Jan's Adventures


Skydiving in Eloy, Arizona

Monday 12th January 2009

After a great snowboarding trip I only worked a few days and went off on a trip again on the 18th of Dec.

alt_text

I had a direct flight to Phoenix, AZ and after waiting for quite some time for my taxi to the dropzone in Eloy, I finally arrived there at around 21:00h.
The only thing left open was the Bent Prop, the DZ's bar, and when I walked in, Binxy, a friend from Weston, was the first one to great me. We had a pint and another and then a few more and before I knew it I was climbing the outside wall of the pub?! It was a great way to start the holiday.

... read the rest of "Skydiving in Eloy, Arizona"

Snowboarding with Urte in Stubaital

Monday 15th December 2008

alt_text

My sister, Urte, and I decided to go snowboarding in Austria for my birthday.
So, I flew over to Hamburg on the 5th where, to my surprise, my parents picked me up at the airport. We spent a great evening at my sisters, having a little pre-christmas celebration before Urte and I took off for a long drive to the Austrian Alps.

alt_text

... read the rest of "Snowboarding with Urte in Stubaital"

FS Coaching at Bodyflight, Bedford

Saturday 1st November 2008

Jonathan Ashe organised some FS coaching.
So, on the 25th of October, after a few jumps, we started with dirtdiving some formations which we would later try to repeat in the tunnel.
Then we drove to Bodyflight, a wind tunnel in Bedford. After signing up and some more dirtdivng the fun began.

We started with a couple 1-on-1 sessions, practicing the basics and chacing each other in the tunnel. Then we went on to some 2-on-2 sessions, mainly practicing turns and docks and forward/backward and side sliding. We then went on to do some 4-way formations, 2 students and 2 coaches. We finished the evening with doing some 4-way formations with just students and the coach just watching.

It was a fantastic experience and a big thanks goes out to everyone involved in organizing it.

... read the rest of "FS Coaching at Bodyflight, Bedford"

A whole lotta skydiving

Friday 10th October 2008

I've been pretty much jumping every available weekend, weather permitting.
It's been fantastic and I have learned a lot.
Most of my jumps were 2-ways with Debbie Sanderson. We had a good mix of
plain flat flying, improving our skills, and a bit of mucking about.
We did start jumping with others, too, and did some 3-ways and 4-ways.
And I even did a 11-way tracking dive at the end of one evening with the sun setting at the horizon.

The following video has a few jumps: First is Andy Moss and I. We ended up doing our spin a bit early, but it was good fun! I am the one in black with black gloves and blue container with pink writing on it. The next one was a 4-Way wit Debbie, Tracy and Andy. Our exit was a total disaster and I think very well captured ;). Jump 93 was a 3-Way with Debbie and Andy. We did a bet with Richard Head of the Phobia team that we could do the formation and it all went pretty much as planned and we won a beer !!!
Being confident we went on to do another 3-Way. We were all supposed to be linked together in a compressed accordion (the 2 outside ones are facing torwards the feet of the inside one). Then one of the outside people will go up and over the other 2 with a 180 turn and then dock again, then the next person... As you can see, we did not even get to the compressed accordion.

Last weekend was the scrambles. It is a little competition where they make 4 pots with each one having the names of people from different ability levels.
Then teams are drawn with one skydiver from each pot.
The teams then get a set of 4 formations for each round they have to dive.
There are no practice dives, only dirt diving on the ground using creepers in the hanger. The first 35 seconds, once the team is out of the door, count. The team has to get as many points by repeatedly building the formations in the order given.

... read the rest of "A whole lotta skydiving"

Barge Trip

Wednesday 24th September 2008

Kate and I had planned to go on little 3-day barge trip for a while.
Unfortunately our breakup changed the plans a bit.
I did end up going with a few of my colleagues and friends.

alt_text

We got to Lee Valley Boats Center early
Friday afternoon and checked out our boat, Emily. A 68ft long canal boat!!!
It would have fitted 10 people but we were only 6, Duncan, Roger, Jarkko, Tina, Kym and I. So, there was going to be plenty of space just in case we would not get along ;).

... read the rest of "Barge Trip"