groundtested

Deland is open 7 days a week so you shouldn't have any problems getting some jumps in there. I think Flight-1 is having a canopy course there this coming weekend if you need to brush up on your canopy piloting skills. I've only got 50 something jumps but I'll jump w/ you if you don't want to go solo. I got laid off of work recently so have a lot of free time on my hands. lol

Good luck! I went through my AFF last fall with SDU- Plamer and Lindsay Widdall were my instructors. Could not say enough nice things about them. Have fun!

Thanks for the info! I am super excited about the trip- if I don't hear back from him, I'll drop him another line when it gets closer to trip dates....

Anyone have experience jumping in Kenya? I am going there for vacation next month; I found a website for the club in Nairobi but no luck getting an email reponse from them thus far...

While I was in Deland a couple weeks ago I overheard IFly had another fan issue and would be closed to fix it. The tunnel does help alot IMO; I did 20 mins in it before my AFF. As for finding a canopy, as a beginner after you get your A you should be looking at a wing loading of 1.0:1 until about 100 jumps(search wing loading chart in the forum, there's a few really good posts). I am basically the same height and weight as you. Gear adds about 15-20 pounds so a 170sq canopy will be probably where you end up. My canopy progession so far has been: 5 jumps Navigator 240, 20 jumps Navigator 220, 5 jumps Navigator 200, 15 jumps Silhouette 190, 2 jumps Sabre2 170(which is the canopy I just bought). Not sure what wind conditions you've jumped in so far, but on windier days a 240 won't give you much penetration on your base leg(or if you've found youself downwind of the landing area).