Thus spake Seth Godin:

Everything doesn’t depend on what happens in the next ninety seconds. Ever.

Sure does when you’re about to jump off a plane at 14,000 feet.

Note: See also Paraturnee ’12, Part I.

Friday morning, Oulu airport. Wheels off at 8 AM, exactly as planned!

Industrial haze

The weather, which at takeoff had been a balmy +6C and blue skies, soon turned to thick porridge. This was not a welcome turn of events considering we were about to jump at an airport none of us had ever seen, including the pilot.

Possis coming in to land at Ranua (EFRU).

Lapland, home of lapdancing.

Luckily the cloud cover broke just enough to let us hop’n'pop our way into Ranua. We had finally arrived in Lapland!

Yours truly at Ranua. Note the very fetching The Hung Ones hat.

Sign on the windshield: “NOT AIRWORTHY”

A quick pack and a cup of coffee (courtesy of Arctic Air Service, cheers guys), and our happy band of pachyderms was southbound. Dark clouds were gathering to nobody’s surprise, which meant a somewhat bumpy ride below cloud cover. And radar cover, I presume, since we were flying low enough at times to utterly confuse my altimeter. On the plus side, some of us spotted reindeers.

A Draken at Pudasjärvi (EFPU).

In contrast with Ranua, Pudasjärvi is a no-nonsense airfield big enough for pretty much anything you might wish to land there, which the Finnish Air Force does on occasion. It was definitely big enough for us.

Our man from Oulu making use of the Kajaani (EFKA) airport facilities.

Recorded here for posterity: Avgas was 3.17 euro per liter in Kajaani in September ’12. Good thing our ride ran on jet fuel.

Our next stop, Kajaani, turned out to be not quite big enough for all of us. Stella had a chop and landed smack dab in the middle of a swamp – in the only tree for miles. Luckily she wasn’t hurt, which was a good thing, seeing as nobody – except for Johan, who landed with Stella – had any idea where she was, including herself. Not much to do then except wait for them to make their way back to civilisation. This eventually happened, and we left Kajaani airport just before the Finnair flight was due to arrive. For some reason our flight was not shown on the Departures screen, though.

Packing in Rautavaara (EFRA).

Rautavaara, depending on who you ask, is Finnish for either “Iron Hill” or “Iron Danger”. Sounds like a Charles Bronson movie to me either way.

Kitee (EFIT).

Kitee is famous for being the moonshine capital of Finland. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to hook up with any of the local entrepreneurs.

Next up was Immola near Imatra, famous for being right next to the Russian border, so it pays to be extra careful when spotting. I am happy to note that our jump did not involve any international intrigue.

Our last jump was back at the DZ in Utti, an 11-way speedstar which was, to borrow a phrase, somewhere between beautiful and interesting. The jump ended in extra excitement for yours truly in the form of a pilot chute in tow, which fortunately resolved itself before too long.

Sum total: 14 jumps, 13 airfields, 2 days, 12 jumpers, 1 chop, no injuries, can’t wait to go again!

Paraturnee 2012: 2 days, 13 airfields, 14 jumps, 1400 km.

The plan was simple enough: get on the plane, jump everywhere we can, turn around when we reach Lapland. It didn’t take long for the roster for Paraturnee (Para Tour) ’12 to fill up.

Utti, 8am. Fogged in but raring to go.

Our plan for a 8am takeoff was soon found to be mildly optimistic: the fog was thick as. Not much to do then except wait and raid the DZ video vault for “Troy“, which I hadn’t seen, and am not in a hurry to see again, although I fully subscribe to Menelaus’s credo “May the Gods keep the wolves in the hills and the women in our beds!”

Boys (and girls?) from the club next door jumping from a CASA.

The weather eventually relented and we were treated to a surprise demo from our neighbours. I had in fact not seen anyone jump a roundie before (not going to use the “f” word here).

And so it was that finally, after waiting for the fog to clear for nearly five hours, twelve intrepid adventurers (11 jumpers + Lasse the pilot) piled into OH-DZF, affectionately known as “Possujuna” (“Piggy Train”, named after a high-adrenaline amusement park ride) or simply “Possis”.

Lahti-Vesivehmaa (EFLA).

First stop: Vesivehmaa. Apinahissi (“Monkey Lift”) was nowhere to be seen, maybe it was at Jämi. Land, pack, get on the plane.

Teisko (EFTS).

Same again at Teisko (near Tampere).

Alavus (EFAL).

My second time jumping at Alavus; my second time landing off DZ at Alavus. Really should start taking prevailing winds into account one of these days. Cheers to the local farmer for thoughtfully having harvested a nice little landing strip for me among his crops. Cheers also to the Alavus club for shouting us coffee.

Menkijärvi (EFME) International Airport and its somewhat rustic tower.

A slice of Ostrobothnia from the air.

A lovely example of Finnish aviation club premises architecture at Kalajoki (EFKO).

Unfortunately we were pressed for time and couldn’t jump onto the “long sandy beaches and rolling dunes of Kalajoki Hiekat … worth seeing every season” made famous in the 70s by Tapani Kansa. The airport, such as it was, did us fine though.

Sunset load in Oulu (EFOU). Not visible in the horizon: Sweden.

We reached Oulu just before sunset. Our arrival was heralded by an awesome rainbow. If you’ve never seen one in freefall, it can be quite spectacular as you’re viewing it from above and so the horizon doesn’t get to cut it in half. Unfortunately you also tend to get hit in the face by raindrops at terminal speed in the process.

A quick pack, and those of us who weren’t happy with just 6 jumps for the day were off for a sunset load. Thanks to the joint efforts (much appreciated!) of Skydiving Club of Oulu and Skydive Oulu, we were able to enjoy sauna, beer, pizza (apparently a 60 km round trip for the driver!) and a good night’s sleep.

Paraturnee ’12 Part II

DPC – EFS

No, the title is not mispelled (sic). I am of course talking about Batchelor, NT, a tiny town on the edge of Litchfield National Park in the Top End, where Australia’s No 1 skydiving boogie (for my money anyway) takes place at the end of July every two years.

The turnout this year was smaller than in 2009. This seems to be a trend: I don’t think I’m just imagining that there are fewer and fewer jumpers around on weekends and at events. (Please comment if you think otherwise; I’d love to be proven wrong.) To be fair, 2009 was the 30th anniversary of Rel Week, so people probably were making an extra effort to be there.

Only in the Top End...

The smaller turnout was mainly noticeable in big ways, or the lack thereof. I think the biggest jump all week was a 20-way, whereas 2 years ago 30-ways were happening all the time. Some of the smaller ways (16 or so) were done as formation jumps from two Caravans for practice purposes, which was still good fun – opportunities for formation loads being normally few and far between.

The jumps, however, are not and never were what makes Batchelor special. Imagine a place far from everywhere and everything, where the weather is always perfect, where the sky is always sunny, where you can catch up with old friends and meet new ones, all of them with a happy smile on their face. Where you can take a day off and swim with crocodiles (apparently someone saw a small freshie at Berry Springs). Oh, and where your mobile phone probably doesn’t work. That’s what Rel Week is. I realise this makes me sound like a soppy, sentimental idiot – guilty as charged.

A swooper heading towards the back lawn at Batchelor

I had two personal goals for the week. First, swooping the back lawn, as I didn’t have the jump numbers to be allowed to do so back in 2009. I am happy to report that the mission was successful, and I didn’t even hit any of the palm trees lining the landing area unlike some other skydivers who shall remain nameless. Second, jumping from a chopper, also a resounding success. Thanks to Helen, Bart, Terry, Jay and Phil for a great jump. It was also my second time ever in a chopper – the first being earlier that day, when a few of us were treated to a FREE (!) chopper ride which must have lasted for about a minute at an altitude of no more than 150 ft, but hey, a free chopper ride is a free chopper ride. Yes, I did ring the bell.

Big thanks to Darwin Parachute Club for yet another great boogie – hope to see you all again in 2013! EFS!

Koppel, yours truly and Hubert chillin' out at Berry Springs

Parasummer 2010 is done and dusted, and I’m detoxed enough to put a few words down. What goes down at the boogie stays at the boogie, so what you’re getting is the “sanitised for your convenience” version, but if you’ve been to a boogie anywhere you can probably fill in the blanks.

A total of 111 jumpers from all over the world showed up for the boogie. Aussies were somewhat surprisingly the 4th largest contingent, after the hosts, Finns and Swedes, as there were 2 of us present.

The jumping took place at Pärnu airport, which obviously used to be run by the Soviet air force back in the day, as it was littered with well-camouflaged hangars. One of the hangars acted as the packing area, and despite the slight dampness provided a welcome respite from the 30C+ heat outside.

There were two jump ships: a Turbolet and an Islander. Most of the jumps were done from the Let, which is a twin-turbine side-door plane that takes 16 jumpers to 4 km (about 13000 ft) in about 15 minutes. The Let was hired specially for the boogie, as it is normally based in Hungary. The Islander, which serves as the club’s regular jump ship, is a twin piston engine 10-jumper plane, also with a side door, that feels a lot like a slightly larger C-182 or a C-206.

Most of the jumpers stayed at Jõekääru camping area, which had heaps of cabins and ample room for those cheap enough (such as yours truly) to insist staying in a tent. I had borrowed a “$30 Aldi special” tent, which probably would have held water just fine, had I not forgotten to close the flap for the biggest torrent of water I have ever witnessed. The next day was sunny though, so I was able to dry out my gear and keep on boogieing.

I’d be willing to bet that the lingerie 8-way that was broadcast on most if not all Estonian TV channels did wonders for the financial welfare of Eesti Langevarjuklubi, as eager tandem and AFF students must be keeping their phone lines ringing red hot. A jumper who shall remain nameless speculated that all the other hangars at the airfield are filled with ugly babies.

Sauna

Another jumper who shall remain nameless – let’s just call him “an antipodean with a solar panel for a sex machine” – had his fair share of culture shock the first night, when everyone piled into the sauna; not only was it his first time in a sauna, but he had a hard time coming to terms with the concept of co-ed sauna bathing. Even yours truly, who grew up in the region, seems to have been away long enough to have all but forgotten… but I digress. Our intrepid native antipodean sussed it out eventually, so all was well.

The camping area also had a smoke sauna. For those less familiar with the intricacies of sauna bathing, a smoke sauna is a traditional kind of sauna that has no chimney – it fills with smoke as it is heated, and all the walls are covered in soot, so don’t wear your Sunday best; in fact, don’t wear a thing. The hosts were somewhat surprised to learn that smoke saunas are not unknown on the other side of the Gulf of Finland either – they must have thought it to be uniquely Estonian. Incidentally, here’s a hot (sic) tip; let the eager beavers fry their ears first, the heat keeps for a long time and it’s much more pleasant inside when the temperature has gone down a bit.

Cypres demo

“If you know someone whose Cypres has fired and they told you they heard a loud bang, well, they heard wrong.” These were the words of the man from Cypres just seconds before a demo cutter disintegrated with a loud BANG!

“It’s never done that before…” No worries mate, they’re man-made, these things happen. I’d be willing to bet that he’s going to edit the script slightly for the next demo though.

Flight Club

Stephan Lipp, one of the forces behind New Zealand Skydiving School, was on hand to do one-on-one freefly coaching for those keen to take it to the next level. His swoops were a marvel of German precision, skimming the taxiway and landing always on the exact same spot regardless of the wind.

Mr. Bird-Man, aka Jari Kuosma, did his 5000th jump at the boogie and celebrated accordingly. Visa Parviainen, infamous for his rocket-boosted wingsuiting as seen on Youtube, was also in attendance and brought his pimped out “Lordi” wingsuit, modelled here by Erkka the Jet Fighter Pilot.

Comp Air

The boys from Räyskälä dropped by and jumped in from their pride and joy, the bright yellow OH-XDZ, a Comp Air built from a kit by two club members. Only took them 10000 hours to build it too. The Comp Air is the fastest and baddest jump ship in Finland – looking forward to giving it a go before I head back to sunny Queensland.

Flatfly…

Seriously guys, if your ad says you’ve got a load organiser for 16-ways who then organises not a single load and buggers off halfway through the boogie – it’s not a good look. I wasn’t the only out-of-towner to be there mainly for the imaginary 16-ways either.

There were a few flatties around though, so I spent the week doing mostly 4-ways with a few smaller and bigger ones thrown in, including a handful of 8-ways on Friday which ran the gamut from beautiful to interesting. One of the 4-ways was also my 400th jump, an offense for which I obviously had to shout a carton of Saku.

Summary

What can I say, a great boogie! Made lots of new friends, learned new things – Finnish skydiving jargon in particular, did heaps of fun jumps (25 in total), partied a lot with awesomely cool people… in short, got my money’s worth. I’d say that the only thing that needs to be seriously looked into is flatfly load organising. It looks like I’ll unfortunately have to give next Parasummer a miss, as Rel Week is on at the same time in Batchelor, but I’ll do my very best to be back for Parasummer 2012. As they say in Estonia: VABALANGEMINE!

PS: Thanks to Wolli, I now know a bit of practical Estonian as well: “Vabandage, kust veeras mees siin linnas nikku saab?”