biscuit_dave

might actually manage to make this!!!

due to work timings have slipped, now looking at late july/aug/sept. therefore, chicago & the prairie could well be on!

have mine now, done 30 or so jumps on it now, very happy & the general consensus at all the dz in the uk i've taken it to is it's a good bit of kit. most have been very impressed. this includes riggers, cci's etc

ref TSO, this is from SWS General answer to the question ‘Why SWS still does not have TSO’ After having completed our Fire container design we were planning to obtain the most exact certificate of those that were available at that moment, which was TSO-C23d that could provide the access to the biggest market of the USA. Considering that fact that the program of dropping/jumping tests was exceeded almost twice we did not expect any general issues. We contacted the Aircraft Certification Office (ACO) of the Federal Aviation Administration of the USA (FAA) and initiated the process of TSO obtaining. To obtain TSO a manufacturer of skydiving gear should provide the following documents (in English): - full description of the skydiving gear with all the designs, materials and manufacturing process description; - service instruction; - assembly instruction and limitations for assembly/compatibility; - test protocols according to the relevant test program; - service instruction/overhaul manual, specifying the limitations for damages/deteriorations to be replaced; - System of quality control, outgoing control, and the tracking system of the materials employed. After having initiated the procedure of the certificate obtaining we provided the gear to be analyzed, test protocols and the completed list of manufacturing documents. After the materials were approved an issue of manufacturing certification was brought up. The manufacturer can be certified only if: There is a permanent representative office of FAA located in the country of a gear manufacturer, The country is a member of EASA, There is a bilateral agreement between FAA and local aviation administration regarding the transfer of authority of manufacturing control to the local aviation authorities. For the Ukraine: 1. We have never had a permanent representative office of FAA in the Ukraine and it seems impossible in the near future, 2. The Ukraine is not a member of EASA (and it seems impossible in the near future as it will require to recertify ALL the aviation equipment according to EASA standards), 3. There is no any bilateral agreement. Thus, TSO obtaining for a manufacturer located in the Ukraine that managed to meet all the test requirements and provided all the necessary documents is not possible. We may play a trick by establishing a subsidiary company in a country where manufacturing certification can be obtained and perform the final assembly there in situ. This is what was done by PD by commissioning the manufacturing in Honduras but they perform the control inspection and lines installation in the USA. But this is the American company with production located in the USA and with totally different facilities and budgets. An attempt to do that is not so advantageous for a foreign manufacturer: after having provided all the formal documentation it may be possible to obtain TSO. However, should FAA have any doubts in validity of manufacturing on the controlled territory TSO may be withdrawn. This can cause some disturbance among the consumers of this type of equipment if suddenly their equipment is banned for employment (this is what happened to a Slovenian manufacturer of lightweight aircrafts Pipistrel). After having considered the situation and possible results for our clients we decided not to take risks and to abandon our attempts to obtain TSO. At the moment we are in the process of the European certificate obtaining and the procedure is almost completed. mine arrives in a week or so ;-)

it's quite possible as i believe us foreigners get a 3 month tourist visa

Hi all, as the title indicates i'm planning a road trip this summer starting early june for 8-10 weeks. i'll be starting at Techumseh, mainly as my aunt & uncle live there & there's a DZ. i'm intending to buy a van & drive south to Perris for the 4th of july stopping off at Dz's on route. any help, advice, recommendations, invites and ideas etc would be very welcome. ta muchly in advance

I've just returned from a 2nd trip to ocana from the uk. after meaning to do an AFF cse for years & not getting round to it/not having the funds, a mate said 'lets go to Spain & do it, found this place on line'. Needed a holiday & wanted to go skydiving having done 2 tandems at uk parachuting, my local dz, a couple of years ago, so killed 2 birds with 1 stone. An email & couple of phone calls to paula, flights booked deposit paid sorted! Mate whose idea it was bailed on me (his loss) so mid april I headed off to madrid on my tod. followed the directions as emailed by paula & arrived at aranjuez on sat afternoon, by the time I got to the dz it was too late to do anything, but as I'd been up since 3am I was fine with getting some scoff & a brew & meeting people. everyone, & I do mean everyone, the staff, other students, fun jumpers, pro jumpers was really welcoming & friendly. I almost feel more at home there than i do at home! The Sunday was my birthday, & I did my ground school 1 to 1 with jane. very thourgh & comprihensive, my previous military experience helped, but jane was brilliant, cracked it by 3 or 4 (time flys there!) & got levels 1 & 2 done with mike, hispa & jane on level 2. monday dawned & brough 5 days of the worst weather in recent times, irritating, but what can you do? drink lots of strong coffee & learn to pack is what. Note on the packers, wow, under 5 min, helpful if you are practicing (did quite a lot of that). got level 3 done on tha sat just before my transport to the train stn arrived. 3 jumps in a week is not ideal, 1 of those weather induced things. on returning home, umed & ahhed a bit about when to return...... booked flights for a fri to sun w/e so as to be back within a month. Last fri i arrived at the dz around 1400, only to find 4 guys who also hadn't completed the same week as me & excellent weather (as forecast), by the time we headed back to aranjuez I'd done levels 4,5 & 6. as 1 of the porters was u/s & there was 70ish tandems booked in as well as 8 AFF students it was agreed that there'd be a 9 o'clock load on sat morning, apparently unheard of on any morning (this is Spain), so by 0915 there were level 6's & 7's going out the door! given that only the 1 plane was flying I still managed to get 4 consoles in as well, last load of the day, wind had dropped completely, sun was low, it was, beautiful! Sunday morning I got console 5 & my hop & pop done before returning home. best w/e in a long time, cemented friendships & made some new 1's too. The only thing is possibly some minor admin issues, but nothing major & if the right people are spoken too, avoidable. Can't fault the training, staff, banter. Quite possibly my favorite place on the planet (carsberg don't do dz's.) plan to finish my consoles at beccles but will be spending at least another 2 w/e's at ocana this summer.