A weekend in Perris (longish)

[JSE 1]

Last weekend I went down to Perris for the first time. I went primarily to get some freefly coaching, but ended up spending some time in the new wind tunnel as well. I got there kinda late in the evening on fri and everything was closed. I knocked on the door of the IHOP, which is like a bunkhouse style place on the dz that I was planning on staying at. Everyone there was very friendly and they invited me to have dinner with them. I was a little nervous being a pretty new jumper who did not know anyone there, especially because it is such a large dz but everyone tried to make me feel welcome. Sat. it was cloudy all day and so I couldn’t make the jumps with Fritz from the flyboyz that I was planning on. I went through the wavier process and it was relatively easy. I didn’t experience any of the problems that I read about it the perris hoop course thread. I made one hop and pop below the clouds, but nothing went to altitude that day. I was really board so I started talking to all the freeflyers in the bigway camp that was going on, and I met Alaska Jon and Eli and Fritz from the flyboyz.

I was really itching to do something other than sit around and Alaska Jon said that I could do some tunnel time with him and some of the other freeflyers that evening and they he would coach me. I said sign me up. The tunnel was a lot of fun. It was quite different from the tunnel in Las Vegas which I had been to twice before. It was also quite a bit different from real freefall. I got a good briefing Jon and he told me that I would have to do a progression from belly to back and then to sit. I spent a total of about 15 minutes in the tunnel (took 2 hours because you have to take turns and it would have been to tiring without the breaks) with Jon and at the end I was sitflying although not that well. The only way I can describe the tunnel is that it is the exact same as freefall but the opposite. I know that doesn’t make much sense but if you spend some time in there you will know. You really have to grab air when you are in there instead of trying to cut through it. I think that the tunnel could be a great tool for training but is not substitute for making real jumps. This is especially true for freeflying. I saw people their first time in the tunnel fly around on their bellies just fine but even good freefliers seemed to need to get use to it a bit more. I saw some amazing flying in there from some of the 4- way teams and some good freeflying from the tunnel instructors.

The next day it looked a little cloudy but the clouds dissipated quickly. Both the flyboyz and alchemy were busy with the camp that was going on so it didn’t get to jump with them. At first I was very disappointed in that, but I got hooked up with another coach named Mico from brazil and he was really good. We did four jumps and I really felt like I learned more on those jumps than I had on just about any other since getting my license. I could really see a difference on the video as each jump I got better and better. If I didn’t cost so damn much, I would be back out there next weekend to do more.

So over all my impressions of the dz are good. It is really amazing to me to see such a large dz with so many planes and jumpers. The only cons I saw were that it would be easy to get lost in the crowd there. This is true especially for people just going down to make fun jumps. Most of the jumpers that I met there this weekend either worked there or were there for some type of camp. They were doing 4 way camp, freefly bigway camp, and 60+ way formation camp of some sort.

I would like to say thank you to everyone that I meet there that made me feel welcome and to anyone thinking about going to Perris or getting some freefly coaching from a really good flyer you should defiantly do it.
-Jeff

[FeMike 0]

More importantly than getting coaching from Mico....did you meet his girlfriend Paula? Whew....shes a hottie......Mico is great and so is Perris. Im glad you see it like I do, especiallu great for new jumpers. I just had a miserable experience at another DZ and appreciate Perris all the more. I might even move back to CA. They even have a DC-9 now!

[JSE 1]

Yea, i met his girlfriend. I thing i actually spent more time talking with her than i did with him. She seemed very interested in everything i had to say :) really cool girl.