wahey, the main parachute i bought from the USA for my old kit finally arrived - it's 170sqft as opposed to the 190 that is currently in the container, but this is okay because containers are usually sized so you can go up or down a canopy size (the most common of the intermediate-to-advanced sizes being 190, 170, 150, 135, 120 ... there are smaller and larger, and slight variations between manufacturers, but that's roughly it). it's taken long enough to get here, i've been following it via online tracking - blokey posted it from Tampa, FL on the 4th, it left the USA on the 6th, arrived in the UK on the 12th and entered Customs almost immediately, where it was held for a few days and finally released in the early hours of the 16th / 17th ... so i thought, let's see about picking it up yesterday.

turns out it was held in a depot absolutely miles from where i am. i thought i was going to have to walk about 5 miles and take a train and two buses just to reach it. luckily i did a bit of research before leaving home, and there's a bus runs from the station in newcastle to about a mile from the depot in gateshead (probably a bit closer actually, but i didnt know where the buses stopped so i got off where i felt safe about my location). to top it all off, a woman at the busstop in newcastle had a ticket spare, so i got a free ride! anyway, it was a long enough journey, and i easily got 2 miles of walking in yesterday (despite it being my "day off" exercise and stuff). i did have to pay a whopping great fee of £76.79 (£26 customs charge, £42 VAT <--- WHAT?!!, and the rest was a Parcelforce handling fee) ... so the total cost of the contents once it was in my hands was somewhere in the region of £460, which i am okay with, but wow what an import charge!

anyway i got it home and took it out to have a look - it does look lovely, and it feels like it will pack very nicely too (not slippy or trapping TOO much air, it does have 650 jumps on it after all!) but the lines are nice (they were replaced 150 jumps ago) and i reckon getting it in the 190 bag will be do-able. the idea is to have it hooked up to my rig on saturday (rig currently being jumped in spain, coming home tomorrow), and i will take it for a test jump (or two) to see how it flies, what the flare is like, etc, before handing it over to the person i plan to hire the rig to for the coming 12ish months.

it's had a long journey, and im sure it will be happy to see flight again