Happy new year from the team at the Freefall Uni. The mince pies and the last of the Turkey leftovers are finished and were back to skydiving. This month brings lots of new toys and a new faces to the team, with more to join us. We now have a full time office in the “accomodation zone” in Aranjuez city.
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12th Jan 2006

Welcome back to Dan Atkins a skydiver from Ireland who joined us to get some more jumping in. Dan was trained by the Freefall University nearly two years ago and has been here a few times to get in some more jumping.

Also joining us is Billy Gibbons from the UK ( he jumps at one of our partner dropzones South Cerney ) in the UK. Billy did some coached jumps with Louis and has learned the basics of Freefly.. Billy will be on holiday with us again in Feb.

Look forward to seeing you again Billy.

Kiat Tan has completed our introduction to skydiving course and will be back with us soon to do the full course.

Welcome back to Ian Newlands , Ian has been back with us three times now and has also bee on one of our tunnell camps just before Christmas.

Paul Wainright also made the trip to Aranjuez and will join us again for his second holiday this year in Feb. He completed the first six levels of AFF and loved it.

He is pictured here with his instructor ” Doctor Ulli. Pual too will join us for more jumping in Feb.

Well done to Lee Saunders who was successful in his application to take one of our BASE courses.

Lee went on to complete five BASE jumps from our student site.

Lee Woodie who trained with us last year has packed in his job back home in Scotland and moved out to live with us and jump full time. Lee lives in Aranjuez City.

Continuation Courses news:

Are you a Firebird ? Or maybe your a classic , or then again perhaps your a GTI or an S3 ?

Confused ? Dont be. We have recieved five new birdman suits bringing our line up to eight. Small , medium or large ? No problemo.

Now you can take our BirdMan Wingsuit course and test fly different models . If you want to have your own suit we have the Bird man agency and know how to measure you for a proper fit.

Will you beat the first flight record of 86 seconds in ” freefall ” ?

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Sponsored Team 2006:

Building on the success of our 2005 sponsorship programme where profits from our school are invested in the sport for the benefit of regular jumpers we will be sponsoring a junior four four way team.

The rules are simple , you must be a recently graduated AFF or static line student to take part. Bearing in mind the new BPA rules on category we are not able to say what level you will compete at.

Last year we took three newly qualified skydivers and trained them in four way. They of course were also quite dedicated to the training themselves , we gave them a helping hand.. They went on to become British Junior Category winners
( Mike Worthington, Maxine Tate and Victoria Scargill ).

To be considered for a spot you need to send your details to : david at freefalluni.co.uk

Details required on your application.

1. Name 2. Number of jumps 3. How recently you qualified AFF and FS1.

You must also answer these three questions. We encourage originality but there are no extra marks.. The most interesting ( within limits 🙂 answers will be published.

1. Skydivers enjoy an active nightlife because …

2. What is the name of our Favourite bar in Aranjuez ? ( Hint its where the college students hang out )

3. Id like to be a member of the Freefall Uni Sponsored team because…

Web matters

We are moving to www.freefalluni.co.uk this is to facilitate the growth of the site. Our old email address´and URL will work fine , but you will notice us contacting you from the new domain..dont worry its still us.

Plaguirism

Skydive Lillo continue to fill their website with photos / student comments copied and pasted from this website and others ( hence the more active watermarking ). Typical examples include student comments and many of the pictures of our students from the archive. An entire section of content from our articles section has been ripped off also.. guys..nice. So heres a question for you, if these guys cant respect those around them, what respect will they have for you ?

Ok Back to the skydiving..upcoming events.

Static line progression weekend.

Are you on the static line ( RAPS ) system and frustrated with your speed of progression ? Then why not come down to the Freefall Uni. Ocaña on the weekend of the 4th of Feb ?

We will be joined by instructors and students from our partner dropzones in the UK so it should be a fantastic weekend. Call us on 0207 0600 174 for more information.

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Wind Tunnell Training

Want to give Bedford a go ? Then why not come on one of our wind tunnel camps ?

Our next one is week long from the 22nd to the 28th of Feb. Teams booked in include Neva from Germany ( this team has a cumulative total of 25000 jumps so they should be interesting to both watch and train with if your in the intermediate or senior categories) .

The dragonflys will be their and we also have female coaches coming for the girls who would like to fly with other women .

Our own staff will be on hand to coach beginners so you can fly with the coaches who will train you , if for example you are thinking about coming on one of our aff courses.

New Staff member

Welcome to Samantha Booth who joins our customer service team. Sam works in our Aranjuez office as a holiday representative and is based close to the accomodation zone ( all the hotels we use are within walking distance of each other ).

Sam joins Paula and David in the customer service team. Our job it is to help you arrange your holiday and look after you whilst your here. This now means we have a representive on the dropzone , in Aranjuez city and in Madrid to assist you whilst on holidays with us.

Updates now back to normal

Expect to see regular updates now that were all back from the Christmas holidays. We have six new AFF students over the next few days and also a number of people popping down from the UK for our Birdman and Freefly courses , so stay tuned…

17th Jan 2006

Joining us is Joe Aldridge
from the UK and Damien Duffy from the UK. They also will be taking our accelerated freefall course

Welcome to Maria Richardson from Ireland who joins us from Ireland to learn to skydive. Maria is a pilot and finally decided it was time to start jumping out of planes.

Welcome also to a new member of the team, Aimee Herrick who joins us in client care. Aimee trained as an AFF student here last November and will be based in our Aranjuez office. If you select the private transfers option it is likely Aimee who will pick you up from your hotel in the morning and drop you home in the evening.

We are also joined by Martin Ogden , Richard McConnell and John Slaney who are here for a variety of our continuation courses from freefly to birdman for beginners.

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17th Jan 2006

Adios Louis! Louis is off to the BPA AGM and will have a stand there if you wish to ask him any questions about course in the UK or abroad. Louis will also be presented with his certificate for the new BPA rating. Louis is the first such coach in Spain and of course can issue the BPA FF1 and FF2 ratings.

Joining us recently for a weeks holiday is Brian Skally from the Irelands unofficial capital , Cork. Brian has been working on his A license having trained with the Freefall University under the instruction of doctor Ulli, one of our full time staff.

Brian has learned to pack with us, completing the test and packing his own chute. Its formation skydiving next.

Tim is back from Brazil after his honeymoon and is taking Joe through his course. Joe is doing great and will be finished tommorrow and skydiving solo.

Martin has completed his first flight in a Firebird and has broken and now holds the school record for longest first flight. 90 seconds in freefal. Well done Martin!

Maria is jumping with one jump master now and will finish her course tommorrow. Maria took a day out to visit Madrid , catching the train from Aranjuez. 30 minutes later she was in the heart of the city and ready to choose from a wide range of activities.

Maria is doing really well on the course and has made the transition from flying planes to jumping from them seem effortless ( you would be surprised at the amount of pilots who ” worry ” about us…

Did the wind change direction ? Richard McConnel who recently learned the sit fly position with Louis seems stuck in it now..

Richard and the gang hes down with seem to have taken well to the Aranjuez style of living:

Favourite Bar : ” Cheers ” .. told you Richard..

Richard spent the night celebrating as he graduated his training program with Louis and gained his BPA FF1 qualification and can now freefly with other people.

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Jan 19th 2005

Bucket loads happening today. More birdman jumps and more freefly jumps.

The key to a good formation skydive is
a good contact with your partner from the exit. Here Paula and Peter take a moment in the door to slow things down and lock “into” each other before scarpering out the door for a freefly jump.

Here you can see them just a moment after leaving the plane. Clear blue skies are the playground and they still hold the eye contact. On this dive Paula exited in sit and Peter has already started his rotation into head down.

Moments later Martin videos Richard as he sets of for one of the practive dives in his Birdman program. Tommorrow he too will have his ” first flight”.

The tucked postion that Richard is using is designed to immitate the position you will use when exiting with your wings ” deflated “.

Next up is Damien and Ulli who were getting ready for their level seven jump.

Damien was one of our graduates today on the aff beginners course.

I left this photo uncropped as I like it. Ulli is on the camera strut ” waiting ” for Damien to check out with him for the Dive. Damien however wants to make sure i get a nice shot so takes his time looking back in at me 🙂

Damien went on to do a smahing level seven and is no now skydiving solo.

You can see him looking back at the plane as he rolls out in an unstable position , interestingly this is one of the dives students look on back on the most commenting on the thrill and enjoyment. Having spent the course learning about stability the last thing we do is have you go unstable .. well not the last. Five seconds ( 600ft ) later Damien was solid as a rock and doing 360 degree turns to beat the band.

You have done well my son ! Ullis AFF teacher , who thaught Ulli AFF has just arrived from Germany to spend some time jumping with us whilst on holiday. He is rather excited having been out to the Maldives recently. He would like to organise an event with us , skydiving in the Maldives next Winter, sounds like a lot of fun so we will publish details as soon as we have them.

Here is Damien on one of his skydives.

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Jan 20st

Well done Joe , You are the best ! Our most recent graduate Joe Aldridge finished in style this morning. He was working with Tim and will spend the next few days jumping solo.

El Dude !

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Jan 21st 2006

Welcome to Daniel Hold from London who joins us to learn to skydive and will be with us for the next ten days. Daniel is pictured here having completed his ground school getting ready for his AFF level one.

Daniel Went on to do four skydives today and did just fantastic both with the freefall and canopy control.

Are you an outgoing skydiver ? Are you a fit charismatic individual with time to travel ? We have been contacted by the BBC looking for such persons and whilst we have recommended some of our former graduates for a new show they are currently developing, we need more people. You must be over 18 to take part and be in a position to take some time off from your work.

If you want more information please contact is at sam @freefalluniversity.co.uk
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Jan 22nd 2005

A nice day at the Uni, Danny Hold is finished his aff course and is now skydiving solo.

We have three full time pilots , here is Edward on one load flying the plane.

And here he is at the rear getting ready to do a freefly jump with Nasco a regular jumper at the club. Edward has over 1000 skydives and 500 hours flying the porter and is a fully qualified commercial pilot.

Maria has now finished her consol jumps and is experiement with all manner of exits. Here you see here practing her sit fly exit. Very nice balance indeed.

Here she is back on her belly later on the skydive. Maria is a qualified pilot and now a qualified skydiver also.

Maria has done six solos today.

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Here is a photo of Danny Hold . Here you can see him give the thumbs up to his instructor on the level seven. He went on today to complete six solos.

Joe is also rocking on today and did six solos, he has another day of jumping tommorrow before heading home.

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26th Jan 2006

Welcome to David Wallis who is from the UK but works overseas quite a bit. David is well taken with skydiving and has already looked at a number of houses in the region as he is considering moving here. David joined us with no previous experience and is doing great.

Its been another action packed day at the Uni and the Porter was up and down all day with loads of happy skydivers. We are well settled into the new year now and for all those of you who are booked over the next few weeks ( there are a lot of you 🙂 were looking forward to making sure you have the holiday of a lifetime. We will have six of our main instructors in action leaving uniquely positioned to cater for larger groups .. so keep marking the days of your calender..

We are joined by Jean, an Air Hostess with British Airways who trained with us mid last year and who now has over 35 skydives ..welcome aboard our flights with a different destination!

David went on to do four levels today ( having started yesterday ) and will finish his aff course and begin skydiving solo tomorrow.

AS usual the day finished with Edward taking the porter for a fly past.

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28th Jan 2006

Congratulations to David Wallis who has completed his AFF course with us. He has now started to skydive solo.

David exited the plane unstable and got stable and completed his track and turns very quickly.

As David had been doing really well he planned a small FS dive with his insrtuctor for his level seven. He completed a number of points with has AFF Instructor before deploying at 4,500ft.

30th Jan 2006

A day of more solos for David , here you see him exiting in an unstable position.

Superman Knee flyer ? No here David is just about to start a loop.

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