On Tuesday the 5th of August at 4.30 am I left Zephyrhills Skydiving in Florida to head for the West Coast of the USA and Perris Valley Skydiving. My journey initially was to fly from Tampa down to Miami and then onto Los Angeles. Perris is about 60 miles south east of LA. It was going to be quite long day, it turned out even longer than I expected. This time I would be travelling back in time zones, LA is 8 hours behind UK time. I was due to arrive at LA at 1.30 pm local time. I got there OK, but one of my cases was missing - the one with my parachute and all my other parachute gear. I ended up spending the whole day at the airport (from 1.30 until 8.30). My case eventually turned up, to say I was relieved is an understatement. I then needed to get my hire car from National and they were really helpful, I was fairly tired by then and it was dark, I was not looking forward to the drive out of the city. Because of this I decided to take the Sat Nav option, the guy at National set the destination up for me which was good of him and I got underway.
I was to stay at the home of Dennis Sattler who is a fellow skydiver and works at the DZ. Dennis has been really great, he must have been absolutely fed up of me ringing him to say I was going to be late. I eventually arrived at his house at midnight completely shattered. However my accommodation is superb so I could chill and get a good nights sleep.
Now to the drop Zone. I don't know if Perris Valley Skydiving is the biggest DZ in the world, but they have more jump planes than I have ever seen. Its like an airport with nothing else but Parachute planes. They even have a DC 9 passenger jet which takes 80 skydivers. However the main plane in daily use is a Twin Otter Aircraft (they have at least 3 here) which take up to 22 people. They also have a Skyvan and a Porter. I have attached a number of pictures of the planes for you. One other big facility here they have here is a Wind Tunnel which is used to teach people how to fly their body in freefall and for experienced people to hone their freefall skills.
The owners of the DZ are trying to get some publicity for NACC for me, they kindly let me jump for free on the first day, which was great. The facilities here are very good. The weather here is extremely hot, particularly in the afternoons, easily in the 90's, so there are lots of covered packing areas. They have a great bar here, its like a themed bar, but its the real thing (see pictures attached), its a skydiving bar for skydivers. They also have a diner which serves food all day.
One really neat thing is the paint jobs on the aircraft, instead of the lift being called by just the number its proceeded with the word Shark, so lift one would be Shark 1, Shark 2 etc.etc.
I have done 7 jumps so far, I have done a couple of sit fly jumps - its getting better and some FS jumps with some American and British jumpers. I am here for another week so hope to get more in. There is another parachute centre called Elsinore only about 25 minutes away. If I can I will try and get a couple of jumps in there also.
Finally for now as I have found wherever I have gone, everyone has been really helpful and welcoming. I have even bumped into someone I was on an instructors course about 6 years ago, nice to meet you again Shazza
The skydive world is a fairly small one. john 8/8
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