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Although we're 5 weeks into 2011, since this is the first newsletter of 2011 and with Chinese New Year being celebrated yesterday, we are using this opportunity to wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous year ahead anyway!
* * SAVE THE DATE * *
The PASA Annual General Meeting will be held on Wednesday, 2 March 2011 at Grand Central starting at 7pm. The official notice and agenda from PASA's Non-Executive Directors follows soon.
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- Rule changes for 2011
- 3rd Annual tonto Boogie
- Volare Freefly Skills Camp - JSC
- Canopy Piloting Skills Camp - Skydive Robertson
- Voodoo African record ratified
- Angel SkyDive Desert Boogie Expedition
- Licences and Ratings issued recently
- SAA approves parachute gear as sports equipment
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The 62nd FAI Parachuting Commission (IPC) Meeting was held in Montenegro during the last week of January 2011. The various disciplines submitted their changes to their rules for voting on by the respective delegates as well as the proposed committees for the next year. Bids to host Category 1 events were also submitted and voted on. A quick summary of the rule changes and 1st Category events are discussed below (the documents containing all the change in detail are on the PASA website). It must be noted that these changes will take immediate effect and will therefore be used for Nationals 2011.
Rule Changes
Formation Skydiving
There have been changes to the VFS dive pool, but since we are not aware of any VFS being done in South Africa currently, they are not included (see PASA website for more details).
Block 1 has changed from Snowflake-Offset to Snowflake-Snowflake.
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This is to cater for the change in Block 13, which used to be Hammer-Hammer but is now Offset-Spinner:
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Canopy Formation
Canopy Piloting
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Introducing new event – Freestyle over 3 rounds, 1 Compulsory jump to be chosen from 6 different moves, 1 round chosen from 15 moves and 3rd round is a free round.
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Full-face helmet must have visor removed. Anemometric wind measuring system required.
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Red Card results in disqualification as well as the removal of results.
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Course markers to be inflatable and set standards are given.
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Marker line at beginning of accuracy zone 0.
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Score from each event will be converted into % of best score as was the case in the 2009 rules.
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New signals introduced for judging.
Freefall Style and Accuracy Landing
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Name changed to Freefall Style and Accuracy Landing.
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Better defined definitions.
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Freefall Style Penalties changed.
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Changes to final round decision should bad weather prevent all rounds to be completed.
Artistic Events
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Teams to deliver description of Free Routines and order of Compulsory Sequences prior to jump.
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The Videographer is responsible for assuring the compatibility of the freefall video equipment with the dubbing station.
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General housekeeping and clear wording on some sentences.
Paraski
Category 1 Events:
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28 Feb- 5 Mar 2011
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13th FAI World Para-Ski Championships
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Gosau, Austria (Voted at previous plenary meeting)
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17 - 24 Jul 2011
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5th CISM Military World Games
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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Voted at previous plenary meeting)
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1 - 7 Aug 2011
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8th FAI World Cup of Artistic Events
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Saarlouis, Germany (Voted at previous plenary meeting)
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1 - 7 Aug 2011
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17th FAI World Cup of Formation Skydiving
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Saarlouis, Germany (Voted at previous plenary meeting)
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22 - 27 Aug 2011
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6th FAI World Cup Championships in Canopy Piloting
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Klatovy, Czech Republic
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Nov - Dec 2012
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Mondial for Style & Accuracy Landing, Formations Skydiving, Canopy Formation, Artistic Events and Canopy Piloting with Paraski being a Show-event.
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7 - 12 Feb 2012
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63rd FAI/IPC Plenary Meeting
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Buenos Aires, Argentina
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IPC positions held by South Africans:
- Chief Judge Canopy Piloting for 2011 and 2012 – Ettienne Bosch
- Artistic Events Committee Member – Claire King
- Canopy Piloting Chair – Jacqui Bruwer
- Wingsuit Working Group Chair – Jacqui Bruwer
- IPC Controller for CP in Klatovy – Jacqui Bruwer
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| The Johannesburg Skydiving Club (and Raise the Sky, a skydiving non profit organisation) hosted the 3rd Annual tonto Boogie on the last weekend in November, kicking off the holiday season with three days of jumping in all disciplines. Wingsuit flyers were, as always, especially well represented, and we worked on relative flying skills while doing some awesome flocks. The award for most creative dock went to Pierre Marais Badenhorst for his "tongue to foot" manoeuvre that had never before been attempted. During early jumping on Friday, a camera crew from eTV came out to film, do some interviews, and lay the groundwork for a possible documentary on wingsuit flying with a South African perspective. |
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Wingsuiter Brando Bacci at the 3rd Annual tonto Boogie
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On Saturday night we had a delicious spit braai dinner at the canteen, and then tonto's daughter Caleigh and I kicked off the party with a toast. DJ Ed kept everyone dancing in the bush pub.
The first of what will become an annual tonto Award was given unanimously to Eugene "Pottie" Potgieter for his tireless work on behalf of South African skydiving over the past year. He received a year long subscription to Blue Skies Magazine (www.blueskiesmag.com), "the independent voice of air sports".
Continuing a proud tradition, a charity drive at the dz collected food, clothing, and toys that were distributed to the Pastoral Centre Preschool and Crèche in Kliptown, Soweto.
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Taya Weiss with staff and children at the Pastoral Centre Preschool and Creche
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I loaded up my car full of generous skydivers' donations and delivered them to excited staff and squealing kids early Monday morning in the township after the boogie. Pam Mfaxa, the principal of the crèche, wrote a letter of thanks to the skydiving community in which she said, "We were able to host a party for the children, HIV/AIDS support group and the elderly which are outreach programs for the crèche. The clothes were distributed to the vulnerable families. Please keep on doing the good work of supporting noble causes."
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A big thank you to everyone who helped make the tonto Boogie a success. See you next year!
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Wingsuiters left to right: Frederik Potgieter, Riaan Bergh, Marc Bouwer,
Dian Kemp, Edzard Biermann (back), Taya Weiss (centre), Brando Bacci (kneeling),
Kevin Owen, Eugene (Pottie) Potgieter, Pierre Badenhorst
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2010 was a great year for South African Freeflying. Early in the year we had Jean-Phillipe, one of the world’s best freeflyers and tunnel flyers come to SA for a skills camp. As if that wasn’t enough, we then had two members from world champion freefly team Volare (Fabian and Adam) come to SA for 4 days of non stop freeflying from 23 to 26 September.
The 4 day event, held at the Johannesburg Skydiving Club was a huge success with freeflyers from round the country participating in coaching, bigways and sequentials with one of the best freefly teams in the world. We had 21 freeflyers on the event which shows SA freeflying is growing fast.
Several freeflyers got their cat II’s and cat III’s during the event and the overall skill level was great to see.
The senior group smashed the existing 6way national Head Down record by doing several 7 and 8 way sequential/multi-point Head Down jumps.
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Volare in action
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Unfortunately there were no judges present so these are unofficial records for the time being, ... but given the skill level out there we will no doubt soon have a new SA bigway freefly record.
Overall the event was a great success with freeflyers averaging around 6-8 jumps per day over the 4-day event. No doubt the skills learned from Volare will put us on track for even better freeflying in 2011!
Blue Skies
AE Committee
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Finally, the weekend for the canopy piloting course arrived and with great anticipation, I headed for the DZ on the Friday afternoon. This promised to be an epic weekend with the canopy course, our annual “Father Christmas” show jump and party for the Herberg orphanage, as well as having DZG doing a training weekend.
About a month or so before the camp I had a “light bulb” moment on my way back from the DZ. I had just done two jumps on my “new” 150 after downsizing from a 188. Those who know me will know that that is a big step down for me as this pushed my wing loading up to around the 1.5 mark on the 150.
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Brian Baxter
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The two jumps I did highlighted the fact that this canopy was a different beast to the one I had been jumping. That was when I had the idea to arrange a Canopy Piloting Course at our DZ. A quick e-mail to the SSA on the Monday and by Tuesday they had confirmed that the current SA CP champion, Selwyn Johnson, had agreed to come to Cape Town and host it for us. By the end of the week we had a date set as well as 8 jumpers who had confirmed their participation in the event. When informed of the response, Selwyn mentioned that 8 were more than he expected. Little did he know that the final head count for the course would stand at 15, including two jumpers from Witbank who came down to our DZ just to participate in the course.
Friday night saw us kick off slightly later than anticipated with the theoretical part of the course, due to Selwyn’s flight being delayed. The participants’ experience levels ranged from less than 100 jumps to some with 1000 plus jumps. Selwyn gave us all a programme that would cover our experience levels and tasks to perform according to what each individual wanted to achieve during the weekend. The basics covered all aspects from wing loading, setting up for landings, riser dives, and the one that had the novice’s eyes bulging.....a canopy collapse and recover. This was a task we all did and I must say that even collapsing my canopy intentionally, it is still a heart fluttering moment when it happens.
Saturday morning saw us up nice and early and as soon as the cloud cover lifted we were off. While there were canopies in the sky at 10 000ft collapsing and diving Selwyn was on the ground armed with a video camera to capture our landings. I must say that he did not miss a single landing and got himself a super tan as a reward for his efforts. The day was a continuous affair of jump-pack-repeat with the odd huddle around the coach for tips and advice. The odd tandems and 4-way team training being integrated with the canopy pilots kept the loads ticking over nicely. At the end of the day all the canopy pilots had sore arms from flying on front risers the whole day, and I for one had a sunburnt face and arms from hanging around in the sky under canopy for 10 minutes at a time constantly looking up at the canopy to see what it is doing. Rigs packed and cold beers in hand, we all sat down to view the landings and listen to Selwyn’s advice and critique. A common trend was that pilots were coming in on half brakes and losing speed, lift, and a good final flare. The rest of the evening is a blur of beer and, laughter.
Sunday was a repeat of Saturday’s jumps until the weather finally stopped us from jumping. The day was called, tents taken down, rigs packed and bills paid. The last cold one was had due to the heat of the day and with lots of thanks and goodbyes we all headed home, eager to meet up in Jeffreys Bay the next week for some more fun in the sky.
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Oliver Nöthen
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All who took part in the course would like to thank Selwyn for his time, patience, and knowledge that he shared with us. We all learnt a lot and have improved our flying skills, which in turn leads to safer pilots on the DZ. We hope to see you again next year for another Canopy Course at Robertson.
Blue skies
Brian Baxter
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The FAI recently ratified the following Class G (Parachuting) African record :
Claim number : 16078
Sub-class :G-1 (Competition Records)
Category: General
Group : Formation Skydiving Records
Type of record : Longest sequence (4-Way)
Course/location : Menzelinsk (Russia)
Performance : 31 formations
Team: Voodoo
Members : David SUMTER (South Africa), Colin ROTHMAN (South Africa), Amy KIRTLAND (South Africa), Vana PARKER (South Africa), Helge HARMS (South Africa)
Date :01.08.2010
Previous record : no record set yet
This achievement is also registered as a South African record.
Congratulations Team Voodoo!
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Left to right: Helge Harms (camera), Dave Sumter,
Vana Parker, Amy Kirtland, Colin Rothman
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After a banging last weekend of 2010 operations, some 100th jump nakedness and a fat party… the Party Bus (fully loaded and packed with members from SkyDive Rustenburg and SkyDive Central) headed for Sossusvlei.
A day later (loaded with 4 skydivers, 1 pilot, 2 tandem rigs, 4 sports rigs, 2 pilots packs, 6 jerry cans, cameras and helmets, a battery pack, spare tyres, basic survival kit and scooby snacks) Atlas Angel Uriel flew from Rustenburg via Mafikeng, Upington and Keetmanshoop - for Sossusvlei . With passports in pockets, arrival at passport control in Keetmanshoop was via parachute.
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Altas Angel Uriel’s shadow flying between Swakopmund and Sossusvlei
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With everyone together again and in the visually stunning area of Sesriem Canyon and Sossusvlei we did several beautiful relaxed sunrise and early morning “nice and high” loads, with Graham swooping the Sossusvlei Lodge tower (every time!). Ehan Groenewald completed his AFF, Louise Krogmann did her first 10 seconds, a 7way was put together for Christine Daffie’s birthday, there was some freeflying, some wing suiting, some tandems… and in the middle of the desert we met Thys, a junior skydiver who travels with his log book and could also therefore come for a jump… Always travel with your log book!
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First load Sossusvlei – Llewellyn Stroebel,
Jackie Schoeman, Christine Daffie,
Francois Krös, Gerrit Lambert, Eddie Techman,
Frederik Potgieter, Herman Grobler
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Graham Field adds a dash of orange to Sossusvlei Lodge
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And this was all before we even arrived at The Desert Boogie.
At the Swakopmund SkyDiving Club 57 skydivers from 8 different countries registered for the Desert Boogie 2010 / 2011. A total of 80 loads went up… all of them to at least 12 000ft. A number of loads went “a little” higher… and some early morning loads went as high as 16 000ft. Pretty much 700 bodies were dropped with pre-arranged landings at various beaches and dunes in the area. 74 people were taken on Tandem Introductory Skydives and a number of people started, and finished Static Line Progression and AFF whilst the boogie was on…
We experienced Eddie Techman’s world famous pizzas and watched some original 16mm skydiving movies, there was nakedness, drunkenness, flaming footie, boots filled with bier and boots filled with brandy and coke, there were free jumps for people who picked up rubbish… and naturally a number of people did things for the first time which resulted in the consumption of some 111 litres of icy cold Jaegermeister - served in frozen glasses with much singing, shouting and joy.
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Graham Field adds a dash of orange to the Swakopmund SkyDiving Club
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Trouble and stress free operations in all departments and no injuries other than those caused by flaming footie or drunkenness! Well done to everyone for keeping it real, safe and real fun!
Eddie, Connie, everyone from the Swakopmund SkyDiving Club, Friends from SkyDive Central and SkyDive Rustenburg, as well as Angel Aviation / Angels’ Way Trust, Safe Flight Ops, Lew Pilot and everyone that was part of the Swakopmund Desert Boogie Angel SkyDive Expedition - a BIG thanks to you all.
Started by Malcolm (Mal) Atkinson <SA D-163>, The Desert Boogie has been going since 1978…. Lets keep it alive!
Dirty Bit.
Mike Rumble
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Lic/Rating
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Name
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Drop Zone
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A Licence
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A7063
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Robert Simonsmeier
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Skydive Cape Town
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A7064
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Amanda Benade
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EP Skydivers
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B Licence
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B2768
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Chris Botha
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Johannesburg Skydiving Club
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B2769
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Traci Scerri
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Johannesburg Skydiving Club
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B2770
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Fritz van Tonder
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Johannesburg Skydiving Club
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B2771
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Travis Piek
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Angels Way Skydiving Club
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B2772
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Lawrence Nortier
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Angels Way Skydiving Club
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B2773
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Arenhold Hooper
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Skydive Mossel Bay
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B2774
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Christo Nel
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EP Skydivers
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C Licence
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C1761
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David Ladell
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Angels Way Skydiving Club
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C1762
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Tania d'Argent
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Skydive Robertson
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D Licence
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D893
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Francois Krös
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Skydive Central
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PRO Rating
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PRO399
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Nico Vorster
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Angels Way Skydiving Club
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PRO400
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David Ladell
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Angels Way Skydiving Club
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Instructor Rating
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I193
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Liz Cooper
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Johannesburg Skydiving Club
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Thanks to Tim Mace for bringing this extract from the SOUTH AFRICAN AIRWAYS VOYAGER NEWSLETTER FEBRUARY 2011 to our attention:
Special Baggage Charges (for International and Domestic Journeys)
Special Baggage Charges are applicable on SA operating flights only. (SA 1000; 7000; 8000 series excluded)
The following sport equipment mentioned below, will allow an additional 20kg per passenger this is valid to both the Weight and Piece concept.
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For interlining and through-check-in on routings where other carriers are involved, passengers will be given the choice of checking-in the sport baggage for all the SA Airways 3-digit flight numbers free of charge and to check-in new for all non-SA Airways or do a through check-in and charge passenger for all sectors on the 1.5% per kg or applicable PC excess baggage rates.
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dPhi Wear Online Store
Suppliers of high quality skydiving t-shirts and apparel. Why wait for us to come to your DZ when you can get what you want directly from our website!
Contact: Claire King & Dirk Venter
Website: www.dphi.co.za/shop.aspx
Email: sales@dphi.co.za
Telephone: 011 609 6719
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Suppliers & Manufactures of fine Skydiving Equipment
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Need Skydiving Gear?
New or Second Hand
Reserve repacks and repairs
Accessories:
Jumpsuits, Parabags, Packing mats, Helmet Bags, Altimeters - Wrist mount & Audible, Helmets,
Hook Knives, Goggles, Skydiving Videos/DVD's, Skydiving T-Shirts
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Visit our Shop
138 - 7th Ave
Edenvale
Gauteng
Contact: Manuel Cordeiro
Website: www.icarus.co.za
Email: manny@icarus.co.za or icarusaw@global.co.za
Telephone: 011-452-8858 / 083-252-8720
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XEAS is a full service company specialising in digitising designs and embroidery which is available on a variety of garments. There is no minimum order quantity making it ideal for teams, clubs, special events, boogies, etc.
Contact: Joos Vos
Website: www.xeas.co.za
Email: joosvos@eastcape.net
Telephone: 046 636 2486
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Thank you to everyone who contributed to this issue. If you have any stories, pictures, comments or suggestions please send these to news@para.co.za
We would also like to invite everyone who sells, maintains and/or manufactures skydiving or related equipment to consider advertising in the newsletter. We currently distribute to over 1000 people. Contact admin@para.co.za for more details.
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PASA and the Toggle Times cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions,
due to all content being submitted without verification.
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