DZ Chaika Ukraine

This dropzone is located only 15Km from the center of Kiev in a very cosy environment. It has a calm pace of loads (between 5-10 loads a day with 25 skydivers per load).

Rental gear is of a great quality and staff is very friendly and helpful. They can also organize for you jumping a two/three ways, film you and provide you very good instructors and usually you don't have to pay extra for those services.

ticket to 13000ft is around 17 EUR. Rig rental around 10EUR per jump. Packing ticket 2,5EUR.

Prior the first jump you must pass medical examination (located on the airport) and fill in several forms.

Main manifest staff and instructor do speak English very well. Other staff does not.

The DZ can be reached by taxi which is relatively expensive. Return trip will cost you around 2 jump tickets. You can also choose for more adventures options and go by public transport which is extremely cheap. It costs less than 1EUR for return ticket.

To reach the dropzone from the city center:
1) take the RED metro line metro to station "svyatoshino"

2) on svyatoshino metro station walk through the last metro exit and you'll get out under the bridge - which is the bus station (very dirty one)
3) on the bus station take the bus #37 to Chaika / make clear to the busdriver you're going to airport and he'll let you know where to get out of the bus. The bus makes kind of "circle" so don't worry if you see it turning in the middle of the road and going back. It will at some point come very close to airport 300m.
4) when you get out of the bus ask someone for the airport (body language helps if you don't speak Russian or Ukranian). Go to a big gray iron gate with an arrow on it and walk through the gate and you're on the airoport.
5) walk all the way until you reach small building with a parking lot in front of it - turn left to the building beside it (of the same size) and meet your fellow skydivers...

Wish you a lot of fun @ Chaika!

This DZ is EXTREMELY hard to find but worth the effort - it is about 20 min by taxi from central Kiev. I have visited scores of DZ's and this one is the least cliquey of all of them. They use a large Antonov with tail exit, which can have about 30 jumpers exiting simultaneously if this is your thing. There is a doctor on site on all jumping days. Site operates Thu - Mon in summer months. The PLA is truly MASSIVE ; there are good packing facilities, cheap professional packers and cheap jump tickets. The DZ has its own basic cafe, and there is a good restaurant nearby. You cannot hire rigs here - you must bring all your own stuff. There is minimal waiting time for lifts - once you get manifested, you can pretty much guarantee to be in the a/c 20 minutes later, and it has a good climb rate. They jump from 13,000ft. No hook turns are allowed ; they impose the J-landing pattern rigidly. Fine by me, as I'm a coward and not into swooping.

Kiev is predominently Russian-speaking, as opposed to Ukrainian-speaking, and despite my girlfriend being fluent in Ukrainian, getting me onto the manifest, and finding out which was my lift, was invariably a drama because of language difficulties. The DZ has a website which is poorly mainrained, and if you click on the 'English' version, you will find a dead link.

Overall, this is a first-class DZ if you speak Russian, and have all your own kit.

We were there for two days beginning of July. The weather was rough but we still got 7 jumps in and had a great time. All the people are friendly and welcoming. There are lots of fun jumpers and great coaches ready to jump with you.

On a good day you can get more than 8 jumps in, especially as soon as the AN-28 is up and running again.

We'll go back anytime!

They have L410 with 4000m altitude and english speaking staff and huge equipment base here

https://www.facebook.com/ChaikaSkydive/

Working every Friday + weekeends and also other days according to DZ schedule