Weekend of the
25th to the 26th April 2009.
A warm weekend with blue skies low
winds, students jumping and teams training. Satori,
Unagi and Fend for yourselves have all been team
training this weekend. Photo 'Satori' below.
If you are in a team and wish to
start your training for this years season, then
these dates may be of interest to you. On the
following dates, we are open all week.
25th – 29th May and
18th – 26th July. Satori are already booked in to do
some team training, so why not share the coaching
costs and guarantee the loads. Contact the drop zone
or the main office for details.
On the subject of being open all
week. This week (Monday 27th April) we have a BPA
course on and are open all mid week. Why not come
down and jump, or if you have a C License and fancy
something different, you could get a free tandem
jump, by going on the front of one of the
instructors in training.
For those of you interested in
swooping. Olly Burgin set up some forgiving swooping
gates, also known as 'noodles'. If you want some
swooping action, your going to need at least 500
jumps, as the gates are adjacent to the experienced
landing area. Swooping is also dependant on the wind
direction, and the CCI's discretion.
Finally congratulations to Darren
Glover for getting a CH2, Ryan May for getting an
FS1, Brian Cumming for getting his FS Coaches
rating. Leanne James and Scott Marrison for getting
their 300th jumps, Mick Hampton for his 500th, and
Rai Ahmed for reaching the 700 jump marker.
Weekend of the
18th to the 19th April 2009.
The weekend of the scrambles! A nice
turn out for the first one of the year, and a
combination of interesting mock-up exits, real exits
and free fall action kept us amused for the weekend.
Especially as the videos were judged and displayed
on the TVs all night.
Kaizen have been hard at their
training programme, doing back to back lifts in the
Dornier, and making an impressive number of jumps
over the weekend. Shown below, one of Kaizen's exits
from their elected exit altitude of 10,000ft.
Of course the main event for the
weekend was the scrambles. All the teams had their
team photo taken by Noel, and it seemed as if there
was some secret competition for the most bizarre
team photo. We're still not sure who has won.
Shown below are the results for the
scrambles, with Pete Mather's team taking first
place, they get a round of free jumps as their
prize, and second place gets the 'slab' of beer.
Well done to all that took part.
|
Team Name |
R1 |
R2 |
R3 |
R4 |
R5 |
Score |
Rank |
| Pete Mather's Team |
6 |
6 |
4 |
9 |
--- |
25 |
1 |
| Geary's Team |
8 |
4 |
4 |
|
--- |
16 |
2 |
| Guy's Team |
3 |
3 |
6 |
4 |
--- |
16 |
3 |
| Brian's Team |
3 |
3 |
3 |
5 |
--- |
14 |
4 |
| Lynne's Team |
2 |
4 |
4 |
3 |
--- |
13 |
5 |
| Pete's Team |
1 |
3 |
3 |
5 |
--- |
12 |
6 |
| Louis' Team |
5 |
3 |
3 |
0 |
--- |
11 |
7 |
Congratulations to Paul Geary, who
got his 400th Jump. He waited around for about an
hour for others to finish their events, before doing
a special double hangar hybrid.
Rachel Duncan and Paul Geary are the
flat flyers, left and right respectively. Chris
Brook is the first hangar, and Olly Burgin has the
hand to feet dock at the bottom.
Finally congratulations also go to
Max Hill with 100 jumps and 1hr in freefall, Ross
Shaw for getting his B License, Clara Melia for her
400th jump along with Paul Geary.
Weekend of the
10th April to the 13th April 2009.
A bank holiday weekend, and lots of
people arrived on the Friday, ready for the weekend
ahead. The cloud sadly put an end to most of the
planned activities, instead a little improvisation,
and people were soon doing hop 'n' pops for Demo
clearance.
The CCI lead the way, earning
himself a beer fine, followed by several other
jumpers with some great accuracy. Those that didn't
make it the first time all improved on the following
jumps, and these people got their demo clearance.
Mike McNulty, Noel Purcell, Gary Crisp and Dave
Buterell.
Several other demo jumpers were just
one jump away from getting signed off, having missed
the first of the hop n pop lifts. If you want to get
demo cleared, hop 'n' pops can be the perfect way to
go, just speak to one of the members of staff to
find out more.
Next week is the scrambles, so if
you want a laugh doing some FS competitions come on
down. The prices are just slots plus a half price
video (and that's shared between the team). The
winners will get one full round of jump tickets
back, and second place gets a slab of beer.
The weekend after that is what we
call "Sticker Fest", where jumpers are encouraged to
come along and get FS and FF coaching from one of
the many that will be available. There may even be
VFS coaching with Piers Roberts, so check back soon
for details. Of course, both of these weekends will
be Dornier ones, so you can expect up to 15,000ft in
around 12 minutes.
Week of the
30th March to the 5th April 2009.
Starting from Monday the 30th we
have had a week of progression. On Monday the ground
schools for the AFF courses began and by the end of
the week, almost everyone was on their consol jumps,
despite several days of either no jumping or little
jumping, because of winds.
|
Student
Name |
Current
Level |
|
Kate French |
Level 7 |
| Jen
Merritt |
Level 5 |
|
Adam Smith |
Level 7 |
|
Tatiana Yusupova |
Level 6 |
| Tim
Cushnie |
Consol |
|
Will Maxwell |
Level 4 |
|
These
students started their AFF ground schools on
Monday, didn't get to jump on Tuesday, but
all got through AFF levels 1, 2 and 3 on
Wednesday.
By the end of
jumping on Sunday, they had achieved various
stages of the course shown next to their
names. |
|
Student
Name |
Current
Level |
| Tim
Hunt |
Level 8 |
|
Andy Craig |
Qualified |
|
Emily Labram |
DPs |
|
James Grayson |
CAT
7 |
|
Mark Jacques |
15
second delay |
|
Although
these people started the course before the
University AFF course on Monday 30th,
they still became a part of the student
movement, progressing steadily through their
levels. |
On Tuesday night, a lot of the university students decided to go off to
Sheffield and attend the seminar on Extreme
Sports run by Tim Emmett. Wednesday was a film
night, with the popular choice of "Point Break",
no surprise that a skydive related film was
picked. Thursday didn't provide the chance for
the students to jump because of the winds, but
they could at least look forward to an evening
of bowling that was arranged days before.
Friday, the beginning of the weekend. The low
level cloud stayed with us until 3:30 and then
rapidly started to vanish. We then got 8 lifts
in before dark, with several AFF levels from all
the remaining students pushing out another level
or two.
'Disco Stu' unleashed the first of his two
new events ("Who Wants To Be A Millionaire")
after jumping finished. Prizes ranged from an
lowly 10 pence win, (for anyone that got stuck
on the second question and wanted to walk away)
all the way up to the top prize of 5 jump
tickets, with beer prizes between.
Plenty of people entered the event, and after
two rounds, several big beer prizes were won.
Not surprising though, as some very vocal people
on the side lines must have thought they were
playing instead, and ended up giving away the
answers. It was all taken in good humour, even
if on one occasion the subtle hints didn't work,
and became less and less subtle, until coughing
and spluttering was the only option left to stop
a wrong answer being given.
The winds on Saturday sat teasingly close to
the limit for students, but just not low enough
for them to jump, so sadly they didn't advance
in their AFF levels, although their card playing
skills are now a lot sharper than before.
Saturday
nights entertainment was the centre piece of the
weekend. Starting with some stand up comedy by
Mark Jacques, playing to quite literally the
toughest crowd you could ever stand before.
Surely nerves of steel are required to do stand
up at a Drop Zone full of skydivers and
students.
Following the comedy, Disco Stu's "X-Factor".
The centre piece of the weekends entertainment.
With Judges Jane Henderson as the lovely Sharon
Osbourne, Lucas Hall as the critical Simon
Cowell, and Chris Brook as what we assume was
supposed to be the Irish man Loius Walsh. The
accent contained Irish, Welsh and several others
that as yet, remain unidentified.
Disco Stu led the way with the first song,
and was then followed by several acts. Ant Hill
performed "Let me entertain you" by Robbie
Williams, but the music stopped half way, and he
carried on. The judges who were still sober at
this point, may have come down rather unfairly
upon poor Ant for this.
Tim Key then performed his own song,
including playing the music on his own guitar.
He was duly rewarded with bonus points from the
judges, and even an appreciative response from
Simon Cowell.
Following this, what we assumed would be
unbeatable the 'York Trio' did their modified
rendition with full dance routine "I believe I
can fly", only they modified the words and dance
routines to turn it into a skydiving song. It
will likely appear on YouTube somewhere in the
future.
Jo burns took a slightly different approach
singing "Chop Suey" by System of a down, and
Chris Southworth dressed as Olly Burgin, doing
an Oasis song "Champagne Supanova" (Photos below
taken by Amy Kitson)
The comments by Simon Cowell (Lucas Hall)
earned him a repeat performance involving the
glass of water being thrown over him by Sharron
Osborne (Jane Henderson)
Other notable achievements include Del Greco
having done more jumps so far this year, than he
has done for all of last year!
Lucas, Stu, Lisa, Del and Ant would like to
say "We Came, We Saw, We Conquered" in reference
to a particular formation dubbed the ****-pig
(male chicken). Quite why they have named it
this remains a mystery.
Congratulations to the people
below!
|
Name |
Achievement |
| Mike Chiu,
Andy Craig, Michael Eve |
A License |
| Ryan Moores |
FF1 |
| Claire
Atley, Anna Boast |
FS1 |
| Clint Bacon |
JM1, CH2 |
| Sam Davis |
300 Jumps |
| Garry Crisp |
1000 Jumps |
| Olly
Burgin, Chris Southworth |
1200 Jumps |
Don't forget that next week
heralds the return for the DORNIER aircraft.
Weekend of the
28th to the 29th March 2009.
A windy Saturday with gusts forecast
up to 56 Mph stopped us from jumping all day Sat,
but by stark contrast, Sunday was literally perfect.
Blue skies, very little wind was the order of the
day, and everyone made full use of it.
Team Karma made use of the poor
weather on the Saturday, by getting some coaching
throughout the day, and making extensive use of the
mock up exits. Surely any team with this much
dedication will do well at the Nationals!
Sundays jump of the day has to be
Anna Boast's FS1 dive. Not only did she get her FS1
on that jump, but Paul Geary got his BPA FS coaches
rating, Sam Davis got her 300th jump, and Jo Burns
got to the 1000 jump milestone, all on the same
dive. Well done all.
Lewis Harper, who has worked at
Hibaldstow for some time did his first jump with
Baldrick on Sunday afternoon. (Photo below)
As often happens, when someone that
has worked here for a while does their first jump, a
lot of people tag along. The experience was made all
the more enjoyable for Lewis, by seeing several
jumpers, including Olly and Chris pictured in the
background, buzzing around him.
Finally, congratulations to Mhari
Dunlop for getting her A Certificate, and as
mentioned above, Paul Geary for his coaches rating,
Jo Burns for her 1000th jump, Sam Davis for getting
to the 300 jump marker and to Anna Boast for getting
her FS1.
Weekend of the
21st to the 22nd March 2009.
The weekend was full of
achievements, from FS1s, to hours in freefall, a lot
of people got something, although not all wanted a
mention.
The people attending the free fly
weekend decided on doing something different for the
last few loads of the day. Thus the tubes came out
for all to see. Towards the end of the day, a double
tube jump was organised and launched with around 9
free flyers involved.
Thanks go to Paul Geary, who has
started FS load organising, with some interesting 7
way FS jumps.
To all the other FS coaches that
attended, a big thank you. Especially as there were
several people who got their FS1s because of it.
Finally congratulations to Blyth
Davies for completing his level 8 the week before
and then getting his A License this weekend, along
with Tanya Hayes. Michael Woodward for his 50th
Jump. Claire Atley, Phil James and Rob 'J' Simpson
who all got their 100th jump. Gordon Menhenet for
his 200th Jump. Finally congratulations to Rachael
Eyton and Alan Wilson who got their FS1, and special
congratulations to Mick Thornley who got his FS1 and
first hour in freefall.
Packing course
announced for 25th March 2009
If you are interested in learning how to pack
our resident rigger, Richie Rich is offering a one
day course on the 25th of March. Please let him know
and he will reserve you a slot on the course. Bring
your own kit if you have it, or alternatively one
can be supplied from the kit store.
The course kicks off 9am and
finishes at 5pm or when ever you have had enough. A
slot on this packing course will cost £25 for the
day and what ever additional help you need in
subsequent weekends. Richie Rich can be found on
this email address -
rigger_rich@yahoo.co.uk
Extreme Sports
Athlete Tim Emmett at Sheffield University Students
Union on the 31st March 2009
Tim Emmett is a bit of an extreme
guy; sky-diving, B.A.S.E. jumping and wing-suit
flying form just part of his quest to seek out
extreme adventure in all its forms.
On March 31st, he will be giving his
talk ‘Extreme High’ at Sheffield University Students
Union. As comfortable on stage as he is diving out
of a plane at 12,000 feet, ‘Extreme High’ is an
energy-fuelled lecture with some stunning images and
breath-taking footage.
Where: The Auditorium, Sheffield
University Students Union
Tickets: £11.50 full /£9.50 NUS
Box office: 0114 222 8777
For more info please visit
www.speakersfromtheedge.com
Weekend of the
14th to the 15th March 2009.
The Free Fly invitational weekend,
led by Piers Roberts saw the group building up to
some impressive formations, and with the Dornier
aircraft flying, we were going up to 15,000ft all
day.
Although the exits might look like a
load of people just piling out, but there is a great
deal of preparation and planning, to work out who
goes where and how the group will launch.
People are welcome to approach our
resident free flyer "Chris Brook" if they want to
get involved with the free fly scene. If you want
coaching, then either see him directly, or enquire
in the office.
It's been a busy March this year
with all that has happened so far, and the Free Fly
Head Up scheduled for next week. In addition to the
freeflyers, Fusion are kindly coaching again this
weekend. So regardless of your preference between
FS\FF. Coaching is available for both.
Also, for those of you that haven't
been reading UKSkydiver. Stu Ferguson aka 'Disco
Stu' has organised a new event for Friday and
Saturday the 3rd and 4th April. Friday 3th April has
the 'Millionaire' event. Based on the popular "Who
wants to be a Millionaire" with the jackpot prize of
5 tickets. Saturday has another well known event,
this one being "Hibaldstow X Factor". You can
probably guess it involves karaoke.
Weekend of the
7th to the 8th March 2009.
THE GREAT WARWICK JUMP 2009.
£57,374 raised as of
Wednesday 18th
March 2009. Keep an eye out for updates!
Below: The Friday group of Tandem
jumpers that remained at the closure of the days
event. Skydive Hibaldstows staff and instructors are
in red, the event organisers are in black, and the
tandem jumpers are in white. Photo by Jane
Henderson.
The event actually started on the
Friday, with the first of many Tandems jumping the
powerful Dornier aircraft. Getting to altitude in
around 12 minutes, meant that the lifts were quickly
turned around, yet there was still space for a few
fun jumpers on each lift. Running a cycle, with the
last lift of each one for just fun jumpers and no
Tandems, meant that there wasn't a long wait to get
into the air.
Friday was a taster for what was to
come on the actual weekend. Yet still 49 Tandems got
jumped, and by around 4:00 the entire group was
done. The smooth operation has to be attributed to
the centre staff and instructors who had so much pre
planned and ready, and the shear professionalism of
the executives attached to the Warwick programme. A
fantastic and well though out operation on both
sides.
There were 7 mini busses and 3 full
coaches bringing in a steady stream of people for
Tandem jumps and RAPS training.
Interestingly the two organisers of
the event. "Nick Ellison" and "Rob Smith" were both
trained by some of Hibaldstows staff around 2 years
ago on a BCPA trip to our sister drop zone, Skydive
Spain. Now they are bringing the love of the sport
to hundreds of others, and raising lots of money for
charities too.
On the subject of charity. At the
last count on Thursday 5th, a grand total of £50,422
had been raised, with "Natasha Yusof" having raised
an impressive £1,700 herself.
Keep an eye out for an update, as we
are expecting a final total on Friday 13th March
2009.
Saturday, in regards to weather,
wasn't as clear as the preceding day, yet still good
enough to jump all day, and towards the end, some
amazing photos were taken as the sun began to set.
Photos above and below.
The day ran smoothly and as it began
to come to a close, it was announced that the 101st
Tandem had just gone airborne. All 137 Tandems got
jumped on the Saturday, and a party in the bar
followed for those that stayed. Sadly, although all
30 RAPS had got trained, the winds were slightly too
strong to let them all jump.
A DJ, full sound system and smoke
machine were laid on for the staff and jumpers that
elected to stay. Lasagne and Chilli among other
evening meals were served, with the Lasagne
disappearing faster than a free ticket on a Dornier
aircraft.
Next year, Warwick are planning
on doing an amazing 500 Tandems!
Finally, congratulations to John
Gator, who after much dedicated effort got on to his
first consol jump, and to James Grayson who got on
to 10 second delays.
We
like to thing at Target Skysports that we are a centre
of excellence for team training and the competitive
environment. The National Championships have been held
at the UK dropzone for the last 9 out of 10 years. This
will continue in 2007.
LOAD
ORGANISING
There is an extensive rigging loft at the centre where
maintenance is undertaken of all the centre's student,
tandem and kit hire rigs. Turnaround for the completion
of work for private customers is usually within one
week.