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    Introducing the JFX 2 from NZ Aerosports

    “SAME SAME, BUT BETTER-ER”. The JFX 2. She's kinda familiar, but she has that shiny new kid appeal with her modern flair and style. Powerband, mini-ribs, all the bells and whistles. Take her for a ride, baby!
    We’ve done it again! We released the new version of our beloved JFX canopy, the JFX 2, on the 17th of January 2019. The original JFX was already a great canopy to fly with beautiful openings, great flight and the opportunity to land it gently or with a full-blown hissing swoop. Version 2.0 has not been a radical redesign: the JFX 2 stays true to all the things a canopy pilot loves, but now has all the kickass features they know and want in a modern cross-braced canopy: a powerband, mini-ribs and sail loaded ribs. This canopy is all about cross-braced performance with ease: cranking turns, raging swoops, gentle touchdowns!
    The JFX 2 is the go-to canopy for someone wanting to start their swoop journey, or for someone who wants a “do-it-all” wing with power which will maximise the good times and minimise the risk with plenty of playfulness. This canopy is the smoothest transition into flying high performance, cross-braced wings from an elliptical wing. It can be loaded light of heavy for consistent delivery in flight.

    JFX 2 | Icarus Canopies NZ from NZ Aerosports Ltd on Vimeo.
    The original JFX was the last of our canopies to be designed purely by Paul “Jyro” Martyn’s keen eye and 35+ years of experience. With the JFX 2 we’ve added a touch of fancy French Aerodynamic genius to the mix from our head designer Julien Peelman, and the result means incredible aerodynamics, refined performance and uncompromised aesthetics. Key features of the JFX 2:
    Powerband: debuted on the “Petra”, the Powerband lets us control the shape of the top surface of the wing more accurately, especially at the crucial leading edge where around 90% of lift is made Mini-ribs: These little additions in the tail are also a legacy from the “Petra” and “Leia” canopies. They decrease trailing edge drag, which has the function of increasing glide and flare performance - both things you can never get enough of “Minybrid” construction: A low-pack-volume take on our hybrid construction “Leia” canopies, the JFX 2 pioneers the minimal hybrid (Minybrid) wing. The loaded ribs - the ones the lines are attached to that experience the highest amount of stress and distortion - are made of sail fabric. This reduces rib distortion, helping the wing maintain its shape through all flight profiles, increasing glide, stability and responsiveness 21-chamber design: The JFX 2's sleek fully elliptical 21-chamber design captures the smoothed staged openings of the traditional 7-cell. She's crisp and responsive, yet it does not feel tense and edgy and packs some punch at the bottom end Closed Center Chamber: Inherited originally from the “FX” and “VX”, then redesigned for the “JVX”, the closed center chamber nose was the innovation that allowed cross-braced canopies to become popular by softening the openings, controlling distortion and improving aerodynamics. It's not the latest but probably one of the most important of Jyro's contributions to modern canopy design!
    Images by Chris Stewart/NZ Aerosports
    Key flight characteristics:
    Openings: JFX 2 openings are predictable, soft and not scary! Reliable, consistent and stunning as always, openings are the ace card of this canopy Harness inputs: inputs are light and instinctive, and very responsive. She can be flown entirely on harness with ease - we actually prefer to fly a lot of harness with the JFX 2 Toggles: Powerful and responsive even at the bottom end - even more so than the original JFX Stall point: The slow flight characteristics are hugely improved from the original JFX. The stall point is slower and lower - get plenty of feedback and warning, both on toggles and rears Fronts: Loaded high, lightly and even underloaded; the feedback of the fronts will be great. A bit of slowing down needed before a bigger turn to reduce the pressure on the fronts, but they are very effective for getting into the dive Dive & Recovery: The dive on the JFX 2 is longer than the original JFX, but not as long as on the Leia. With a slow, predictable (and easily adjustable) recovery arc, the JFX 2 is ideal to get those bigger rotations dialled in.

    By Meso, in News,

    Aerodyne Semi-Stowless Deployment Bag Service Bulletin

    Subject: Exchange of Aerodyne semi-stowless deployment bags supplied for Icon harness & container systems.
    Status: Mandatory.
    Compliance: Completed by April 30th, 2018.
    Authority: Gordon Sellers, President Aerodyne Research LLC
    Date of issue: December 18, 2017
    Identification: All semi-stowless deployment bags, with side tuck tabs and magnetic mouth closure, sold with our Icon containers or as a spare part from June 2015 until October 31st, 2017.
    This bulletin does not affect the semi-stowless deployment bags delivered after Nov. 1st, 2017, which have red stow pockets for the magnetic mouth closure system.

    Background
    In 2015, Aerodyne began to offer a semi-stowless deployment bag as an option. In the last year there have been reported irregularities with premature releasing of lines (known as a line dump) where this bag has been in use.
    Aerodyne has thousands of Icons in the field for many years with regular deployment bags using rubber stow bands with no known issues regarding line control during deployment.
    Based on these reports, Aerodyne has performed additional tests on the design of the semi-stowless bag in different conditions. These conditions accounted for a wide variety of variables such as canopy sizes related to the bag size, types of canopy fabrics, types of lines, opening speeds, and more importantly, a variation of canopy packing techniques that we understand are used in the field.
    Through this additional testing we have determined that some of these conditions can exist, causing a premature release of lines from the bag. This uncontrolled deployment of lines may cause variations in opening characteristics, and could lead to lines being caught on the container or jumper.
    As a result of continued development of Aerodyne’s products, an improved semi-stowless deployment bag has been designed which better addresses these issues. These bags are delivered with all new Icon containers where this option is required.
    To increase safety for everyone using the semi-stowless design, Aerodyne wishes to offer every Icon owner to have the latest version of this bag.
    Thus, Aerodyne has decided to offer an exchange program and upgrade all the original semi-stowless deployment bags, and remove the first version of bags from further use. This replacement bag and return shipping to you will be at no charge to the customers, and will not distinguish if the bag is in a rig that is sold second hand. Simply put, if it’s an Aerodyne semi-stowless bag, Aerodyne will exchange it to the new version free of charge.
    Until users have received their new bags and wish to jump their equipment, we recommend that the packing instructions for the semi-stowless bag be noted and followed. We have experienced a variety of packing methods on the semi-stowless bags in the field, and would remind users that free stowing lines in any type of a semi-stowless bag is a technique that requires understanding and attention.
    Action Required
    In an effort to minimize disruption for our customers, we are in the process of manufacturing the new replacement bags and the practical exchange can start from the second week of January 2018. New semi-stowless deployment bags will be exchanged upon return of the original semi-stowless bag.
    To prepare the exchange of these bags, and for Aerodyne to manage the program in the best possible manner, customers must register on Aerodyne’s website. This can be done as soon as possible.
    Actions for customers to take:
    Visit https://www.flyaerodyne.com/registration/ and register your request for exchange. Please note this is important, even if you don’t send in the bag straight away. You will receive an email acknowledgement of your registration. Please keep this for your records. Please print and include a copy of this document when you return your bag for exchange. We will start the exchange process from the second week of January. With about 500 bags in 10 different sizes in the field, bags will be manufactured and made available in the order they are requested. The sooner you send your bag in, the earlier it will be replaced. Bags will only be exchanged upon receipt of old bag. If you have no need for a new bag immediately, please wait a while and let your skydiving friends who are active and maybe in a more jumpable climate get their bags first.
    Exchange Centers
    To aid in the process of distribution, after registration old bags – with a copy of the registration – can be returned to the nearest exchange center to you. Once received we will process a replacement and send within two weeks.
    North and South America (USA Canada, Mexico, South America)

    Aerodyne Research LLC,

    1407 Flightline Blvd, Unit 14, Deland FL 32724
    Europe

    Aerodyne Research Europe c/o Herman Landsman

    Hoofdweg 101, 1795 JC De Cocksdorp, Holland
    Australia

    Mee Loft c/o Koppel Solomon

    84 Park Rd, Woolloongabba, QLD 4102
    Rest of World (Africa, Far East)

    Aerodyne Research Manufacturing

    115 Marshall Drive, Crawdord Factories, Mount Edgecombe, South Africa 4300

    By admin, in News,

    C-182 Crash: A First Jump Story

    All was going well last Saturday, September 28. It was a pretty day in Beaver Oaks, Oregon, and Skydive Inc. had put up about 12 loads. There had been no previous incidents, but we all know that things can change rapidly. And on that load, they did.
    Rick Liston, Craig Wilwers, John Allen, and Chris Lattig were planning on launching a casual 4-way from the private DZ's C-182. All had been jumping together for a while, and all were very familiar with the dz. The pilot, Travis Marshall, was known to be a competent pilot, and very interested in ferrying jumpers. Marshall had sat through many weekends watching first jump courses taught by Ralph Hatley, the S&TA; of the dz, and always wore a bail-out rig. All participants were comfortable, and ready to make this last jump of the day a fun and memorable one...and, to top it off, there was a birthday party being readied on the ground for Rick Liston.
    Reaching jumprun at an altitude of 10,500 feet, the jumpers knelt, moved forward, and arranged themselves at the door. The first jumper positioned himself, and Rick Liston moved to his position between the door and the strut with his back to the prop, sort of sitting on the strut with one foot on the step (the position is often referred to as the "crotch" position). The third jumper began moving into his position. No-one was dreaming, and yet, the nightmare was about to unfold.
    According to Hatley, that was when Liston noticed his D-bag on the floor between his legs. He tried to recover the bag, but the lines began unstowing, wrapping around the strut. The lines snaked over the front of the strut, and they were wrapping around the gear leg when Liston released his main canopy and fell away from the plane. As he cut away, the canopy escaped from the bag, and part of it caught on the step, with the rest catching and snarling on the horizontal stabilizer and elevator. One of the jumpers grabbed his hookknife, and tried to cut the canopy away from the plane, but lost his grip on the knife and it went out the door. Liston deployed his reserve uneventfully. The other jumpers all followed suit and left the disabled plane, and, as they still had plenty of altitude, did not use their reserves but opened their mains. They all landed uneventfully at the dz.
    But that's not the whole story. The rest of the story began when the jumpers left the plane, and the pilot was alone in a damaged and uncontrollable aircraft.
    Travis Marshall had successfully struggled to maintain control of the plane to allow the jumpers time to exit safely. But he had never jumped before, and he knew he had to do it this time. As the jumpers left the plane and deployed, Marshall began to lose what little control he had of the C-182. The plane inverted, and went into a flat spin, pinning Marshall to his seat. Unfazed, Marshall shut down the plane, and notified air traffic control that he had an emergency. He then activated the transponders, climbed out of the pilot's seat, and, while the plane was still upside down and spinning, somehow managed to climb out onto the wing of the plane. Holding on to the wing, he clearly heard Hatley screaming "ARCH!!" in his head. So, as Marshall let go of the wing, he did the only thing he could do...he arched. Hard.
    Upon leaving the plane at about 6,000 feet, Marshall fell a short distance, and then reached for the ripcord and deployed a round canopy. Trying desperately to remember how to manage the canopy ride, he was able to steer towards a clearing about a mile away from the dz. As he approached the ground, he got ready to plf as he had only watched people doing. But he must have seen enough of them, because he plf'ed, and stood up with nothing worse than a few bruises to show for his first jump. He gathered up his gear, and began the walk back to the dz.
    During his walk back, he met Hatley in the truck. As Marshall climbed in, Hatley recalls, Marshall's first comments were "that was a hard opening", and "man, I threw the ripcord away." Hatley laughs as he recounts this, glee and disbelief in his voice that those were the concerns Marshall had. "Can you imagine? That's what he was worried about. Losing the ripcord!".
    "Everyone was fine" states Hatley. "Every last one of them performed exactly as they had trained to do. I always tell my students and jumpers to identify the problem, react to the problem, and don't procrastinate. These men - well, that's exactly what they did. And they all walked away."
    When asked if there was anything wrong with the aircraft, per the Oregon State Police's press release, he emphatically rejected that idea.
    "Nothing wrong with the plane, nothing wrong with the parachute. The FAA has already cleared the rig Liston was wearing, and the plane was in fine working order. It got a parachute wrapped around the strut and the tail. That's enough to cause the crash! Everyone kept their heads and no one even got hurt. That's the important part. No one even got hurt."
    Hatley continued, "the jumpers had gear checks before getting on the plane, and Liston's pilot chute was still in it's pocket when he first saw the D-bag. The only thing we can figure is the pin got knocked loose somehow. C-182's are crowded with 4 jumpers and a pilot. The pin was checked, and it was fine. The rig was checked, and it was fine. All we can figure is it (the pin) got knocked loose somehow. Sometimes, stuff happens. This was one of those times".
    Hatley was gracious with his time, and thanked Dropzone.com for trying to get the story out to the jumpers. "While the mainstream media has been very good, and not sensationalizing this, it's also complicated for non-jumpers to understand how something like this can happen."
    Hatley concluded with this comment: "remember that when something happens, it happens fast. Identify, react, and don't procrastinate taking action to save yourself. And have safe jumps!"

    By admin, in News,

    Two die as skydiver hits glider

    Two people fell to their deaths after a freak mid-air collision when a skydiver smashed through the wing of a glider. The glider's pilot also died in the collision at around 2,000ft, which happened at Hinton Airfield, near Brackley, Northants, at about 1500 BST on Saturday.
    The wing of the glider was knocked off by the force of the impact and both people were killed instantly, a spokesman for the Air Accidents Investigations Branch said.

    A Northamptonshire police spokesman said the glider came down in a field close to the private airfield.
    Investigation launched
    Among the first to arrive at the scene was a crew from Two Shires Ambulance Service who confirmed the deaths.
    A spokesman said: "We arrived to find a parachutist was deceased and the glider pilot also deceased.
    "There were no other casualties."
    An AAIB spokesman said few details of the accident were available but confirmed the tragedy.
    "A parachutist flew into the glider knocking off its wing," he said.
    "There are two fatalities ... the pilot and the parachutist."
    Investigators are due to attend the scene to establish in greater detail how the accident happened - they will be assisted by the Parachute Association.

    Staff at Hinton Skydiving Centre, which is based at the airfield, were unable to comment as the incident is being investigated.
    ~ BBC

    By admin, in News,

    Second Skydiver this Month dies in South Africa

    A 35-year old Pretoria man died in Eugene Marais Hospital last night (13 May), hours after plunging several hundred metres to the ground in a parachuting accident at the Wonderboom airport late yesterday afternoon. Mark Farrell was the second man to die in a parachuting accident at the airport in the past month.
    Police spokesman, Superintendent Morné van Wyk, said Farrell had plunged to the ground when his parachute apparently became entangled at about 5:30pm.
    A hospital spokesman said Mr Farrell sustained serious injuries to his head, face and chest. He died at 7:25pm, almost two hours after the accident. Van Wyk said an inquest would be held to determine exactly what had gone wrong.

    By admin, in News,

    Instructor honored posthumously for saving student

    PITTSBURGH -- Robert Bonadies was falling at a rate of about 176 feet per second when he grasped the rip cord of a student who had tumbled out of control, saving her life and sacrificing his own. Bonadies, 47, of Vernon, Conn., was one of 21 people honored Thursday by the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, established in 1904 to recognize human courage under extreme conditions.
    He died on May 6, 2002 while instructing students at Connecticut Parachutists, Inc., near Hartford, Conn.
    Bonadies, called Bobo by friends and family, was passionate about skydiving and running. His wake was attended by an estimated 4,000 people from both communities, including those he had taught to jump from planes and finish marathons.
    The wake lasted more than five hours, said his friend and fellow instructor at Connecticut Parachutists, Inc., Don Semon.
    "The circumstances were pretty shocking for everybody, but in this type of work, things happen quickly," Semon said. "Certain people act in certain ways."
    Bonadies was performing an "accelerated free fall" from 12,000 feet with another instructor and two students, Semon said.
    The student began to tumble around 5,500 feet and was unable to activate her chute, authorities said.
    "The procedure is, at 2,000 feet, if a student's canopy is not open, you open your own chute and look out for yourself," Semon said. "You've done everything you can."
    Bonadies stuck by his student as she hurtled toward the earth until he was able to activate her chute, enabling her to touch down safely, witnesses said.
    Traveling at 120 mph, it was only seconds before Bonadies was killed.
    He had been diving since the mid-1970s and was a veteran of more than 2,700 jumps, Semon said.
    Bonadies was one of five people honored with the Carnegie Medal posthumously. He is survived by his wife, Lisa and two teenage children.
    Also honored Thursday was Michael K. Daley, of Mount Washington, Ky. Daley, 47, a salesman, squeezed under the cabin of a tractor-trailer that had caught fire, trapping a woman inside.
    Daley suffered first-degree burns while pulling the woman from the fiery wreck in Jeffersontown, Ky., on Feb. 5, 2002. The woman spent five months in a hospital recovering from extensive burns.
    Another medal recipient was 46-year-old firefighter Jerome F. Fryer, of Hamburg, N.J.
    Fryer ran from his station during a shootout in March 2001 to aid a police officer who lay wounded just outside.
    With police exchanging fire with two men, Fryer helped the officer to the station where he and other firefighters treated him for a gunshot wound to the leg until further medical help arrived.
    Industrialist Andrew Carnegie started the hero fund after being inspired by rescue stories from a mine disaster that killed 181 people.
    Awards are given only to those the commission feels risked their life to an extraordinary degree in attempting to save the life of another in the United States or Canada. On-duty emergency workers and police are not honored unless their actions are clearly beyond the call of duty.
    The awards, bronze medals that come with $3,500 for the honorees or their survivors, are issued five times a year.
    About $26.4 million has been issued in one-time grants, scholarship aid, death benefits and continuing assistance over 99 years.

    By admin, in News,

    Squadron Leader Harry Ward, AFC, Parachutist, Dies at Age 97

    Squadron Leader Harry Ward, AFC, parachutist, was born on June 1, 1903. He died on July 24 aged 97
    IN THE heyday of the travelling air circuses of the 1930s, the former RAF parachutist Harry Ward toured the world, from Ireland to India, astonishing crowds with his death-defying "birdman" leaps from rickety biplanes. In his winged costume - which imparted a measure of control over the freefall - Ward was an early forerunner of today's skydivers.
    Ward's costumes were different from those of his fellow birdmen in one important respect. Far too many of those daredevil parachutists stunned the crowds by making a lasting impression on the ground when their chutes became entangled in fanciful clothing. Ward incorporated a release mechanism into his rig, to enable him to jettison his wings before he pulled the ripcord, so reducing the risk of snagging his parachute. In this way he lived to rejoin the RAF at the outbreak of the Second World War and serve as a parachute instructor.
    Henry Wilfred Ward was born in Hackney six months before the Wright brothers first flew. His first passion was painting and he studied at Bradford School of Art from 1919 to 1921. But he was one of seven children and there was no money to support a struggling artist, so he joined the fledgeling RAF and trained as a carpenter-rigger.
    He later went to the parachute section at Northolt as a packer, and became a parachutist himself when the commanding officer challenged him to jump with a chute he had just packed. He made his first descent from the wing of a Vickers Vimy biplane bomber. When the RAF's crack parachutist, Corporal Arthur East, was killed making a jump, Ward took his place in the RAF's demonstration team. (During the First World War parachutes had been discouraged on the assumption that flying without them "makes the chaps try harder".)
    But when the parachute ceased to be a novelty, the demonstration team was disbanded, and with the RAF in decline as the Twenties wore on Ward left the Service in 1929. On the strength of an RAF driving licence he became a London bus driver, and when the bus company formed its own flying club he volunteered to make a parachute jump at the opening ceremony.
    He was soon earning more from display jumping than from bus driving, so he left his job for the life of the travelling air circus. In the days long before steering toggles he attained a high degree of manoeuvring expertise with a simple 24ft canopy.
    With the circuses becoming less popular as the decade moved towards its close, Ward worked briefly as a mechanic for Imperial Airways before becoming a civilian instructor at the RAF's apprentice school at Cosford. He rejoined the RAF at the outbreak of the war and was soon helping to set up a parachute training school, to produce airborne forces.
    The first aircraft were Whitley bombers, with a hole in the floor in place of the ventral gun turret, through which the parachutists had to jump.Ward produced a prototype helmet, from strips of foam rubber purloined from his landlord's sofa, to afford the troops some protection against the hazards of dropping through the narrow slit. He also helped to prove the feasibility of using barrage balloons for parachutists' initial training.
    He was awarded the Air Force Cross in 1942 and posted to the staff of the Army's 1st Airborne Division. He finished the war as a squadron leader at the headquarters of 38 Group at Netheravon.
    A civilian again in 1945, he managed officers' clubs in Greece and Germany. Returning to England in 1951, he ran a succession of hotels and pubs in Yorkshire.
    He was twice married. His second wife predeceased him, but he is survived by two sons.

    By admin, in News,

    Acampo Sky Diver Dies in Jump

    Nicole Cadiz wanted one more sky dive before the day's end, but she never expected it to be her last.
    The 26-year-old woman died Saturday evening after winds ripped off her harness during a 13,500-foot free fall at the Parachute Center in Acampo, just north of Lodi, according to the San Joaquin County Coroner's Office.
    Cadiz, an experienced parachutist with more than 1,000 jumps under her belt, had executed eight leaps earlier in the day.
    Then, on her ninth just before 7:40 p.m., high-velocity winds snatched her harness and chute off her back.
    Parachute Center owner Bill Dause said Cadiz then attempted, but failed, to get back into her harness, and she plummeted to the ground.
    Paramedics found her in a neighboring vineyard.
    Her new husband, Anthony, was one of seven others making the jump with Cadiz.
    Dause attributed the accident to an unclipped chest strap -- which he could not explain -- and Cadiz's upside-down position in midair.
    "Skydiving is a high-risk act, but with the equipment we have, it's got to be a combination of things that go wrong for that to happen," he said. "It wasn't just that the chest strap was undone, but also her position in the air."
    The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration investigates parachuting accidents, but representatives from the agencies could not be reached Sunday.
    Cadiz, an Acampo resident, worked as a manicurist in Lodi, though friends said her real passion was sky diving every weekend at the Parachute Center, where she first learned the sport seven years ago and became adept enough to work as a sky videographer.
    "She loved sky diving, she was always here," said a 21-year-old friend who was one of seven others with Cadiz on her fatal jump. "She was well-liked by everyone here. Her whole life was this drop zone."
    "It's just devastating, we're all devastated by this," added Jan Davis, who was editing a parachuting videotape on Sunday.
    The last parachuting death in the Sacramento region occurred at the Parachute Center last October when a 23-year-old Orangevale man committed suicide, said coroner's Deputy Al Ortiz.
    Nationwide, 32 of the 3.25 million parachute jumps made in 1997 resulted in fatalities, according to the U.S. Parachute Association, an Alexandria, Va.-based group that sets safety and training guidelines for the sport.
    Some at the Parachute Center were visibly shaken Sunday, but they still moved about the hangarlike building, packing their parachutes and watching others descend from the sky.
    Dause said parachutists understand their sport's inherent dangers and know that tragedies like Cadiz's can happen. Still, their love of the sport compels them to continue.
    "Everybody's sad," he said between flights. "But we've just got to bite our tongues and keep going."
    To see more of the Sacramento Bee, or to subscribe, go to http://www.sacbee.com
    © 2000 Sacramento Bee.

    By admin, in News,

    The Secret of Banana Hammock

    A Few Nuggets of Golden Advice from a Winning Self-Funded Skydiving Team
      It starts like a bad joke: a Californian (Kenny Beach), an Italian (Alessandro “Alex” Struppa) and a Frenchman (Lawrence De Laubadere) walk into a skydiving competition...
    “Our team name was Banana Hammock,” Kenny grins. “We decided that while we were drunk ice skating.”
    Yep. Banana Hammock.
    “Alex made a logo,” he continues. “It’s a banana in a hammock with his hands in the air. His arms are my jumpsuit and his legs are my teammate’s jumpsuit, and the banana is drinking a martini.”
    The punchline of the joke? Banana Hammock took the 2-way MFS gold at the 2014 Nationals. (*Rimshot*!) It was a damned good result, especially considering where Kenny was at the outset.
    “When we did our first team jumps,” Kenny remembers, “Alex was already able to fly head down and pick up grips. I would leave on my head and then flop away and fall past. Byyyyyye.”
    As it turns out, the road from flopping to flying your way to the top of a national podium is paved with very intentionally-executed intentions. Without meticulous planning and open team communication, there’s very little chance you’ll ever make it to the first round. And, for most mere mortals on self-funded teams, you’ll have a very limited number of chances to get it right before the money and/or the wherewithal runs out. The struggle is real.
    That said: If you’re looking for an example of a skydiving team done right, this is it. Banana Hammock not only walked away with a gold medal but with the teammates’ friendships intact--gold within gold--and Kenny is willing to share the wisdom he gleaned from that epic endeavor.
    1. Compete for the right reasons.
    When Kenny was first looking for teammates, he ran into a lot of friction from people who simply didn’t want to compete without the guarantee of a win.
    “You have to understand that it isn’t the winning that makes you better,” Kenny observes. “It’s the fact that you are getting in with a like-minded, dedicated group of people and you are doing the same skydives over and over with them. You each learn how the other flies, and then you can focus on the really fine details.”
    “When you train to compete, as long as you approach it from the mentality I’m not going to win, I’m going to become a better skydiver and I’m going to use this as a tool to buckle down as if I’m trying to win,” he muses, “then you will be giving yourself the opportunity to learn all these particular skills within whatever discipline you’re training, in a really focused environment.”
    2. Overstaff.
    The most deadly contingency for most skydiving teams is that of the suddenly-absent member. Shore up.
    “If you want to do a 4-way team, find 8 people,” Kenny says. “If you want to do an 8-way team, find 16. People are going to bail on you. I’ve seen teams that have been destroyed a week before Nationals because their outside center flyer decided he couldn’t go to Nationals anymore and the entire team’s training was shot because they didn’t have a backup. Make sure you have more people than you need.”
    3. Start talking.
    Got some people interested? Great. Now it’s open-communication time.
    “When you get the people, put together the plan for your schedule and the goal of what you want to achieve: to win; to place; to develop; whatever that is. Figure what everyone wants to do and find a general consensus. For example: You might have one person who is, like, I want to win the Worlds this year and somebody else who is, like, I just want to see what a competition is like. Both of those people won’t get what they want. The person who just wants to see what it is like isn’t going to put the energy in to train hard enough to win the Worlds. You are going to have to meet in the middle if it’s going to work. Find people you can work with and who will work together for compatible goals.”
    At some point along this journey, emotions are bound to escalate. When that happens, be ready. Kenny advocates getting everyone into a quiet room and passing around a talking stick (or a talking altimeter or a talking helmet or a talking rock or whatever ya got).
    4. Everybody gets a job.
    Kenny insists that, once the team is in agreement about the goals, it’s time to give everyone a very specific set of roles to play.
    “Try to divide up the responsibilities for each member,” he says. “Have one person be responsible for making sure there is coffee in the morning; one person be responsible for making sure the video flyer gets taken care of; one person be responsible for making sure your pack jobs are done. You’ll pool your resources to pay for everything, of course, but have the admin jobs divided up so that everyone is responsible for part of the team so it comes together as a fully functioning unit. You don’t want one person getting stressed because they’re having to do everything. Everyone shares ownership.”
    5. Plan down to the minute detail, and do it on paper.
    “I think the thing that helped us the most was sitting down and getting a calendar and scheduling out every single day we were going to train, with concrete goals lined out. Not just, We want to win Nationals. Instead: We want to win Nationals and have this kind of average point. We put down on the calendar what skills we needed to work on at what time, and we broke it down to be really structured around what we were going for.”
    That hyper-detailed schedule might sound imprisoning; for Kenny, it was anything but. It gave him the freedom he needed to dedicate himself completely to the task.
    “If I knew that in the month of February, I would be at Paraclete for the second week and training three full days over the last weekend, then when February comes around, I’d know exactly what my schedule was going to look like to plan ahead for work. The strictness of the schedule ensured that we were getting the number of jumps we needed, the amount of tunnel time we needed and the amount of work we needed, all within our schedules.”
    Not a spreadsheet nerd? No problem. You’ll get the hang of it.
    “I literally had no experience of even how to set up a schedule,” he adds. “I went from working at McDonald’s to a full time skydiver, and then I quit my job to pack parachutes.”
    In fact, Banana Hammock’s training schedule derived from a 4-way-specific structural starting point gifted to Kenny by uber-competitor Dan B.C. The team agreed on a certain number of jumps and a certain number of tunnel hours that they needed to accomplish in the nine intervening months between their training start date and the Nationals competition in October. From there, it was a matter of division--but with a twist.
    6. Cluster ‘em up.
    “You just divide up the jumps by the number of months you have available,” Kenny explains, “but you try to schedule so you are trying to do your month’s jumps in 2-to-4 day time period. You don’t want to do 40 training jumps over the entire month. You want to do 40 training jumps in 3 days and then maintain currency the rest of the month. That way you are honing in and developing those skills rather than just maintaining some vague point of currency. Like: Do I transition on my right or my left shoulder? Do I back up two feet or a foot? When you do 10 jumps in a day, you can dial that in. If not, you are not going to get that level of resolution.”
    7. Then plan for the contingencies.
    “Then we went on to build a plan for all of the things we could think of that could possibly go wrong,” he continues. “When we did our first team jumps, we had already had a contract that we had written up and both signed that said, ‘if this happens, this is what we are going to do.’ That way there was no animosity between us if any of it happened.”
    Happily--and somewhat predictably--but for a few speed bumps, Banana Hammock ended up cruising cheerfully along its well-oiled tracks to meet its golden goal. While the team decided not to compete again (self-funded, y’know), Kenny reports that everyone involved considered it a happy ending, and he, for one, is glad he took the time to do it right.
    “The best advice I can give you,” he smiles, “Is don’t give up. Don’t quit. It won’t always seem like it, but it is worth it. If you’ve ever considered competing, you owe it to yourself to try.”
     

    By nettenette, in News,

    Skydiving Plane Carrying 22 Crashes in Texas

    DECATUR, Texas (AP) - A single-engine plane carrying 21 skydivers and a pilot flew into turbulence and crashed shortly after takeoff from an airfield east of Decatur on Saturday, injuring five people but killing no one, the pilot and a Department of Public Safety official said. Pilot Tom Bishop, 58, said the takeoff was normal until the 1956 Dehavilland reached about 300 feet.
    He said a wing was caught by a "dust devil," a whirlwind that normally travels along the ground like a small tornado and becomes visible because of the dust it sucks into the air.

    "It just got under my left wing and rolled the plane to the right. I counter-acted with the rudder and aileron in the opposite direction, but there wasn't enough altitude to recover," said Bishop. The pilot said he had flown for 45 years - 30 for Delta Air Lines.
    Bishop said he planned to climb to 14,000 feet, the altitude from which the skydivers would jump.
    One of the skydivers was in the cockpit with him and was unconscious after impact, Bishop said.
    "We got everyone else out. I didn't know what was wrong with him, just that he wasn't breathing, and I began giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Then I noticed his seat belt seemed to be cutting off his air, and when I released that, he immediately took a breath," said Bishop, who suffered a broken rib.
    Bishop and his wife, Jean, own Skydive Texas which is based at Bishop Airport, a private airfield east of Decatur, about 40 miles north of Fort Worth. She was not aboard the plane.
    "It was traumatic. But I was expecting to see a lot worse," said Danny Timmons, a jumpmaster who was in the hangar at the private field from which the plane took off.
    Timmons said he heard the crash at about 12:30 p.m. and ran three-quarters of a mile through mud, losing both shoes, to find most of the skydivers already out of the plane.
    Timmons said if anyone had been flying but Bishop, who flew competition aerobatics for 10 years, "I believe there would be dead people. He brought it down in the safest manner he could."
    Timmons said most of those on the plane were experienced skydivers who jump each weekend. He said injuries were mostly broken legs and ribs.
    Texas DPS spokeswoman Tela Mange said the injured were taken to hospitals by helicopter. One person was listed in serious condition, three were stable and one was fair, she said.
    "My heart just fell," said Renee Thrasher, a Bishop family friend who drove to the crash site. "They're wonderful family friends. Jean has been there when I've needed anything. The whole family has."
    Marty Deiss, who lives less than a mile from the field, said she had seen many skydiving trips taking off and landing. "I would have no problem flying with them," she said.

    By admin, in News,

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