SkyKef

I just spent 2 days jumping with Sky Kef. It's incredibly relaxed and laid back. The regular jumpers are really helpful and inclusive. I had lots of invitations to jump with others. Big grins all round. There are a good few tandems but the skyvan is big enough to manage them and the fun jumpers. The weather is amazing. There are rigs for hire but I'd suggest taking your own as there isn't a huge selection and it is expensive to hire. Jumps are 210 NIS and with rig hire it's 410 NIS. I would love to jump here again. Awesome place.

Firstly, price.

210 NIS for a fun jump (about $55 US at time of writing)
410 NIS if you want to hire gear and jump $110 US at time of writing).
This is not the cheapest DZ buy far, but it's still a great place.

If you don't read or speak Hebrew, you will struggle a little initially as you try to work out what's going on. Most of the staff speak English but it took me a while to find those ones. The DZO, Nir, is a legend. He came straight over to me, showed me around and gave me free pick of the hire rigs. Lad.

The Skyvan is impressive. I don't think they turned it off at all. I was able to jump, repack and get straight back up again without waiting, and that was with heaps of tandems.

The other jumpers are really chatty. They're happy to give advice on techniques and equipment. I don't think I've tried on as many other peoples helmets to find a new one to purchase as I have here!

Load organising seemed a little haphazard. There was no discussion on the ground as to jump order, it was all done just before doors open. Luckily there's enough room in the Skyvan to move around to reorder each other. That said, the load organiser would hold everyone off at the exit until he deemed it safe. There was no "wait until they're 45 degrees" here. I really liked that.

I recommend this place if you're visiting Israel. If you can plan it though, bring your own rig. The hire ones are all 240 Navigators that are used with students. A WLR of 0.84 does not make for the best decent with the desert wind...

As a Local resident and as the one that started his Skydiving sport at SkyKef , I can say surly , that this is the place to come and skydive !
Although it's a 100 miles drive from my home , I'm at the DZ every 2nd week.

The DZO (Nir) is a charm, this guy will help you and will make sure you will get the most out of your day.

The Master Rigger (Gilad) will not cut corners and will make sure everything is safe including all the documents are valid , but will help you in any way he can to fix any problem that you might have.
The stuff is big and usually between 15~20 instructors are at DZ at any given time , they usually are very busy (with AFFs Coaching and Tandem) but will always stop for few minutes to help you in any need.

The facilities at the DZ are simple , but fine , the Manifest is done manually , and some delays in the load might occur , but if you are a fast packer you shouldn't have a problem to do 4 to 6 jumps during Saturday (little less on Fridays)

I took my rig along for my holiday in israel. Mailed both dropzones in israel, skykef and paradive, and asked if it would be ok to jump with them as a beginner. I had about 80 jumps since my AFF nine month ago.

Paradive is a tandem only dropzone, so there was only skykef. The dropzone is located near Beer Sheva. It is a 70 minutes drive from Tel Aviv, depending on the traffic. They jump on friday and saturday. Jumping started at about 12:00 on friday and 08:30 on saturday. The airport is busy with other small planes and glider pilots.

The local rigger checked my documents and someone showed me the landing area and explained everything. The had a skyvan that had the engine running all day, even for fueling. The boarding area is directly at the taxiway, so you don't have to walk in the heat that far. And beeing used to more mild temperatures, hot it was.

I did 5 jumps, despite the fact that they were shoveling tandems all day and i'am packing very slowly. There were packers that cared for the tandem rigs and the rental rigs, and some busy work jumpers. I packed myself, but got help with reatatching my main after a cutaway on the ground due to high winds.

Jumping was great. Did i mention it was hot? The landing area is huge, but only a small patch of it has gras, which is used mostly for the tandems. Everybody was friendly and helpfull, so i felt welcome even as a beginner, jumping the first time away from home. The winds were sketchy for me, the local jumpers seemed to be more used to jump in higher winds

The ticket costs 220 ILS if you have your own gear. Gear rental might be possible, but bringing your own stuff simplifies things a lot. Almost everybody speaks english, so i was fine even without speaking hebrew. You might ask arround a little bit because the signs, manifest documents etc. were hebrew only, but it was no big deal. The manifest made sure i knew when my load was comming up.

When returning to israel, i will come back for sure.

Great place!
The only place in Israel where people can skydive (other than tandems)

SkyKef, located on the Be'er Sheva Airport near the city of Be'er Sheva is the only DropZone in Israel which offers a professional and welcoming experience to international fun jumpers and local jumpers alike. I drove there from the heart of Tel Aviv and the entire trip took me about 1 hour.

I had two Jump days in Israel during my visit, and I am sorry to say that I wasted one of them at PARADIVE which is the only other Drop Zone in israel. PARADIVE literally turned me away, but SkyKef welcomed me with an extremely professional and gracious attitude.

The DZO, who is a brand new change is a very experienced skydiver and operator, and has in a short time created a very positive environment for staff and customers. She introduced herself to me and immediately took the time to check over some basic safety items (such as my log book, reserve repack and license.) After that, she wished me a fun day and sent me off for my first load.

I arrived there around 11:00am, and stayed until the Sunset load. I got 4 amazing Jumps in, although if I pushed it a bit harder I could have gotten in 6. All of my jumps were with other Fun Jumpers who were local Israeli citizens, or staff members who did fun jumps in between work jumps. The local fun jumpers were very friendly as was the staff.

They had several Packers available for the entire day, as well as an on-site rigger who introduced himself after noticing that I was a new face. He also asked to check out my reserve repack date, which impressed me a lot. After I told him who already inspected it, he was completely cool. They are serious about safety but they absolutely do not give anybody a hard time. Its really a bigtime fun but safe environment.
They had a great lunch facility with various freshly made items and a full stock of drinks. They also have great washroom facilities, definitely a place where you could spend the entire day.

They also have free WiFi which is accessible from almost anywhere including the office, packing area, picnic tables, breakout rooms and restaurant. They also have a great class room setup with a few large screen TV’s complete with HDMI mini, Component, Composite and various other connectors for viewing camera footage.

Most of the loads consisted of 3-5 Tandems with at least 2-5 Fun jumper slots. Near the end of the day, the loads were almost entirely fun jumpers.

All in all, I’d definitely come back to this DZ. It has the feel of a large scale, professionally run world-class drop zone.

I called Skykef to see if it would be possible to fun jump with them. I spoke to an instructor named Nir, who said that they don't rent out rigs (even though their DropZone.com profile says that they do), but to show up early and if it was at all possible they would help me out. I get there Saturday morning and speak to a number of people. A couple staff members , including Nir and Tomer, really tried to help me. But when they talked to the DZO Roy it was like talking to a brick wall. Roy was absolutely against letting me jump for some reason. I noticed a 210 rig just hanging there, and asked him about it, but he wasn't even willing to look into it. So after driving over an hour and waiting another hour, I went home. Thanks go to Nir, Tomer and a few others who really did try to help me. But until Roy decides to let people that didn't do AFF with them rent out rigs, I can't recommend Skykef.

The small country of Israel unfortunately only has 2 drop zones. This is by far the one. The staff is very professional and fun to be around.

Weather all year round is great and its very rare that they're not jumping on the weekend.

The airforce controls the skies so they only operate on Friday and Saturday.

If your in Israel, I highly recommend you stop by, whether your a licensed skydiver, or you want to try skydiving with a tandem jump..

They offer Aff courses as well on a regular basis.

By the way, the website is www.skykef.co.il

I recently paid a visit to Israel and thought of trying the Be'er Sheva DZ.

It soon became evident that communication by email is not active. I received no reply to many emails I ve sent.

Also, the phone number posted at the dropzone.com site is not a valid Israeli number. An inquiry by email to the Israeli Parachute Association remained unanswered but a friend provided the correct phone number:

00972 - 8- 6103897.

Most times you ll get no reply but an answering message in Hebrew. But if you are patient and try during working hrs someone will answer and give you some basic info in English.

The DZ is not located in Be'er Sheva but to a nearby airfield called: Sede Timar.

The day I drove there was pretty windy but since I received no reply to many calls I decided to drive all the way there to try my luck. Upon arrival to Be'er Sheva I asked ask several locals to give me directions to Sede Timar airfield. Most people appeared not to know it but some were able to tell me where the nearby Israeli Air Force Museum is and from there I managed to find the DZ.

Upon arrival to the DZ office I asked to talk to the CCI. A friendly gentleman politely explained to me that they ve just taken over the management of the DZ and they are in the midst of a complete reorganisation. He promised that the website and email communication will be active in 3-4 weeks. He also explained that currently they are trying to build up everything from scratch and a month or more will be required before they operate normally again. He also explained that due to the high price of fuel at that part of the country running the DZ efficiently poses some severe problems.

Anyway, I wish them good luck and hope someone else will update us soon about developments at this DZ, which is located at a beautiful part of Israel.

since the last review this place has grwon and how, now a full uspa drop zone it has a twin otter the largest skydive plane in the country, massive landing area and packing area, new web sight (thats how i found them at www.skykef.com
gear rental and rigging uspa licensed instructors, in fact every thing you need.

this is anew DZ in Israel
it is friedly, has a great climate to skydive all year long
it is 80 min away from Tel Aviv close to Beesheva. reachable by train as well
alltogether a very nice place although the plane(s) are not that good, but still not that bad. the place is new but it is groing and improving fast