on it. You have access to the skydiver fridge which is usually full of beer as it should be but there is enough room for some lunch meats and cheese if needed, but I would recommend a cooler and put it in the shade. The tent area is dried grass and uneven in a lot of places but its manageable if you are there a few nights or longer term with an air mattress. We were there without a car and managed but it would have been a lot easier with one. Currently camping is free but I heard rumors of there being a charge soon as there was a problem getting the permit for camping and the owner having to pay a lot of money for it. Conclusion: I will be going to Skydance again, I feel it is one of the better dropzones I have visited and the overall feeling of the place is very similar to a club in the sense that people seem to care for eachother and not only turning loads. I didn’t once sense a skygod complex or anything like that there. If you get the chance meet Charlie one of the pilots, the man is like a real life Chuck Norris.

As the topic says this is just a quick question to see which packs smaller. Container is made for a xfire 119 but i would like a ZPX pilot 124 for WS, will it fit? Yes i have contacted the manufactures and the container maker says it will be borderline and Aerodyne says it should be totally fine. Anyone able to comment?

Just wanted to make it known that ive had great experiences with Tonfly and their customer service. Ive bought a few suits and helmets from tonfly recently and had some on the fly changes aswell as a suit measurement mistake on my side. Giovanni has been quick to reply to my questions and helped me fix everything and get it back to me really quickly. love my .618 !

I dont have 1000s of jumps or anything but i have owned both canopies. personally i found that the pulse had a good flare IF i flared really really smoothly, it didnt seem to react well to sharp input. I was loading the Pulse 170 at 1.2WL. Personally i found the openings on it to be a little brisk at times and find the pilot to be much more soft and have a bit more snivel. I prefer the pilot flare to the pulse but the pulse is not bad at all, just takes some getting used to. If you are looking at it because it packs smaller and you can keep the same container then yea it def does pack smaller. i was fitting my 170 into my 135-150 wings just fine. on the other hand there is another person at my DZ who does not like the pulse flare at all. If at all possible try it before buying. just my 0.02

Best post on here, had me in tears after all this....

I did an hour of tunnel time after about 100 jumps and i can say that i was already attempting FF before that and could hold a stable straight down position before the tunnel but not move around much. During the tunnel time we worked alot of back flight after the belly basics were done, last 15 min or so i was working on going back/seat. To be honest i think that those last 15 min actually hindered my FF progress slightly. as it was just the beginning the air speed was low so i learned a slow falling seat which in the air translated into a nice back slide when trying to catch up to anyone. Its since been corrected but i can say that i wish i had spent more time on my back. If you are already trying FF jumps i would htink that you can get to seat in 2 hours, best advice i can give is dont take more then 30-45 min max in a day unless you are always doing physical training anyway, one hour in a day was far too much and it ruined me for the next 2 days of my trip :S Either way you can expect to learn ALOT Good luck!!

You were surprised with the rules? I was surprised with the training. 3 mo ago I took the first ground school course before a static line jump, everything was gone over very vaguely. On the cutaway, the second I "touched" the cutaway handle he said "okay you passed". After this course everything was still pretty much a mystery. In just a few hours of really shitty training they had me up on the first jump, not knowing WTF I was doing. I think the training for something like skydiving is pretty inadequate, compare this to the Army, where you train two weeks just for a static line jump. But we're not talking about that, we're talking about skydiving, where you fall at top speed from a high altitude and then decelerate, 'a little' bit more involved than some static line pulling a canopy open right away. Just a few hours and youre up in the air risking your life, that might be a reson for some of the fatalities. Right now, I know most of what I know from reading a book, watching a video, and this forum. I think if youre relying on the content you get from a dz, youre probably making a big mistake. Anybody agree with this? Yes i do. im amazed i didnt think of this earlier.. however my training was far better then what you described it was less then 8 hours of class total before i was throwing myself out of an airplane.. interesting thought.

Good on you for posting, very cool thing to do. That would open my eyes aswell, hell it did and i was not even there. I saw somewhere on here a quote like ''learn from others mistakes because you will not live long enough to make them all'' having taken that to heart i will learn from that vid for sure! Also yea really freaky stills, good thing squares fly forward eh?

Great info, thanks! Placard writing was worn off and it was hand written in its place so i had to wonder :) Verified the serial with Icarus, Xfire2

quick question. im buying a crossfire 2 and its placard says crossfire 2 but the stabilizers show crossfire. do crossfire 2 have crossfire 2 on stabilizer? its made dec 2003. thanks!

billvon Can you please explain what you mean by jumping into the place you grew up is a liability? false sense of security? airtwardo Thanks for taking the time to write, there is alot of sound advice here. Your point about doing things actually in the air prior to jumping for a crowd makes alot of sense now that ive done it, things would have went alot smother. By the time i did get the flag hooked up i understood how to do it reasonably quick, but yea that took time on the live jump I had judged the point on ground covered per 5 sec and so put the exit point for me about 15 sec before where i thought first person (me) should get out at, i wanted to set up the middle jumped just before the demo landing area and the third slightly behind it. Everyone agreed to this idea. Hoever the distance covered in 5 sec changed when the plan slowed to make the jump run and i still had it in my head to exit at the same point. You are correct in that we did not use any WDI. ive only seen this done with the round parachute club next to us and actually not heard of it being used for people jumping squares, will follow this up with locals. I did however check lower and upper winds the day before and in the hours before the jump on site. Im glad everything was basically 0-1ms as due to my long spot i landed what would have been considered down wind if it was stronger. Although if the wind had been stronger i would have either made it back in time for pattern or aborted and landed off but against the wind, safety first. But yes its for sure one i will remember for a long time to come and i believe its a great learning experience, I have taken alot away from this one

Everyone, Thanks all for the comments, i knew the WL would most likely get some and i wont argue. pissfish,theolnyski The jumper with 60 jumps grew up in the town where we jumped into, she knows it very well and is a competent person and there were only 3 of us who know each other well in the air. We all made sure we and our local instructors were ok with it before. First spot on a demo, Yes i agree this was not the best of ideas and i will make sure to review everything i have in my head with the locals. Suit is for snowboarding :) but yea i like it too! pchapman This is another thing that i learned from this experience, that demos take alot more planning and forethought then i had thought at first. I will surely take this into consideration in the future JohnMitchell Thanks, im also glad it went ok and that everyone landed safe. I will for sure learn from everything that happened. What would i have done differently/next time? i would have gotten a better briefing from someone experianced in demos so that i could have planned it better. Spotting i would have done more of had the season not run out and i shall continue to do so once im jumping alot again. I would have looked at an aerial photo before hand, this i have no excuse for other then i didnt think of it as google earth exists. I would have consulted instructors on what they thought of said photo. I would have thought more about the demo landing pattern as it would have offered better view of us the way i came in. (wrong direction according to plan but right for the demo) The flag set up i would do from a hanging harness and not standing as its much different under canopy then standing in the parking lot. Landing area was a huge frozen lake with plenty of other outs if need be. Feedback welcome, im here to learn. Thanks!

HI, Just wanted to let the world know that i managed my first real demo jump, on to a frozen lake of all places, this last sunday! I live in Estonia and it was their 95th independence day celebration. As the local airport was snowed in we actually closed down part of the highway with police and landed/tookoff from there. There were only 3 of us willing to go up as it was forecast to be really cold but that was fine as the little demo cessna only holds 3. Out of those 3 i was the most experienced and only one with a C license so i took the flag. Will take the time to note that im actually from USA so this seemed a bit odd to me that i would be flying the Estonian flag and not an Estonian but so what right? This was also my first time solo spotting and flying a flag of any kind! This is for sure where the dont try more then one new thing at a time idea makes total sense. I ended up putting us out way way early and as the first out i had planned to open at 1km and the others on the load at 1.2km. Once opened i had to get the flag out of my pocket and hook it up to my shoe which took quite a bit more time then i had practiced and kept me in a left turn due to the harness offset of me lifting my leg :D Once i got that set i popped the brakes and headed twords the landing area. I fly a pilot 132 at about 1.5 WL so i was able to make decent ground back to the LZ however i didnt have altitude left for the planned demo pattern, lucky for me the others had opened at 1.2 and were taking their time coming down so i was able to fly straight in and land in the wrong direction in no wind. Ended up being a better demo then planned as i was able to fly past more people and with the flag on the correct side. The 2nd person out saw me landing the incorrect direction and decided he would aswell and ended up overshooting the LZ by about 250m. And the least experienced one of us (60 jumps) came in perfectly patterned and landed right where she had intended. Over all the demo went perfectly fine and of course none of the spectators had any idea that anything was wrong other then the 2nd who landed way out Things i have learned from this jump: *The one new things at a time rule has merit. *I had judged the exit point while we made a first pass when the plane was flying at full speed, i used this same point to exit later when the plane was much slower so climbing out didnt take as much distance as i had calculated before. I will remember this. *Just gotta grab you leg and clip the flag on, there isnt going to be a smooth easy way to do it haha *On a demo jump its a good idea to leave that extra room between each other in case something like this happens and the plan needs to change mid flight. *Because we had planned the demo as much as we did we were easily able to make adjustments when it was needed, could always be planned better as we had planned the demo around how we wanted to fly not how it would look best to the people on the ground (safety was not much of an issue here, we just wanted to land left turn) *Pilot has epic glide! Here are some pics and a link to the vid i put together http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ury1kq0miGY I welcome questions/comments!

Ive been jumping a few times this winter in minus -18c and the best advice i can give is to think about what plane you are jumping out of, for example our winter jumps have been out of a doorless Cessna :D and thats freezing so i go with 2 layers of pants and shirts and snowboarding pants/jacket. I use my normal gloves and just keep hands protected on the way up. Hands should work fine until pull time and i dont notice that they are cold until after landing. So yea, i think its more about what plane you are in really haha. if its closed and not too much wind inside you might be able to get away with less and just shiver some on the way down. no matter what you have on make sure that you can grab all your handles! bulky clothes put them in a different place then you're used to. my 2 cents EDIT* landing in the snow can be kinda weird as its not as easy to reference your distance from the ground, even some footprints or a old shirt near your landing area should help if there is nothing else.

Great way to start my morning! Thank you sir.

I believe you are well on the way to becoming a good safe skydiver, that sentence above is a good one to go by. There is alot of information here but as you said its best to refer to someone you personally know. I also agree that its best to try one new thing at a time, ive made the mistake of trying to do it all at once and while nothing bad happened i didnt learn as much as i could have if i just focused on one thing. After all 55-60 sec isnt all that long to try something new :) ok ok maybe one new in free fall and one under canopy Blue skys and safe landings!

Would buy if it were on Android, just sayin.....

Hi, So i plan to be in the US for this summer and would like to crack out 10 hours if possible. This would be alongside skydiving. Ive done 1 hour in Russia so i have an idea of how it works and that brings me to my next questions. *I would be doing the tunnel time solo, as in i dont have anyone to share the time with. Is it common to mix in with other groups and still be able to fly every day or so? *I know that when i did my hour we did it all in a day and that was too much, the last 15 min or so were not as useful as i was quite tired. What is the ''optimal'' time per day and/or days per week to fly in a tunnel and get the most out of it? *Full face helmet. right now ive got open face only and i dont remember that being a problem in the tunnel, however being there every day it really might be more comfortable. although i prefer open face when skydiving. Suggestions? *Should i be able to get a deal on this amount of time? I would defiantly want coaching for all of it, there is no sense in me flopping around in there solo, at least not yet..... *I have searched around and know some of the tunnels there. While i will be near San Francisco i would of course be willing to travel within the US for quality training. Where are the best places for this? * And my final question which i try to always ask from those more experience then myself. Is there anything else i should know or consider? Thank you

Very cool! i remember the initial feeling after the tunnel, it really does change your view quite a bit. Good luck on your gear hunt!

Our local 4 way team is sponsored by the local Battery energy drink distributor, this means that we now have 10 cases of the stuff in our club house and the team is selling them for a euro a pop. So any time we have meetings we end up sitting there drinking it :D

In before the man himself..........

Country: Estonia DZ: Rapla city. club name ELAK Packing price (excl. tip): 5 eur Typical tip (if it applies): N/A Jump ticket price: 23 EUR Exit altitude: 3500 last year, this year 4000 (new plane) Price of ave. 6 pack of beer: 5-6 EUR Being a smaller club everyone packs themselves except students, then one of us has to pack it. We get the 5 EUR above to our jump accounts. Students can attend free packing courses from day 1 if they want to save that 5 EUR and pack themselves.

Very good example of worst communication scenario here. Airtec, you really screwed up this one! There were 3 AAD manufacturers until recently, one dropped out. Two to go. I have read probably everything available since the bulletin yesterday but I still cannot stop to shake my head. Either you sold a not so reliable product for years and nobody knew or you did the worst communication and risk mitigation job I can only imagine... This was what the trust in your brand was built upon and we all invested money into it. It will never be like that from now on, no matter what you do! [email] I personally disagree here. If airtec does what they should and effectively recalls the aads to be fixed then im ok with that. and it will justify one of fhe main reasons i bought it.what i have a problem with is being stuck with a known defective product that should be guarenteed aginst just such defects.

Having two school units in at SSK right now, I'm wondering if they'll do the repair while it's in for the 4 year? Also wondering if it will delay return. So..if you bought a new unit, either send in now for 'update' and spend how much? Or, check every jump for the next four years? Im also curious of this part, for those that have older then this years cypres 2 i would see this as a send your unit in and have it checked because we found a problem for free case, after all its Guaranteed for 12.5 Years. Mines 3 months old.... Actually its not even in my rig yet but still in the sealed bag it came in :D Will see what they say, but since they actually have a fix for it i hope they do the right thing.

Seriously? It's inconvenient to check your gear before you put it on? If you do a complete gear check that includes lifting the reserve flap to check the pin (like we teach students to do), it will take what, three seconds longer to check the AAD? Wow, that's asking an awful lot of you. How do you handle the inconvenience and time involved in turning it on in the morning? At least this time the static turns it off instead of making it fire like the Cypres 1 did (who remembers anti static sleeves?). Much rather that it was off when I thought it was on than firing when I don't want it to. When it's off, it can't kill me. Sorry but the fact that it appears to be working correctly unless you check for it to be actually hung up is not a solution. if it was look at your cypres before putting on your rig and it said ERROR then it might be at the very most understandable as a problem and have to be sent in for service. The fact that it hangs and appears normal and working is unacceptable. I believe in and do a full gear check before each jump, regardless this is not a solution, this is a work around..... Saying this is fine because its better then a past problem does not mean its not a problem. This should be fixed for free as soon as we send them in, not at the next service interval.