WHAT MAKES A GREAT DZ
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Next PreviousWhat makes a great DZ
June 28, 2017 skydive
Category: Tandem Skydiving
What’s the difference between a good dropzone & a great dropzone?
Skydiving as a once off adventure experience is nothing short of incredible. Those who’ve done it can’t explain it and those yet to try it will never understand it. However there are a few things to look out for when choosing where to tandem skydive that will turn a good experience into an awesome experience.
#1 Jump height
Understanding what altitude you will be jumping from is critical. Common heights are 8,000ft, 10,000ft, and 14,000ft. Something to be very mindful of is when a dropzone sells “from up to” skydives, for example “from up to 14,000ft”. The “from up to” part gives the dropzone an excuse when they take you to an altitude that is lower than what you 1) paid for, and 2) expected, and there are dropzones out there which will deliberately mislead you. Imagine the disappointment when you paid for a “from up to 14,000ft” skydive but only get taken to 10,000ft.
#2 Hidden fees
Some dropzones have hidden fees that they will hide from you until the day of your skydive, when you’re already committed. A common example of this is the “over weight tax”. Some dropzones charge up to $75 extra if the person tandem skydiving is above 90kg. This would most certainly put a sour taste in your mouth.
#3 Alternative landing areas
Imagine you thought you were going to land on the beach only to find out the plane is forced to drop you in an alternative landing area such as a paddock. This can happen if a dropzone does not have a suitable beach landing area for all wind conditions. A great dropzone will have you land on the beach if this is what you had paid for, and will have alternative beach landing areas to cater for all wind conditions.
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- At Skydive Jurien Bay we guarantee our jump heights and do not trick our customers with “from up to” skydives. Each customers gets what they pay for.
- At Skydive Jurien Bay there are NO hidden fees, and no additional fees for customers above 90kg. Our weight limit is 115kg.
- At Skydive Jurien Bay we have three beach landing areas ensuring we’re able to safely land on the beach every time.
4-Way FS Tips
May 9, 2017 skydive
Category: Pro Skydivers
Advice from a legend!
Western Australian champion FS skydiver, Peter ‘Wally’ Waller has shared some notes on getting the most out of your skydiving. Wally has competed in skydiving throughout the world and represented Australia on multiple occasions, so he knows his stuff when it comes to 4-way FS competition skydiving.
4 Way Formation Skydiving… The basics
- Don’t rush
- Keep it calm
- The keys for each point / block should not be fast
- Fly and setup from your opposite
- Don’t chase your grips, fly to them
- Use your peripheral vision to see what’s going on
- Always work and move toward the centre of the formation
- Drop your grips and then do your move
- Learn as the jump move along. Be sure to learn something each time you do the move and apply that knowledge in the future to do it better
- If things go a bit pear shaped then look back into the centre and the setup you are creating
- If the jump is half way through and things are going nicely, you can speed up the keys a little
- The formation consists of two “centre” flyers and two “outside” flyers
The “Centres” role in 4-way FS
- The centres jump is to lead the jump
- They are to set the fall rate, angles, pace, and emotion of the jump
- They are to be deliberate with their moves which makes it easy for the other team members to recognise what is going on
- The two centre flyers should primarily be focusing on each other, and then the two outside flyers
The “Outside” flyers role in 4-way FS
- To follow the centre flyers
- Match the fall rate, angles, and pace of the centre flyers
- Be patient and let the centres lead
- Your primary focus in the formation should be the centre point and the setup the centres are presenting
- Most of the time you will have good visuals but sometimes you won’t. In this case just focus on the centre and don’t chase the grip. The grip will come
- If you stop looking down the centre line of the formation, instead focusing on the up coming grips then you will begin flying where the grips are instead of where the grips will be in the finished formation.
- Two shifts of focus: If you can’t see each other then make sure you focus down the centre line of the formation. Once you vacate the centre and you can see each other then you focus on each other again.
Photos of Wally!
Wally’s original notes
WTF AFF course videos
April 26, 2017 skydive
Category: Learn to Skydive
Watch these two videos to understand how our exclusive “WTF AFF Course” will make it easier, cheaper, safer and faster for you to learn to skydive. To say we’re excited to be telling you about this is an understatement and we look forward to teaching you how to skydive solo.
Video 1: One of Australia’s most respected skydive instructors, Belgy, reviews our new WTF AFF course. With 18,000+ jumps under his belt he knows a thing or two about skydiving!
Video 2: Connor Young recently completed his WTF AFF course with us and has spoken about his experience. Check it out
For course information, start dates or to make an enquiry go to our learn to skydive page.
Face your fears
April 19, 2017 skydive
Category: Tandem Skydiving
Face Your Fears
Will Smith talks about leaping past your fears to realise that they’re only standing between you and the best life you can live.
“You take a drink with your friends, and somebody says, ‘Yeah, we should go skydiving tomorrow!” You go, ‘Yeah, we’ll go skydiving tomorrow!’ ‘Yeah! Yeah!’ Everybody goes, ‘Yeah!’ Then that night, you’re laying in your bed and you just keep, ‘Uh, uh.’ You’re terrified. You keep imagining over and over again jumping out of an airplane, and you can’t figure out why you would do that. You wake up the next day, and you go down you said you were going to meet, and everybody’s there. You get in the van and be like, ‘Oh my God. Oh my God.’ Your stomach is terrible. You can’t eat and everything, but you don’t want to be the only punk who doesn’t jump out of this airplane. You fly, and you go up, you go up, you go up, and you go up to 14,000 feet.
“Somebody opens the door, and in that moment, you realize you’ve never been in a freaking airplane with the door open. You’re looking out down to death. They say, ‘On three,’ and they say, ‘One, two,’ and he pushes you on two because people grab on three. You go, ‘Ahhh.’ You fall out of the airplane. In one second, you realize that it’s the most blissful experience of your life. You’re flying. There’s zero fear. You realize at the point of maximum danger is the point of minimum fear. It’s bliss. Why were you scared in your bed the night before? What do you need that fear for? Everything up to the stepping point, there’s actually no reason to be scared. It only just ruins your day. The best things in life are on the other side of terror, on the other side of your maximum fear, are all of the best things in life.”
Singapore takes over Jurien
March 28, 2017 skydive
Category: News, Pro Skydivers
Over 30 Singaporean skydivers came and jump their butts off in Jurien Bay in March in what they labelled themselves “Jurien Bay Asian Invasion”.
Here’s a brief report from event organiser, Greg Whitehead. (Photos and video below)
“When I was approached at the middle of last year to help facilitate some local Singaporean skydivers to get jumping in Australia – never would I have expected it to turn quite into the event that it did!
For the week 15 – 23rd of March, Skydive Jurien Bay was “occupied” by a bunch of rambunctious and eager to jump, overseas visitors. Determined to get the most out of what the little town of Jurien Bay had to offer we descended on mass!
Coined as the “Asian Invasion” 35 skydivers; from Singapore and Malaysia met to play in the Bay. Skills were wide and varied – with a combined total of over 15,000 jumps for the group.
Highlights of the week included some milestone jumps’ a 500th, a 300th and two 200th’s. There was an all Singaporean flat 10 way, four Starcrest loads, two newly cleared AFF students, four tandems, a B-License, multiple wingsuit rodeos, and plenty of grins on chins.
During the invasion, we managed to complete 432 slots, and with only one chop across the entire week it was a great outcome. We did discover however, that while we do have some amazingly skilled jumpers across the board, we also have some amazingly lazy people who don’t particularly like to play the packing game! The awesome team of riggers and packers definitely had their hands full – packing over 85 sports rigs during the week for our languid invaders! We have decided that for the next event, we might want to run a packing skills course too!
We would like to thank EVERYONE involved in the running of the week – Manifest, packers, drivers, pilots, coaches, instructors, chefs, DJ’s, the APF and most importantly Christine Sparrow and Pete Lonnon for allowing such an event to occur! We can’t wait to come back and Invade again.
Till the next invasion – 谢谢 !”
If you want to learn to skydive then click here for more information.
Brain Therapy
March 14, 2017 skydive
Category: Learn to Skydive, Pro Skydivers
Meet Daniel and hear his story of how learning to skydive changed his life for the better. Daniel learnt to skydive solo with us in Jurien Bay in March 2012.
For Daniel, wingsuit flying helps clear his mind from the clutter of everyday life.
“It’s definitely had a good positive impact on me. All my friends and family who have known me for a number of years, [they] have seen a massive change in my attitude towards life, and I’ve just been a lot more upbeat and pleasant about everything really.”
Brain therapy at 12,000 feet from Chris Lewis | ABC Midwest on Vimeo.
Meet the team: Belgium Steve
March 3, 2017 skydive
Category: AFF Instructors, Our Team
What’s your role here at Skydive Jurien Bay
Instructor A, Tandem Instructor, AFF Instructor and Examiner, DZSO
How many skydives have you done?
Over 18,000
If you could only have one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Something fishy
What’s your most bizarre talent?
Doing wheelies on a modified pram
What kind of skydive excites you the most?
Canopy Relative Work (CRW)
What was the last picture you took on your phone?
Kayak trip around Boulanger Island (Jurien Bay)
What’s currently playing on your Spotify/iTunes/etc?
Eric Clapton/ JJ Cale live on vinyl
What’s one thing that not a lot of people know about YOUR POSITION that they should?
It takes time and patience
What was your first thought when you woke up this morning?
Is the sun up?
What’s the most frequently asked question you receive from customers, and what’s the answer?
How many jumps do you do a day? Depends how many crazy people like you show up!
What’s one of the most memorable things you’ve ever done?
Get married in Vegas, night jump in clouds, jump 1000th
Can you describe your favourite interaction with a customer?
First seconds after opening and landing with tandem. First smile in freefall from AFF (student learning to skydive solo)
If you could wake up as someone else, who would it be and why?
Neil Armstrong. Why not?
Do you have any hidden talent or is there a fun fact about you we should know about?
Crashing push bikes when drunk.
Meet the team: Victor
March 2, 2017 skydive
Category: AFF Instructors, Our Team
Where are you from?
Brazil
What’s your role here at Skydive Jurien Bay
Tandem Master, AFF Instructor
If you could only have one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Barbeque
What is the most random thing you’ve watched all the way through on Netflix?
Tarantino movies
What’s your most bizarre talent?
Forget or lost any kind of things in less then 5 min
What kind of skydive excites you the most?
Every skydive excites me!
What’s one thing that not a lot of people know about your position that they should?
If I tell, I need to kill them
What was your first thought when you woke up this morning?
Who is the mofo calling me so early
What’s the most frequently asked question you receive from customers, and what’s the answer?
Where is my google? Answer: You don´t have parachute, why are you worry about googles?
What’s one of the most memorable things you’ve ever done?
What i’m doing now…in more 2 monhs i’ll complete skydiving in 5 continents in less then a year
Can you describe your favourite interaction with a customer?
Look their smiles after the parachute openings. It´s GIANT!
If you could wake up as someone else, who would it be and why?
I would like to be myself…I´m happy everyday.
Do you have any hidden talent or is there a fun fact about you we should know about?
My big talent is hide all my talents!
Meet the team: Ashley Davis
February 21, 2017 skydive
Category: AFF Instructors, Our Team
What’s your role here at Skydive Jurien Bay?
AFF instructor, customer service/manifest, movie editor, GCA
If you could only have one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Thai food for life… Yum!
What is the most random thing you’ve watched all the way through on Netflix?
Pumping Iron, Arnold Schwarzenegger pumping iron back in the day explaining its better then sex. Was hilarious!
What kind of skydive excites you the most?
Flying my canopy!
What was the last picture you took on your phone?
Two boys dressed up as girls at a party
What’s one thing that not a lot of people know about your position that they should?
Its Fun!
What was your first thought when you woke up this morning?
Weather is good
What’s the most frequently asked question you receive from customers?
What is the weather doing, will they be able to jump.
What’s one of the most memorable things you’ve ever done?
BASE course with Chris McDougall
Can you describe your favourite interaction with a customer?
Playing don’t worry be happy before exiting with a student that had been quite nervous and tense on other jumps. Music helped calmed his nerves and he nailed the jump. The expressions/rawness/happiness and fun is priceless.
Meet the team: Ryan Sanders
February 16, 2017 skydive
Category: AFF Instructors, Our Team
What’s your role here at Skydive Jurien Bay
Tandem Master, AFF Instructor, Canopy Coach, XRW Coach, DZSO, All round anything and everything
If you could only have one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Potatoes, apparently you can survive on them… for the rest of your life.
What is the most random thing you’ve watched all the way through on Netflix?
Ninja Cheerleaders
What’s your most bizarre talent?
Eating what ever I like and never putting any weight on
What kind of skydive excites you the most?
XRW, Xtreme Reletive Work (Wingsuit and canopy flying together in formation)
What was the last picture you took on your phone?
A picture of my 6 day old Baby Girl – Aaliyah
What’s currently playing on your Spotify?
I play Pandora, That way I’m not completely responsible and don’t get blamed for what songs start playing.
What’s one thing that not a lot of people know about your role that they should?
THIS IS THE BEST JOB IN THE WORLD!
What was your first thought when you woke up this morning?
Is the baby crying?
What’s the most frequently asked question you receive from customers, and what’s the answer?
Is this Harness tight enough? My response is: If we separate during the skydive at all, meet me back at the beach… 😉
What’s one of the most memorable things you’ve ever done?
World record ‘Big way’ sequential skydives. Nearly 330 people in the sky all linked
Can you describe your favourite interaction with a customer?
Taking a customer for a skydive, seeing them excited about the idea of learning to jump, then teaching them how to skydive the following week.
If you could wake up as someone else, who would it be and why?
An Alien from another planet or galaxy, because I want to know more about what may be out there in the universe.
Do you have any hidden talent or is there a fun fact about you we should know about?
I have a RECORD BREAKING JUMBO Cray fish… I dive on it’s location 3 times a season but he’s still to smart for me. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it when I get him… or he gets me. Open to ideas…
Watch Ryan catching crays in his video here!
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