Adriandavies

In 2003-2004 there were 5241 BPA members in the UK. I've got no idea how many are active and regular jumpers though.

Oh that would be awesome but the blue rinse brigade who mostly inhabit Emberton would hate it!

Nothing interesting EVER happened in the village I was brought up in until Dan Wheldon won the Indy 500 last weekend! At last someone famous (in America at least) has come from Emberton! It is a charming small village in rural north Buckinghamshire, England, with a population of 500, a small primary school, one pub, one church, one road in and out, one park and now home to the Indy 500 winner. Hopefully this season he will go on to win the whole series.

The Headcorn club in the UK has got a great download with 12 2 way dives

I live in Leicester in England. In the next few years it is expected this will be the first city in the country to have a majority Black/Asian (particularly Asian) population. This will mean that 100,000-150,000 of the population will be from ethnic minorities. I jump at British Parachute Schools (BPS) at Langar, Nottinghamshire. BPS is one of the largest UK DZ's making up to 30,000 jumps per year and at a rough estimate having 200 - 250 regular skydivers. I'd say that only 5-10 of these are not white ie about 4%! In a way the lack of Asian participation surprises me because of the number of local Asians but looking at other sports maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. As a kid I used to participate in archery then I did a lot of canoe slalom. Neither of these sports had many non white participants. Later I got into motorbikes but again I found very few Black/Asian bikers. I can't think of many other sports which have a wide range of non whites apart from football (soccer) and athletics and I guess in the US American football and basketball. I'd love to see more skydivers in general and a greater ethnic diversity making up our numbers, although I can think of one or two skydivers who would not like to see more Asians jumping. I don't think it is anything to do with our sport in particular that it doesn't attract a wide range of people. Loads of people from every background are put off because of the risk or the cost and as I have said there are very few sports in Western countries which do have levels of participation which reflect the ethnic make up of the country or region.

Go to a DZ, go through AFF, make 200 jumps, spend £6900 on jumps, AFF, equipment and £xxx on beer, get your C licence then hang around until a tandem evaluation course is being run, then get invited to help a TI train, then get your free jump! Trainee tandem instructors need balast ie experienced students ie C licence holders, to enable them to get their rating. The requirement to have a C licence applies in the UK but I don't know what requirements other countries have.

Keep looking at the website. It is being updated with new pictures of the construction process every week or so. I'm sure they'll announce dates when they are ready. They have also been advertising for staff so plenty is going on in the background.

Dangles...does your LET stink of fuel after it is refuelled? Every LET410 I've jumped from (all of three) has!

mmmmmmmmmm...Dave and Angela would love that.

£18-£20 is the average in the UK along with £111 to join the BPA. At least we have warm beer to make up for it and we get to jump through clouds all the time!...And we'll have two wind tunnels to play with soon as well.

Yea hah...its being built! Fabrication is under way in the USA and what was a lovely fish pond in Milton Keynes is now a muddy building site ie the site is being prepared! The website has been updated with the latest pictures! There was also a good article in April's Skydive mag with interviews with both Simon Ward from Skyventure and Paul from Bodyflight.

Apparently us Brits are also sending our SAS out to the States to do almost all their training with the US special forces. Apparently according to newspaper reports here there is a marked reluctance by the RAF to provide the specialist training required!

You might just get lucky. I've ordered stuff direct from Square 1 and Performance Designs and both times I have not paid any duty when it arrived in the UK. I don't know whether this is because the value was relatively low or because I was lucky but I expected to pay duty and certainly didn't ask either vendor to lie on the customs declaration. I checked the postage frank on the package received this morning and it says 'customs cleared Mount Pleasant sorting Office' so someone in London has seen it and let me get away without paying tax!

I know this is going off at a tangent bit SkydiveLasVegas.com make some strange claims on their website. For example they say that their Caravan is 'the Fastest-Climbing Jump Airplane in the Country.' Surely there are at least three KingAirs which are faster? They also make a strange claim about their use of Cyrpres on their tandem rigs 'We import them from Germany and are the only skydiving school in the U.S. to use a CYPRES on all of our jumps.' Aren't all tandem rigs equipped with AAD'S?

Is anyone out there particularly politically minded and aware of what the British political parties have in store during the upcoming election? If so has anyone heard about the Conservative Party's plan to add tax to aviation fuel? They are proposing a tax of £200 or EUR$308 per tonne? Does anyone want to hazard a guess how much jump tickets will increase by if they are successful in getting this into law? By the way this is a pan European proposal so it won't just be us Brits who will be affected. How much fuel does a Caravan use per load? Does anyone know if this proposal is for general aviation or will it only apply to airlines?

Hi Craig. Try STA Travel. Our Premier insurance covers skydiving as long as it is not the primary reason for travel. If you intend jumping every day of your trip it will not cover you however if you are jumping less than 50% of the time you are away you should be OK. Our insurance costs less than that from Endsleigh. We have branches in Edinburgh and Glasgow and may even be able to sort out some good flights for you as well as overland travel options. There are other travel agents out there who can help but given that I manage a branch of STA Travel I'm totally biased and would say that you'll get the best advice and a pretty good deal from us.

The last time I looked was in January and at that time nothing had started.

heh! did you notice that the BPA solely attributed the drop in membership to the 'poor weather' we had this year - apparently it was nothing to do with the 160% increase in fees over 2 years! My first reaction to the BPA statement was also quite sarcastic but having looked at the EGM write up I now think that the BPA were referring to temporary membership ie the membership students on first jump courses or who take tandem skydives take out Last year's relatively poor weather would affect this type of jumper more than any other. The price rise still sucks though! At least my home DZ has just softened the blow by having an bulk payment discount on jump tickets.

If Jan has moved back to Spain what is happening with Skydive Portugal?

Its not a picture of a skyventure tunnel and its not in action yet but have a look at http://www.bodyflight.co.uk which has an animation of how the wind circulates in their tunnel.

...Are its makers trying to claim too much? If you look at its website it claims to be the most reliable AAD. This may turn out to be correct but it is a pretty bold statement for a product which isn't even on the market yet and won't be on general release until the end of the year. You can imagine what the feedback will be if one unit fails especially given the furore which has dogged the Vigil. What info have they got to back it up?

How many other DZ.com members have received the following PM? If you have I'm hoping that none of you have been naive enough to respond offering help. The sum of money offerred is huge but believe me you will be the one losing out whilst 'Prince Kamara' runs all the way to the bank. You've got to admire his cheek though as he has used a private message service to propogate his scam. ---------------------------------------------------------- Attn:, Good day and God Bless you. Permit me to inform you of my desire of going into a business relationship with you. I know you might be surprised on recieving this mail due to we have not met before. By brief introduction , I am Prince Kamara a citizen of Sierra Leone and the only son of late Mr and Mrs Vincent Kamara. Remainder of PM deleted. This is indeed a scam and the issue is being taken care of.

I'm a travel agent so occasionally I get the odd good deal or free offer. I was in Cairns (Australia) scuba diving (for free), and talking about my travel agency to the marketing manager of the dive shop. He offerred to take me around town and introduce me to a few more suppliers, which meant I ended up at Skydive Cairns talking to their marketing manager. He offerred me a free 8000 foot tandem which I paid to upgrade to 12000. So I went along and did the tandem, loved it, and went back the following year to try to get through AFF although I ended up graduating back in the UK.

I've been jumping an Odyssey for a while and I love it. It was built for me so it fits like a glove. I've also tried an Icon when I was demoing a Pilot canopy. I found the actual container to be uncomfortable but bear in mind that it wasn't built to fit me and that a custom container will hopefully suit you more. Just go and try a couple and see what takes your fancy. Price wise you certainly can't beat the Icon.

same same...I sent one email asking what I could do about the battery cover resulted in them asking for my address and anew cover being delivered within 48 hours!