Path: utzoo!attcan!telly!lethe!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!convex!texsun!male!jethro!exodus!skydiver.Eng.Sun.COM!rand
From: rand@skydiver.Eng.Sun.COM (Iconoclast at large)
Newsgroups: rec.skydiving
Subject: Re: DZs in Europe
Message-ID: <8551@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 25 Feb 91 19:56:48 GMT
References: <kbkkb3m00WBLE4M7gU@andrew.cmu.edu> <1991Feb21.052216.4896@nas.nasa.gov>
Sender: news@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.
Lines: 42

In article <1991Feb21.052216.4896@nas.nasa.gov> toby@nas.nasa.gov writes:
>
>With the rather low air fares to Europe from the west coast (USA)
>available at the moment 
 
I think it has already been posted, but if cranking out massive 
quantities of skydives is the goal, you will want to check on the
cost/foot of altitude in europe...it isn't cheap.  Of course this
isn't relevant if the goal is to just jump somewhere else :)

>(I think we're talking mostly about England, France, and Germany.)
>What are some of the better DZs?  

I was in Germany not too long ago and jumped in a little town a couple
of hours east of Munich called Ampfing.  I was there in late October
and the weather was fine...can't speak to April/May.  The tickets were
more than it is here, but I can't really remember just how much.  They
had two very nice turbine Porters and were open all week.  This is the
drop zone where the "Colibri" team trains and the nationals are held.  

I also went to a boogie in Hassfurt (central Germany, near Nurmberg).  
This was run by a group that flys all over Europe in a pink Skyvan and
holds boogies wherever it lands.  I thought it would be fun to get hooked
up with them and follow them around...mabey even fly with them.  I don't
think it would be too hard to get a schedule of the Pink Boogies, but I don't
have one.

>Does customs (USA or theirs) cause any extra grief about checking through a
>rig?  Does any paper work (USPA, FAI, national) need to be filed?
>Anything else we need to know before just doing this?

I didn't have any problem with carying my rig on any planes and my
USPA card seemed to be enough along with my logbook to get me
onto a load.  As to anything else, I would make sure to learn
the words skydiving and airport in the languages of the countries
you are traveling in.  These 2 words usually got me near enough
to where I could see canopies and then drive toward them.
(In german skydiving is fallschirmsport or fallschirmspringen
and I think airport is something like flughafen?)
The Ampfing telephone number used to be 08636/440.

Rand