dbac

so this is where that software came from that my teammate uses. really really really really really useful. you just can't judge how good your blocks are without a consistent method of timing - and this is that. nice one. thank you.

so what's the solution for countries (like Belgium) that have no AA category? If I remember correctly, they only had 14 teams at their National Championships in 05. Is a 4 tier system the answer for a country like that? I think it kinda sucks that good AAA teams are allowed to drop down because there aren't enough teams but is there a compromise that allows smaller countries to compete on an even field? or is it simply that it's tough for some countries? hmmmm. Bri ps Guy's rubbish, the website is actually www.escondido.co.uk but it hasn't been linked up yet so in the meantime it is www.escondido.moonfruit.com

Great comp guys, I'm hoping we can fit Spa into our plans for next year. Big up's to... -Willy and the crew for hosting the event - cracking. (have we got dates for next year yet?) -Phobia - you guys only came 4th at the Brit nationals? Man I'm glad I was in A this year. Superb job, real smooth. (especially considering your jump numbers). Alan - great vidwork on Rd9 (I thought you were a gonna do a solo jump when you fell off the camera step and were clinging on with your hands only). Awesome footage. -Murphy's Law - Another 10 point average comp, you guys have really clicked and it's amazing to watch. -Wingnutz - basta, oops, I mean... good job guys (I'm not jealous), kept the trophy in the UK for another year, that's 3 years in a row now for the UK in A (Optic 04, Helix 05). See you at Cark? -Polaris - sorry this was your last comp as an official team, you guys have been much fun to train and compete with/against over the past 2 years. Mike - sorry we couldn't find your canopy but I'm v glad your freebag, ahem, fell out of that tree. -Damn Zebra - I think you guys won the popular choice for AA, too bad AAA teams were allowed to compete at AA, it kinda sucks. Congrats on your bronze. -Vertically Challenged - nice comp guys, you are so smooth I'm jealous. (ps stand up!) -Fusion - och aye the noo, ahm from bonny Scotland too, can ah hav a jacket? (all the best teams have a 'dido in). Thanks for supporting the event and the encourage you all give to the less experienced teams, lets hope we can persuade more AAA teams in the future to come too. Airkix? Rage? Boogie Pimps? Airbrix? etc -Optic - for starting the whole darn thing in the UK -The BPA for our Team GB tshirts - it really promotes great spirit amongst the UK camp and much jealousy amongst the other nations. -Hayabusa - wow I never thought seeing 5 guys swooping in and getting dowsed in water could be so emotional, you're an inspiration to many and I hope you're competing at the top level again soon. -Mind your Step - great last two rounds guys, you deserved Bronze, well done. -Whoops, Tiramisu, Excess, Punkyfish, Badboys, Daltons and everyone else who competed - this is an excellent competition which is taken in the true friendly spirit it is intended, let's hope we have an even bigger take up next year from even more countries. Simply put, I love you all! mwah! blue 'uns Bri www.escondido.moonfruit.co.uk

cheers honey! love to all the Polarians too It should be a cracking weekend despite having to give last years trophy back. sob. Anybody know how many teams are taking part? And how many planes will be there? Bri Escondido Current European Skydiving League Final Gold Medallist (Damn, I still get a kick out of saying that)

Hey dzdotcommers, isn't skydiving the best thing in the universe? it's like even more satisfying than getting the whole top layer of biscuit off a chocolate bourbon without disturbing the chocolate cream. anyways, I hope someone can help me with this please? I'm trying to sell an Electra 170 with a blue top skin and a pink bottom skin. Unfortunately I didn't think to get a photo of me under canopy when it was still hooked up. Now everyone I describe it to looks at me like I'm wierd or something, especially when I tell 'em it looks cool. Does anyone have a picture of one flying that I could borrow to put on an ad pls? cheers

The guy who taught me static line is D-68 and he still jumps/teaches regularly even though he is now older than his licence number. I'm pretty sure he can still do more press ups than I can too. anybody beat that? And yes, I do have nearly 300 jumps and no I don't have a B licence yet. Soon...

No, sorry Nigel, you're wrong there, I was in "Didolix". kind regards Brian www.escondido.co.uk

Dave Livesy at Bedford Bodyflight tunnel was recently trying to sell a completely white Pilot 168. you can prob get hold of him through the tunnel on 01234 268 787. good luck

I just wanted to thank the ppl at bonehead for the excellent service I had recently when purchasing my mamba, especially Jackie and Linda. When my helmet arrived into the UK it was a little too wide for my head and wobbled disconcertingly. I also used metric allen keys to work on the imperial sized allen screws on my visor surround and had damaged the heads of the screws. Bonehead sent extra padding for the helmet, spare screws, spare nuts AND an allen key that fitted. All I paid for was the postage from California - £5. And when this package went missing, they sent out everything again and didn't charge me anything this time. I'm very impressed with the no nonsense approach to customer service and i wish more companies in the UK had this attitude. I'll be sure to post a gear review once I have 50-100 jumps on this helmet but so far it's looking good.

I was fortunate enough to be there on the Saturday competing against Airspeed, Hayabusa et al. My jaw dropped. Watching these guys fly from only 2 feet away is amazing. The flying display after the competition had ended left me speechless too. When/where is the footage available? This stuff is too good not to share...

25th March according to the email that went to the bodyflight mailing list. Good luck to all, it's a great opportunity.

I flew a cricket 155 on my first reserve ride in August, I had a lot of things going through my mind so my memories of the cricket aren't the best and they were in this order... 1) Where the f*** is it? 2) Ah, there it is. and it's yellow, huh, I thought it'd be white. 3) hmmm, not very responsive this. come on, into wind, come on, that's it, nearly there, and relax. 4) Getting close to the ground, almost, almost, and flare. I said flare, ok... plf in some mud then. Not sure if this is what you were after, so many variables will alter flight characteristics etc plus my adrenaline levels were fairly high too. Feel free to ask me some specific q's if you need. Bri www.escondido.co.uk

sorry, MLW?

Hmmm. see my opinion, is that with Rookies being lower than Juniors (only 4 exits rather than all 16), you'd get more teams entering. Especially if the BPA keeps supplying free coaching at the roadshows, the GP's and the Nationals. With Single A being slightly lower than Inters, more rookie teams would see a smaller step up. Although the challenge would then be 12 new exits and blocks. I'll admit I know relatively nothing about FS cause I've only been in the 'dido doing juniors since March so I can't talk for somebody in another situation. But I can see myself doing Inters for the next 2 years, first year to learn, 2nd year to see how good we can be and then probable not entering anymore competitions. Seniors seems a LONG way away, with a rather large budget, that I'm just not prepared to spend in order to be semi-competitive. see you at the sibson bar, I'll have the Moet please... hehe Bri www.escondido.co.uk European Skydiving League Rookie CHAMPIONS

Team GB... rocked! I think it was only a few people grumbling that made most of the noise, the majority were very supportive.(especially when I landed off). The organisers were rightly upset about the sniping and for me Hayabusa (AAA Champs) summed it up with the quote "you can't expect to do 30 training jumps and win Single A". Damn right. There was nothing inappropriate about anything, another country joined ESL and the standard increased, when (if?) France, Italy etc etc join then I'm sure the competitions will be much much closer. It's a different mentality, when Rookie teams get a 5 or 6 point average in Belgium or Holland they are expected to step up to Single A. In the UK, its closer to double figures before you are expected to move up. What's the point of learning blocks when you can't even do randoms to a decent level? (I hadn't heard about Rookies removed from the Spirit calculation, I wondered how we didn't win it). Many good things were said during the feed back session on Sunday morning. I hated the idea when I first heard it but it's now growing on me that the BPA should adopt a 4 tier system instead of the current 3 tier system. Rookies (slightly lower than Juniors), Single A (slightly lower than Inters), Double A (between Inters and Seniors) and Triple A (Seniors). This would help progression amongst the sport, as the leap upto a different class is smaller, meaning you don't get disheartened with low scores. Anybody got an opinion on this? How do we get this through the BPA for 2006? But overall, a top weekend, excellent DZ, excellent manifest, excellent judging, excellent results and excellent (free) beer at the awards ceremony! Congrats to all the teams who took part from every country but especially to Hayabusa and Helix, who starred with performances that blew everyone away. We'll definately be back there next year if we get an invite. Bri www.escondido.co.uk European Skydiving League Finals Rookie Champions damn, I love saying that!

6 teams are coming over from the UK AAA - Optic AA - Damn Zebra, Evolution and Helix Rookies - D4 and Escondido I'll see you at the bar. Bri www.escondido.co.uk

Haha, i jump in the uk! it rains all the time over here and although i try not to jump when its raining, it is often slick on the ground. ie slippery when landing and then the wet shoes passes moisture into the plane and the exit gets as slippery as hell. Some ridges for me i think then! thanks for the advice. Bri

Hey, pretty new to this so forgive my naivety - you can abuse my vanity though. I have tinted bugeye goggles that I like but I just joined a 4way team and really ought to have some clear ones too. What do you reckon to these from a functional point of view for FS and eventually FF? [url]http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7971774362&category=50424&sspagename=WD2V I'm concerned that the foam doesnt go all the way around the lens rim, causing lifting etc. Is this a problem? What do most 'sunglasses' have that most skydivers use? Do they all have foam too? What about fogging? The choice of goggles to purchase is limited in the UK, so I'm a little apprehensive about ordering from the web without sufficient background knowledge. If you could help, I'd be eternally grateful... cheers Bri

Hey, I'm newish to this game and have a sparkingly shiny new suit that I wanna look after forever and ever, question is, does having shoo goo on your soles affect your grip when diving out? (I just joined a 4way team and dont wanna be slipping when I'm supposed to be aggressively exiting). Can I mark a 'tread' into the goo? Would this help? Is there a noticeable difference in grip? Or am I just procrastinating? cheers.

£0.879 in London yesterday for a litre of regular unleaded. $6.50ish per gallon. BP and Shell made record profits last year too. approx £8.3 billion and £8.2 billion respectively. Thats £8 300 000 000 or 15,654,174,224.84 USD according to xe.com Now I'm just a simple lad, but if they are making bigger profits than they've ever made before then not all of this price hike on fuel is because of oil increases. Somebody's getting stitched up and ripped off and I've a dreadful feeling it's all of us.

Help me out here, I'm feeling a little embarrassed about asking this question but what other reasons are there?

I don't suppose the video of your 'cutaway' is online is it?

Has anyone reading this ever, themselves, not some mates brother's cousins ex-teammates AFF instructor at another DZ several years ago, actually cut a line on their reserve with their knife? It's compulsory over here in the UK to carry one but I struggle to imagine myself ever using one. How common are reserve line overs anyway? So... has anyone ever cut a reserve line?

I've jumped at Hinton, Netheravon, St Andys, Chatteris, Elsinore, Empuria, Royan, Cape Town and Hib is by far the best DZ I've jumped in the UK. It rivals Empuria and Elsinore for professionalism and dedication, if I ran a DZ it would be like this. I wish all DZ owners in the UK would go to Hib for the weekend and then make the appropriate changes to their DZ. From the indoor cafe, the bunkhouse, the free showers, the covered creeping area, the plentiful supply of creepers, the dedicated packing hangar, the day room for kit and video, THE 10 MINS TO 15000 FEET EVERY TIME, the local friendly farmer, the 2 buses to get you out to the plane and back again from the landing area, the CCI offering to "crank it up a bit if the lifts are going too slow for you?", from getting 5 lifts in a day for the first time in the UK and to have 6 1/2 minutes of freefall from those 5 lifts, separate car parks for experienced and spectators/tandems so that you never have to lug your kit that far, the bar that never shuts, (a little pricey but they don't mind you taking your own beer in there), 40p for a game of pool, skydiving vids playing constantly on the tv, tvs in the packing hangar, tvs in each room in the bunkhouse, the same music playing everywhere linked into the tannoy so you can hear when manifest opens for the first lift of the day. Wow. And I could go on... I now commute from London to Hib to jump. To all those people who have rated other UK DZ's 5stars, you need to experience a big DZ in a warm climate to appreciate how close Hib is to them and how far away everyone else in the UK is from 5 stars.

I went there with a mate as part of a road trip round SA in Feb 2005 as we were both looking to add another country to our logbooks! Unfortunately they were only using a Cessna so every lift was tandem passenger, tandem master and videodude plus one of us - we couldn't jump together. We did one each, 20min+ ride to only 9500 feet, before getting bored and bugging out - we'd hoped to do 3 each. Hire rigs were reasonable but the helmets for hire were very tatty, prices were a little steep too, especially for that altitude, hire cost for this, hire cost for that, (most DZ's I know lend you a helmet for free etc). Landing area is predominantly sand which was a nice experience. It's a tourist DZ not a skydivers DZ but the weather was gorgeous, the views were excellent and I'd recommend this completely for a skydiver on holiday checking out Cape Town or a holidaymaker looking to do a tandem.