rauenpc

I have done two so far, both successful. I flew both positions. One suggestion I would make for anyone thinking about doing it is to dirt dive the thing. Get on a mock up and see what it will be like. By doing that, I avoided a couple things. One, using a hand/glove camera got in the way so I had to go without it. Also, from a C182 with me being a bigger guy, there was no way to exit stable to the wind. We expected a flip on exit, and timed the pilot chute pull appropriately. This also means that IAD/PCA would have been a very bad idea in my case. As with many things, plan ahead of time and think about what can go wrong and how to avoid it. Me as sluggo - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TMuUa6ORdo

Sevenhills is a great non-profit drop zone with everything to offer. They have RW, CRW, and FF. Being a non-profit, their instructors are not only world class, but not in it for the money. They will spend the time to teach you correctly, not quickly so they can make some extra cash. As in the other reviews, sometimes you have to wait a while for a load, but for the comradery I get from this group of people I'll wait.

I went to DeLand on a Wednesday during a vacation from WI to FL. They have a great setup there as far as having a restaurant/bar, gear shop, and monitors set up to show upcoming loads. The plane looked great, flew good, got up to altitude real quick, and had a great spot each jump. However, there were 3 people that spoke to me. One person gave me the required orientation, and laughed when I asked if they had packing hooks. I was never trained to pack over the shoulder, only with hooks. His attitude at that question wasn't all that great, because I asked if hooks were available for a reason, not so that he would look at me and laugh saying that I'm tall enough to go without hooks. The next person that talked to me asked me if I had been in a PAC750 before. The third person to talk to me asked me when I'm pulling. That was the extent that I was spoken to the entire time I was there. I got two solo jumps in, and left out of boredom. If this is how the bigger dropzones are, I'll stick to my friendly anybody-talks-to-you small WI dropzones. As a side note of my own personal annoyance, since I didn't have 100 jumps or more, I had to land across the taxiway from the PRO area. The size of their PRO area is bigger than the entire landing area of the dropzones I go to. This only added to the boredom - landing by myself away from everyone else.

Atmosphair is a very small place, but within the walls lies what amounts to the best dz i have ever been to. Everybody there is happy to be there, they greet you with smiles on their face, and their main concern is that u have the most enjoyable and safe time possible when it comes to skydiving. I would recommend that anyone go there, if not for skydiving, but for the people you will meet there.