Man… what a week this was.
We landed in Finland on November 12th (Erik, Faris, and I) heading straight to Aeronautica Arena to celebrate chief instructor Jukka’s birthday. And the camp started before we even dropped our bags. We walked in, and saw our names were already on the scoreboard for an in-house competition and a huckjam Jukka had set up. Welcome to Finland, now fly.
The first evening already had us flying lines between the tubes we’d sent there, followed by the traditional Croatian gift: Pelin for a good old toast. After that, the party officially began -> people from different camps mixing, crazy surfing sessions, new faces, old friends, and the warmest possible welcome.
The next days were just full-on flying. As usual on camps, we all flew way more than planned. I think I booked 2.5 hours and somehow flew around 5. We shared time with flyers we had just met, joined jams organized by Jukka and manager Greg, and of course did our own huckjams because we never know when to stop. Pure chaos in the best possible way.
Then more people started arriving: Jukka’s students from Serbia, more friends from all over, including an entire crew bringing rakija as their official ''travel fuel''. Within two days Aeronautica felt like a big Balkan flying reunion. And as we all know: when the Balkans show up, the fun level goes through the roof.
Every evening was darts, billiards, hanging out, laughing, cheering on each other’s progress, and just building this crazy mix of community and family. And honestly, that’s the thing I love the most: The best part of all of this is making friends in this community that feel like you’ve known them your whole life, no matter where in the world they’re based. Us Croatians, with Slovenian, Serbian, Macedonian flyers -> we’re just one big group of friends making more friends every time we travel. And that’s the true core of skydiving and tunnel flying when you find the right people.
Flying goals were all over the place: some focused on HU/HD, some introducing newer flyers to freefly (and they made insane progress), others grinding belly, and me sticking to freestyle as usual. We even got an intro to dynamic flying which made leveling up and flying with each other way way better, more fun & controlled.
We also organized our own little competition inspired by Jukka, testing our belly speed-flying range. Basically how wide of a wind-speed window each of us could fly. Most of us could comfortably handle a range of about 20–30% from our lowest stable speed to our highest which shocked us because it’s super versatile and opens up so many future training options.
As we usually do, we did our uncoached shared sessions too: those blocks of time where we either push each other or work on whatever skill we want. The amount of fun we had there… I can’t even describe.
Aeronautica once again was the perfect host. We got to test all sorts of things: the new tubes, the tennis ball game Faris designed, Marko’s LED suit, and every random idea that popped up during breaks. It’s a place that makes us feel at home every time.
After around 10 days of flying and Balkan chaos, when everyone else headed home, the four of us Erik, Marko, Faris, and I decided to add one more stop and hopped over to Fööni in Helsinki for a final little session. Just a small cherry on top before returning to Zagreb.
Except… we didn’t return. Not right away.
Our connecting flight in Amsterdam got cancelled, so we “accidentally” gained one more whole night together. Maybe a cloud stopped us from flying, but the silver lining was very much there. A perfect, unexpected ending to wrap up an already insane trip.
Now we’re all still under heavy impressions, and already slowly cooking the next camp. Hopefully… you’ll join us on one of them too. And stay tuned, the video recap is coming, so everything I just wrote will finally have visuals to match the chaos.
I love especially the organizing side of their camps, everything is made really easy from coaches to flyers. Vibe on their camps is beyond what you can imagine 🤩 • Jukka @jukemsi