Tatetatetate

Got a week off and foolishly decided to stay in the UK to jump, (passport expiry issues). There is always one thing or a combination o things stopping jumping. And tbh its either winded out, clouded out, rained out, or when the weather is absolutely perfect there is nobody at the DZ and the DZO will not lift the aircraft as there is nobody at the DZ... Yesterday I went to a DZ which is open every day of the year except Christmas day. Clear blue skies.....30mph winds, which made people leave.... I was tired from the long drive and lurked for a bit.... once there were not enough people to lift the aircraft. Sunday was a crap day, so few people turned up at a more local DZ (plane has 16 slots) they didn't lift then either. Tell me overseas DZs are not like this! Its gettting terribly frustrating skydiving in the UK you know.... and not jumping at a bandit DZ (as mentioned in another post) means I'm barely getting 2 jumps in a month.... Makes me wonder how people are getting 1000s of jumps in the UK tbh.....

I feel for you, I get mid week days off too and zero weekend time. So I'll spend 4 hours travelling to a DZ only for the weather to have changed or it being a weekday be completely deserted meaning no jumping (hence the above post about a bandit DZ to stay current)

Heh bandit DZs are sometimes shall we say interesting..... Heavy rain? - totally jumpable (though painful) 40mph wind? Totally jumpable (backwards landings are interesting) Uber turbulance? - Totally jumpable (but scary, saw my canopy collaspe at 1200ft once) 100% cloud cover from 13000ft all the way down to 1000ft? Totally jumpable. Air space intrusion? - Totally jumpable, had a 206 go UNDER the run in once and missed the 6 way formation by about 200ft. It backfired though on the DZO as 3 of them quit jumping.

TBH I don't have the confidence to do this, since in my experience UK DZs are very cliquey and they love to belittle rookies such as myself. As a consequence of back to back lifts and a fast aircraft some AFFIs would jump come down and put on another rig and be on the plane about 15 seconds after landing. I saw a misrouted chest strap on a 9000 jump AFFI..... so what I did was I pointed this out to the Jump master instead.

Just phone up DZs and ask whats the biggest rig/harness that you've got! This combination is important! Since I like to jump 190s and 170s. Three DZs I jump at have 190 and 170s, except one harness is way too small and the other way too big.

Consistency is V useful! When taught to pack I was shown the Propack method.... which I can do fine, but only with F111 canopies. With ZP it is an absolute mess as it flares up and I lose control of the thing. So with ZP I psychopack. Unfortunately many UK DZs need you to flatpack to be able to get a packing cert... Which puts me in an odd situation because although I can pack and have jumped many of my pack jobs, nobody'll sign me off or endorse my log book because you've got to do it in a certain way.... THEIR way.... hell even the individual methods vary. One DZ demands you count out the A lines then the B lines then the C lines. While another one is fine with just flaking them out a whole bunch at a time. Even who is watching you! I used to do the second fold first then stuff the slider end into the bag, but nope that wasn't allowed anymore.... So for the time being I'm just paying packers to do it instead. But thats what I get for being completely disloyal and not jumping at one DZ. But hey I'm an outsider. Meh I'm really starting to hate skydiving in the UK.... my trip to France (two DZs) was absolutely great. UK DZs not so much....

I saw that, the reviews were years old though.

Your post strikes a chord with me, since I did have this horrible nagging feeling it shouldnt be like this!

A lot of people tell me that, Sarah a kiwi who sold me her AAD, told me jumping in the UK killed her love of skydiving. Jo a Elisnore regular from 00-05 said pretty much the same things. Funny enough an ex BPA council member (the VP) no longer jumps in the UK and jumps in Spain instead. I hadn't considered Holland tbh... where would you recommend? As I was going to ride out to Spain in 2012 but Holland is of course much closer.

Doesn't fly.. What is the average age of DZO and CCI in the UK? Probably about 80 from what Ive seen. Thus I've met some dinosaurs in my short time. Who don't do the internet. For example I was humiliated and grilled savagely for daring to ask online about another DZ. He said you should pick up the ******* phone and ask them about it. (I glassed over after this statement but he continued to grill for a very long time). Strangely the DZO in the thread was quite happy to answer my questions.

There is a problem with this too! In that I had a hard landing in my training and the first DZ I went to stuck me on a massive 288 canopy. (I weigh about 10 stones). They wouldn't take me off it for financial reasons (so I'd keep renting their rig). Strangely I went to another DZ and they stuck me on a 190. And told me about how the old DZ did crafty tricks like this to keep people renting their gear as long as possible to roll in the $$$. Hell this new DZ I jump at tells me my 190 I own is way too big for me and I should be jumping a 170 maybe even a 150 as I've been pumping the jumps out and I always land within about 10 metres of the X.

Sounds familiar. I remember a guy who chopped on club gear because it couldn't be flown (the brakes were simply not attached). From the ground through the teles it looked like a good canopy. He was asked not to come back. Again another guy who had a hard pull and went to reserve first jump after qualifying. He was asked to leave and never come back.

I'd heartily agree. I prefer the younger much less military instructors. Though there is a blurred line! In that some instructors are ex military and play drill sergent, while there are some non exmilitary who play drill sergent! On my RAPS a disliked instructor was one who would constantly interupt you and say you're dead....

TBH have a look through the dropzone reviews section and look at the negative reviews, yes the negative ones. As these are often the most insightful as to the social and cultural sides of dropzones happen to be. The problem is that it is not universal! it also depends on your expectation and if you 'belong' or not The old story I can't recall fully but it goes like this: A traveller stopped to rest at a tavern and asked the bar man, what are the people of the next town like? The barman responded by: First tell me what the people in your own town are like. The traveller responded: they are kind warm and generous in my home town. The barman responded: Well the people of my town nearby are also kind warm and generous. Thank you. The travleler stayed for another pint and saw another traveller come in., What are the people like in your town the second traveller asked the barman. First tell me what the people in your own town are like. He responded: They are cold and untrustworthy cheats. The barman responded: Well the people of my town are cold and untrust worthy cheats. The second traveller said thank you and left. The first traveller asks the barman why did you tell him different? The barman said its all about expectations. In the UK for example I've jumped at 6 DZs of which I've spent considerable time at three of them. The other three I just visited there briefly to stay current. I'm not going to name names but: One of them is absolutely horrendous, I've been bullied belittled, backstabbed and hazed. And this is by the staff and the DZO. I'm an outsider at this DZ, its primarily filled with tandems but there are only about 8-14 regular jumpers there. It looks busy because of all the tandem instructors and camera men. But it is very cliquey and I've never been invited to jump with anybody else there. While the other one I've never been belittled or backstabbed or hazed and it is a easy going DZ which makes me smile. Third jump in got invited into a three way to make it a four way. I jump at the easy going one these days. Thus the culture of DZs can vary massively depending on the DZ and its purpose. The second DZ does tandems a few of them but it is a DZ for skydivers and not tandems. While the first DZ is a tandem operation first and a skydivers second place.

Slightly OT Its funny, because when I did my AFF I learnt with a girl who was a clinical psychologist. Her sat on the ground mind knew what to do to conquer her fears. But on the plane she was very panicky. She'd sit and meditate for a moment before running for the plane. She conquered her fear eventually. OTOH you get odd people like me who have damaged amygdala who don't feel the fear much. (its the reason why I'm such a douche apparently too) The pain however is very very real, thus why I've learnt to land v softly after many crunch type landings.

TBH I think I'm ranting.... Cus maybe it has something to do with justice.... judgeme for what I do NOW, not what I did. So sure guy can go to another DZ if he's dangerous there then fine ban him or her from there. but if he turns up somewhere else and has modified his behaviour then fine. Let him.... 'Course this means you HAVE to let this person jump once or twice to judge him. BTW I have an interest in this because jump #4 I had a hard landing (flare was too low). that was 50 jumps ago.... jum 5-54 I've learnt a hell of a lot. But is it fair to judge entirely on jump #4?

The counter point to this though is: If I thought a DZO was going to stick me on the database and thus effectively get me banned forever for non air related things (politics/hating/sleeping with his daughter etc). Then simply I would never jump at this particular DZ and I would advise EVERYBODY I knew never to jump there again. Result? DZO goes bust or bends the rules a bit or simply doesn't blacklist people anymore.... You are then back to exactly the same place you started at... I've heard some horrible stories of some DZs before. a Certain scottish DZ for example (there are only three) has a horrendous reputation. Because of this reputation I will never jump there even if they priced jumps at $8 each.

Even this is dodgy. I had a DZO say I'd falsified a couple of jumps at a rival DZ. They were signed by a D cert who is real. The thing is he wasn't staff at the DZ he was just somebody on the same lift who was JM. The CCI and instructors at some DZs often refuse to sign your log book if they were not on the same lift with you.

This is what happens over at UKskydiver.co.uk DZOs scour the boards and look for anything even remotely negative said about their DZs and they get banned for weeks at a time. A couple of people I know have been banned for completely innocent posts. Like asking questions about clothing. Or asking about a different DZ, sort of A/S/L ~ A/P/E (altitute/plane/equipment). The DZOs have it completely wrong though, instead of improving and correcting the issues people have they ban people instead. There are some notorious DZs who do this.... heh they only have about 20 regular jumpers because people go else where. Its funny in a sad way because days the DZ looks busy is because tandems bring their families along, there are barely any experinced skydivers. Just TIs and cameramen.

This is BS? Why? because a DZ I jumped at I fell out with the DZO. NOTHING to do with ANYTHING in the air. It was politics on the ground. To retain customers they would threaten people with blacklist bans for the entire country. They were very clever and nasty with it telling you that their DZ was the only place you could jump. As you were not welcome elsewhere. A lot of people believed them and simply stayed put through all the BS they suffered. As a parting shot to when I fell out with the DZO they said they'd ban me forever. Next week? I rolled up to a DZ which I was apparently banned at due to being put on the list.... Jumped fine... People saying true things they didn't like online ~ threatened with a blacklist ban. People complaining online - true things - threatened with a black list ban People organising trips to other DZs - threatened with a blacklist ban There is MASSIVE potential to abuse this system and therefore it is probably better to keep it as it is right now.

As said I stick my head out and have a look always, about 8 weeks ago I went to the DZ in question and the regular jumping guys (its a tandem factory so there are only about 12 regulars). A plane flew under the run in and people in FF missed it by a couple 100ft, one person quit.... but then again they were jumping in erm '100% industrial haze'

JM....yes but spotting? Does anybody actually do that anymore? With GPS etc, on my limited number of jumps I've never seen anybody stick their head out and have a look. I did because I got dropped downwind a couple of times and everybody else was unhappy with it!

1) Rounds land you hard, and are very likely to injure you from the impact alone. The guy who chopped I think twisted his ankle 2) They are not very steerable, and thus DZ's with hazards within a few miles of the landing area will result in a more hazardous landing under a round. Man this sounds worse and worse the more you say because the DZ was chock full of hazards. - Hedges around the PLA (field was 450metres per side) A massive drainage ditch that ran on both the north and southernside of the PLA. A couple of roads. A motorway. A small wind turbine. The SEA about 1.5 miles away..... which was near some swampy beaches (I've been dropped out over the sands before) Powerlines (not small ones big ones like this http://www.yourlocalweb.co.uk/images/pictures/01/04/power-lines-cross-10272.jpg) Big copses of trees. A canal and a trailer/caravan park. 3) They have to be flown differently than squares, so there is more to cover in the FJC (and it's information that will be useless after your student progression.) Was never told how to fly a round tbh, but then again we were never told the reserves were round..... I'm glad I went elsewhere tbh!

The excuse they used was that in a panic situation when you need to chop, there is a lot less to think about therefore a round in their eyes was better..... everybody else suspected it was them being cheapskate.

Except consider this! ALL their hire kit (post qualification) AND AFF rigs had round reserves on ithem, except even trickier they advertised that they were all square rigs. I saw a chop a few weeks ago on a hire rig I once used, I was pretty surprised that there was a big white round in the sky.