Welcome
I am currently moving my old page and projects to Trac. This will take a while so meanwhile there are some links:
Projects I have been or am working on
Skydiving in Eloy, Arizona
After a great snowboarding trip I only worked a few days and went off on a trip again on the 18th of Dec.
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.
The jetleg was stronger than the hangover and I woke up around 8ish the next morning. I checked in with manifest and there was my shiny new rig! After sorting out everything the jumping began. I did a solo jump to get used to my new canopy, a Saber2 170 in a Vector 3 and a few 2,3 and 4 ways. Then I decided to try to sit-fly. So I talked to Matt Hill, the load organizer of the day and my tunnel coach. He too ...
Snowboarding with Urte in Stubaitahl
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.
My sister drove for the first half and I did the last part. We arrived in Stubaitahl around 9-10ish, found ourselves a little apartment in Gasteig and went snowboarding.
We had fantastic weather for the first few days and there were hardly any people on the slopes. Then it started snowing quite a bit and the winds picked up too.
On my birthday it was so windy that they closed the lifts and we decided to go sled riding instead. But only after a wonderful cake breakfast my sister had prepared.
[[Image(dsc_0269. ...
FS Coaching at Bodyflight, Bedford
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.
A whole lotta skydiving
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 is Andy Moss. 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 desaster 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 ...
Barge Trip
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.
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 ;).
Before leaving though, we had to quickly buy some food and booze! This was when the first rain poured down on us... nothing like a british summer weekend!
After a few driving lessons we took off north to the first lock and on to the next... We had to do all the lock handling ourselves, which turned out to be quite some fun and by the end we had a good "team setup".
The weather started clearing up and it started getting ...
