Skydive the Flying V Ranch

So I went to the Flying V Ranch this weekend to make a few jumps. I'll just say that It's been a while since I've had that much fun at a DZ. There were great people, great jumps, and good times all around.

First, Van made me feel right at home from the first time I talked to him on the phone to the time I left this morning. He had a "my house is your house" way of running thing. That is to say he let us fun jumpers stay in his air conditioned basement (also the packing area) for our entire stay. He had a shower that we could use, a pool we could swim in, and a grill that we were free to make whatever we wanted.

Second, he scheduled his tandems in such a way that every other load was a fun jumper load (on a 206 that's a max of 6 people). Yesterday I made 6 jumps out of the 11 loads that went up. We did some freefly, I lurked a tandem, and had a great time doing some jumps with a skyball. Speaking of the skyball, the guy who owned the thing gave all of us on the jump a rubber band. When I asked why we would need this he told me "If you end up with the ball by 6,000' you're keeping it till you get to the ground". Then he explained that how at 3,000' the ball would split spiilling the shot so after deployment, if you had the ball, you would have to put a rubber band on it. After this was explained it went from a game of catch in freefall to a game of hot potato.

All in all this was a stellar jump weekend for me. I met some great folks, had some awesome food, drank a bunch of beer, shot at some frogs, had awesome jumps, and cooled off in the pool when I got too hot (heat index was 116 yesterday). I would reccomend this DZ to anyone passing through MO on I-70.

There is one thing, if you are a fun jumper your rig must have an AAD. I figure his playground, his rules. Im glad I have one in mine.