Places on an 11,000 feet tandem skydive event taking place at Jurby in June are going fast. The Children’s Centre has a limited number of places left for what will be rare opportunity to skydive on the Island. Tandem skydiving gives novices to parachuting the opportunity to experience one of the best adrenaline fuelled extreme sports available. Each participant will be assigned to a fully qualified and experienced instructor from the Black Knights Parachute Centre who will give full training on the day. Experts from the centre, which is based near Lancaster, will be visiting the Island to run the event at Jurby Airfield on June 1 in conjunction with Motofest.
When the training is complete the charity skydivers will jump from 11,000 feet while attached to their instructor. They will experience an amazing 60 seconds or so of ‘free fall’ reaching speeds of up to 120mph. Mark Eastham, Fundraising Co-ordinator for The Children’s Centre, said:
“This is a great chance to do something amazing and combine the best 60 seconds of your life with raising money for a good cause. The first flight is already fully-booked, but interest in this fantastic event is such that we are now booking places for additional flights. But we expect them to go quickly so I would urge anyone who doesn’t want to miss out to sign-up as soon as possible. It’s not often that it’s possible to skydive here on the Island, and we are very grateful to Black Knights Parachute Centre who will be running the event for us.”
Paul Yeoman, Chief Club Instructor at the Black Knights Parachute Centre, said tandem jumping was an opportunity for anyone to experience the thrill of skydiving. He said:
“We’re really looking forward to visiting the Isle of Man, it will be a very spectacular experience for us and the charity participants. The training requirements for tandem skydiving involve a 20 minute pre-jump briefing by a highly experienced British Parachute Association Instructor. After this, the participants will be provided with a skydiver's jumpsuit to go over their clothes. After fitting the tandem parachute harness, appropriate headgear and goggles, it will take around 14 minutes in the aircraft to reach jump altitude. After exiting the aircraft you will freefall until the instructor opens the main parachute at about 5,000 feet. Freefall speeds will touch around 120 miles per hour and then the descent under the large square parachute will take several minutes, during which time you will help to steer it down to the landing area. Participants can even have one of our freefall camera flyers join them on their tandem skydive and take a memorable freefall video to show their friends.”
All proceeds go to The Children’s Centre’s charitable projects including Mobex, Out2Play, Child Contact Centre, Community Development and the Community Farm. To secure your place you just need to pay a ?99 deposit and pledge to raise a minimum of ?250. The cost of the skydive will come out of the money you raise.
Those aged 18 to 39 will have to make a self-declaration that they are fit to take part in the skydive, while those aged 16 or 17 will need permission from their parent or guardian. Under-16s are not allowed to take part, but there is no upper age limit as long as the participant has medical clearance. Participants aged 40 and over will need to see their GP and ask them to sign a Tandem Student Declaration of Fitness form (called Form 115) and bring it with them on the day of the skydive. Form 115 can be downloaded from The Children’s Centre website (see below for link).
Men over 15 stone and women over 13 stone will not usually be allowed to take part – however, body mass index (BMI) and fitness will be taken into account. Full event details can be found at http://www.thechildrenscentre.org.im/adventure-events/ which also allows you to register online. If you have any queries phone 676076 or email fundraising@thechildrenscentre.org.im
Photo - A photo a Black Knights Parachute Centre tandem skydive – the company will be giving The Children’s Centre fundraisers the chance to skydive from 11,000feet over Jurby on June 1.
