Who knew that Eloy, AZ would have a very large skydiving center? This location has places to stay, a restaurant, shops, training centers, packing locations, and a very large vertical wind tunnel. Skydivers world-wide come to Eloy to train and practice in the great weather here.
Turns out that the locals go with lawn chairs in hand to spend the afternoon watching perfectly good planes discharge skydivers overhead only to land in the grass field in front of them. The accuracy is amazing.
Being so close, I thought that I would take the camera and check it out. Upon arriving, the main parking lot was full so I pointed the Silver Fox to the overflow lot. The truck is feeling better after some extensive front-end work this week (thanks extended warranties!).
As luck would have it, a group was landing as soon I made my way through the lot.
Everyone is all smiles as they gather their equipment.
The planes took off today about every 20 minutes and discharged their passengers at 13,500 feet.
A large group in two planes attempted a tandem jump and took group photos before their jump (is that saying something?).
A new friend from Norway was part of this group. He only had about 1200 jumps because as his children were growing up all of their babysitters refused to work for them if they were going skydiving! He started jumping anew when they were grown.
One of the activities is to land kicking the beach ball.
This guy didn’t miss.
The wind tunnel can be seen for miles in the flat desert landscape.
Visitors are allowed to watch so I checked it out. It does not lend itself to photos but the activity is a spectacle.
When all was said and done, it was not a bad way to spend an afternoon.
Piddlin' Around 