Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Skydive Empuria Brava and their Beech 99 with its new paint scheme

A nice shot of Skydive Empuria Brava, located in Girona Spain, and it's Beech 99 featuring it's fairly new paint scheme that matches it's parent company Skydive Dubai's pattern. Not visible, but painted on the belly of the Beech is, "Land of the Sky", the company's slogan. This airplane is reported to be the fastest climbing jump plane in Europe.




Skydive Empuria Brava also has a De Havilland Twin Otter (EC-ISV) and Pilatus Porter (EC-EMZ) which I'm sure are next in line for the paint shop. 

Empuria Brava, the largest Drop Zone in Europe, was purchased by Skydive Dubai in November 2012. The King of Swoop will be hosted by Empuria Brava end of July 2014.

Friday, May 23, 2014

Meet Mickey Nuttall the ultimate Body Pilot!

One of the perks of being a Jump Pilot is that I get to meet some unique and super cool people. On a recent trip to Dallas I was honored to meet Mickey Nuttall, one of the best skydivers in the world. He happens to be good friends with my girlfriend Renee, they went to high school together and he actually introduced her to skydiving over a year ago. He was in Dallas coaching at the iFly wind tunnel where we met up with him.


Photo by Marvel Studios - Mickey Nuttall in the film Iron Man 3

After he was done coaching Renee, the three of us went to lunch where I was able to ask him a few questions about his very interesting career in skydiving.

Mickey started skydiving 20 years ago and I could tell that he is still passionate about it after all these years, which I can relate to with aviation. He has numerous gold medals from US Nationals, holds world records and has performed stunt skydives in popular television shows such as CSI Miami, The Unit and the infamous Jackass rigless skydive! He has also performed stunt skydives in the film Iron Man 3 and doubled for Will Smith for the KCA 2012 awards show.


Mickey Nuttall at iFly Dallas

He also enjoys BASE jumping, wingsuiting and speedflying. He lives in Colorado where he also loves snowboarding. Mickey's home drop zone is Skydive Chicago but you can find him touring the country competing and coaching at wind tunnel camps. If you need a first class skydive coach or tandem instructor contact him on his site Body Pilots!