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mamajumps

Frickin Tandem Factories....

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I understand that it is the DZO's right to choose only to fly tandems.. but on Wednesday of last week I called a small midwest DZ that we would be driving by on Saturday when we were heading home from Summerfest. I asked if we could come by and jump and was told yes...by the DZO. We got there around 6pm on Saturday, walked in with our rigs and was very rudely told by the manifest chic that they were not flying fun jumpers and had not for 2 weeks and that all of their fun jumpers had left then for another DZ. Im ticked because we drove about 100miles out of our way to go there.... IMHO, Tandem factories should advertise themselves as just that and make it clear that they are not fun jumper friendly... RANT OVER....

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It was all made better better by Hans and the other staff at the Farm. We stopped by there yesterday and they put together a small Otter load for us. The hospitality that we received there is by far the best I have ever gotten anywhere and I have been to some damn nice dz's with uber super great staff....

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That's why we need more club dropzones!!! And if it's a club - LET THEM FLY ONLY TANDEMS as long as they want, because all that $ would just go to the DZ for another airplane just for the upjumpers.

What a great idea!


BTW - would it be too much to ask what DZ had treated you like this? Please PM me as I want to see if my hypothesis is correct.....
=========Shaun ==========


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I... was told yes...by the DZO...



After the manefest person told you to go pound sand, did you then speak with the DZO, who had told you that you could jump there ?

Kevin
_____________________________________
Dude, you are so awesome...
Can I be on your ash jump ?

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I... was told yes...by the DZO...



After the manefest person told you to go pound sand, did you then speak with the DZO, who had told you that you could jump there ?

Kevin



He was not there, but I told her that I had talked to him on the phone.... she didnt care.

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It was all made better better by Hans and the other staff at the Farm. We stopped by there yesterday and they put together a small Otter load for us. The hospitality that we received there is by far the best I have ever gotten anywhere and I have been to some damn nice dz's with uber super great staff....



Hans is notorious for his fantastic treatment of fun jumpers, and breaks the mold for what a dropzone has to be to be successful. Who would of thought that a DZ that supports fun jumpers would ever succeed.

Hans thanks for keeping the “Fun Jumpers” jumping and for what your DZ does for the sport.

Mark Klingelhoefer

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If we had any balls we'd go around burning Tandem Mills to the ground. And leave a note:

"Dear Asshole, You are now out of business complements of the P.P.S. (Parachutist's for the Preservation of Students)."

Yeah, okay, maybe that's a bit extreme. But damn if we shouldn't be picketing outside the gate or something.

NickD :)

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What do you have against tandems?



I dont think it is against tandems, but rather against the DZO's that treat fun jumpers like shit and wont allow them to jump at their DZ's.



why do you feel that you have the right to tell others how to do their business ? Their business is NOT to provide fun jumpers with altitude, but to make money. No matter how much we agree or disagree - the bottom line is that they are a business and have absolute discretion on who and when they allow to use their services.

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The problem is when they advertise fun jumping or tell people to come on by and we'll get you up. Then once you show up you are basically told to go to hell. If they want to be stictly tandem factories I'm all for it, yes it is their business, BUT they need to make that clear from the start and not be wishy washy about fun jumpers!

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What do you have against tandems?



I dont think it is against tandems, but rather against the DZO's that treat fun jumpers like shit and wont allow them to jump at their DZ's.


why do you feel that you have the right to tell others how to do their business ? Their business is NOT to provide fun jumpers with altitude, but to make money. No matter how much we agree or disagree - the bottom line is that they are a business and have absolute discretion on who and when they allow to use their services.


:SPlease re-read the first line of my original post.... then focus on my complaint... which was that we were told to come out, that they would put us up.... I could give two shits in the wind what a dzo does with his business... but is it too much to be honest about it when an fun jumper calls and inquires about jumping there....:S

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Okay, Butters, I'll probably be sorry for this, but I'll take the bait . . .

I was specifically talking about "Tandem Mills" and not tandem in general. But I'm not afraid to go there too.

While I've been a Tandem Master myself I see tandems mostly from the point of view of an AFF/SL Instructor. And I've also been around longer than tandems so I can see the sport on both sides of their invention. I think we were better off before. Sure, tandem has brought big money into the sport, but at what price?

One peeve of mine is hearing someone say, in talking about their first tandem jump, "Gee, I could never have done that on my own." But my entire generation did their first jumps on their own, and I taught a whole generation to make that first jump on their own. So it's a shame we present first jumps that way because it's simply not true.

Also a first jump student going AFF or static line actually gets a chance to immerse themselves in the sport for a full day, or sometimes more, compared to a tandem student who spends two hours, makes the jump, and leaves for their yoga class. An AFF or S/L student gets to connect with their Instructor, who if he's worth a damn, will leave them thinking, "Man, I want to be like this guy." I'm not saying that for my own vanity or gratification, it was the way I felt about my FJC Instructor. It's why I stayed in the sport, and it's why I became an Instructor myself.

Most students land, tandem included, saying, "Boy, I'll have to do that again!" Yet, at least the AFF or S/L student has some small inkling there's more to this sport than meets the eye. Again with a good Instructor whose subtle enough they can see a road from where they are now to becoming full fledged skydivers. Tandem students, after the initial euphoria wears off, feel like, "Skydiving, yup, been there, done that."

Now I've actually seen some "Tandem Mills" (and by that I mean a DZ that excludes up-jumpers, that weren't exactly horrible). But none of them have been in the USA. I've seen them where if you really want to continue, instead of milking you for a few more tandems, they'll say here's what you do. "Go to this other drop zone and sign up for this program." And you get maps, directions, prices, and an overview of what's ahead.

Who really doesn't think that nurturing our future experienced jumpers is job number one? What's going to kill this sport faster than anything else is not airport access, high fuel and jump prices, or an inept governing association. It'll be the dwindling number of experienced jumpers at the DZ. You can toss out numbers and statistics all you want, but I know, because I see it, there were more people at the DZ 20 years ago than there is today, a lot more.

Now I know tandem has begat more student starts, if we call someone without a thorough course of instruction, a start, but there are less student stays. And a student who goes on to become licensed is the goal we should be striving for. Okay, a bunch of you are going to say, "Gee. Nick, I started with Tandem and I'm an experienced skydiver now." But that's not a fair assessment. If everyone who had ever made a tandem jump, and never jumped again, posted to this site, you'd feel like you were looking over the wall at the Alamo.

I recall when tandem first appeared and I was the Chief Instructor at Lake Elsinore. Our DZO bought one and we all gathered around giving it a first look. It appeared innocuous enough, kind of cool really, but what we weren't capable of seeing is here, in disguise, was the very Devil Himself. I was actually pretty happy about it. Here, I naively thought, was finally a way the blind, the infirm, and the very old, could actually make an easy and safer parachute jump. That's all I thought tandem would be. But I was wrong and so were Bill Booth and Ted Strong who invented and let loose the beast. Their idea for tandem sort of made sense. It was a way to teach skydiving to everyone because skydiving, at the time, was almost the only aviation endeavor that didn't provide some type of true dual instruction. But in my mind it always seemed like strapping on a person to teach you how to swim.

Well, what I thought tandem would be, and what Bill and Ted thought tandem would be like didn't happen, at least not initially. Now again some of this will seem wrong to you if you came to skydiving after tandem gained a foot hold. It would just seem more natural and acceptable to you. But it didn’t to me. I didn't want anything to do with them at first. As a rigger I found them interesting of course, if not a bit complicated, and as an Instructor I was curious what their effect would be. But at first I couldn't shake the idea they were simply too complicated.

But then the real effect of tandem started to appear. After a few weeks of offering tandem jumps at Elsinore a funny thing started to happen. We were drawing the usual number of students every day but the AFF and Static Line classes started to get markedly smaller. It was human nature and I should have seen it coming. A prospective student walks up and asks to make a jump. They'd get the spiel about the three ways they can do it, which in their minds, basically boils down to either alone or strapped to an experienced jumper. And alone started to lose out.

Also I saw right away there were less first jump students around the bonfire at night. Where once, after already spending the entire day in class, and jumping around sunset, it was normal they'd gravitate to it. They'd eat with us, drink with us, and listen to the stories. At the time, and looking back on it now because it just seemed normal, I didn't realize, and I'm sure students didn't either, that they were deviously being indoctrinated into the sport. People naturally want to belong to a group. And skydiving offered that in spades not to mention for a lot of the younger aimless types, it was better than joining the Army or something. So again in hindsight, what we were really selling wasn't altitude, it wasn't a skill set, and it wasn't even action and adventure. It was a way off the block, a way to separate you from whatever and whoever came before; it was the Foreign Legion of the sport's world. And a lot of us signed up. But I'm afraid less and less do after tandem.

I was traveling once on a BASE road trip and we passed a DZ and stopped. It was a tandem mill and the first I'd ever really seen. As we drove up it was mid-day and you could see people leaving in their cars. Before tandem people arrived in the morning and left at night. As soon as I walked into the hangar I heard, "Hey, Nick!" And here was the DZO, a former student of mine who I hadn't seen in years. So he's shaking my hand and introducing me around to his staff as the guy who taught him to skydive. So naturally like we all do when visiting a new DZ, I wanted to make a jump, but I didn't have a skydiving rig with me. So I asked him to let me borrow his. He said, "Sorry, man, we don't allow experienced jumpers here, and if I make an exception for you, I get grief from everyone else who asks, you can understand."

Well, I didn't understand and I told him so. "What are you really doing here? This isn’t why I taught you to skydive." I let him know how disappointed I was in him and we left. Later that night we were camped out under a bridge we'd been jumping that afternoon, and I mentioned to no one in particular, "Man, if what I saw today ever happens to B.A.S.E. jumping I'm going to blow my brains out!"

And luckily for me, so far it hasn't . . .

NickD :)

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I had a mother and daugher show up while I was manifesting at my club this weekend. The mother had a photo from when she landed her static lined round into that same exact field almost 30 years ago.

She was the coolest tandem student on that drop zone, and despite her daughters blushing I made sure to tell her that.

Of course having a cute redhead daughter never hurts in the cool department but I doubt I could have convinced many of those other tandems to skip the joyride to do a S/L, even if I lowered the price and bumped them to the front of the line.
"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

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I have no knowledge about "tandem factories" but what I can say is that I doubt my wife or I would be skydiving if it wasn't for tandems.

Maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing in my case (because I'm a know it all douchenozzle) but my wife is actually pretty good an people like her.

;)

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> Sure, tandem has brought big money into the sport, but at what price?

That's the question. And while I don't see tandem as helping skydiving much, I also don't see it hurting it. Do wind tunnels hurt skydiving by giving people a pseudo-skydiving less scary experience? Does hauling cargo with the Skyvan hurt skydiving by using the airplanes for non-skydiving purposes? Even ones that (gasp!) make the DZO some extra money?

After reading your story, I wouldn't call the place you stopped a DZ. It's a tandem factory. And had it not been there, you wouldn't have stopped and met an old friend. But is that so bad? If we keep opening new dedicated tandem centers that handle only tandems - who loses? Skydivers have as many options as they always did.

>They'd eat with us, drink with us, and listen to the stories.

The students who are destined to be skydivers still do, and from my experience, there aren't less of them. There are a whole lot more students total, so the percentage of real skydivers is down, but the total number hasn't changed much.

The way I look at it, Uli, Adi and Lew could be fixing cars in a Perris garage or they could be hauling (and videoing) tandems. Sure, it's not "real" skydiving. But it's a job, and they seem to like it. The students? They don't stick around any more than their customers at the Perris garage would; they're just paying for a service and they don't want the beer and the campfire.

Which is fine, for them. I just don't see much wrong with that.

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They'd eat with us, drink with us, and listen to the stories. At the time, and looking back on it now because it just seemed normal, I didn't realize, and I'm sure students didn't either, that they were deviously being indoctrinated into the sport. People naturally want to belong to a group. And skydiving offered that in spades not to mention for a lot of the younger aimless types, it was better than joining the Army or something.



I have nothing against sharing stories or the desire to belong to a group. However, there are individuals who don't necessarily want to listen to stories or have a desire to belong to a group. They just want to skydive. What is wrong with that?

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So again in hindsight, what we were really selling wasn't altitude, it wasn't a skill set, and it wasn't even action and adventure. It was a way off the block, a way to separate you from whatever and whoever came before; it was the Foreign Legion of the sport's world. And a lot of us signed up. But I'm afraid less and less do after tandem.



Wait, is it about connecting you to whatever and whoever came before you (by eating, drinking, listening to stories, and becoming indoctrinated into the sport) or is it about separating you from whatever and whoever came before?
"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

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I just want to skydive. Isn't that what skydiving is about?



Maybe that is what skydiving is all about... for you.

Every one has their own belief about what the sport is all about.

I spent my first 200 jumps totally immersed in skydiving. I slept more on the dz couch or curled up by the embers of the bonfire than I did in my own apartment that first summer.

If it wasn't for the community that I felt existed, the people, the atmosphere then I wouldn't have been as hooked as I was. Now two years later that first DZ has changed a lot, but I found another one with that same feel.

Does this make my idea of what skydiving is any more valid than yours, no I guess not, but I sure hope more people agree with me. :)
"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

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Does this make my idea of what skydiving is any more valid than yours, no I guess not, but I sure hope more people agree with me. :)



I don't hope more people agree with you or me. I just hope more people skydive (and decide for themselves what it is about) so that there will be more people for you and me.
"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

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One peeve of mine is hearing someone say, in talking about their first tandem jump, "Gee, I could never have done that on my own." But my entire generation did their first jumps on their own, and I taught a whole generation to make that first jump on their own. So it's a shame we present first jumps that way because it's simply not true.



I started skydiving last year, after reading and thinking about it for a year or so before that. My first thoughts were "I don't think I could ever do that", but, as is the case with other things in my life, that's where the seed started and where the initial appeal came from. I started because it was hard, not because it was easy.

So, I did a FJC and an IAD jump last year and went down the road of making lots of mistakes before finally getting my solo (e.g. there's a hospital bracelet stapled to jump #15's entry in my log book..). I never did a tandem and have still not done a tandem... My first jump was mindblowing because I had no idea what to expect, and it was all new. Putting that first foot out onto the step of the cessna and feeling the rush of the wind for the first time was like nothing else I had ever experienced.

Now this year my DZ has made a tandem jump a prerequisite for the FJC, and I see that as somewhat unfortunate. I can see the reasoning, as a few students went in last year from what were apparently errors in judgement and it is perfectly sensible for the DZ to want to screen out the people who are going to panic, but it still seems somewhat sad, and I'm happy I started last year so I could skip the carnival ride and go right to the difficult stuff.

Skydiving is still challenging, but that keeps me coming back. I don't know what I'll do when I start having "just another skydive". Maybe switch to BASE. B|
Looking for newbie rig, all components...

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It was all made better better by Hans and the other staff at the Farm. We stopped by there yesterday and they put together a small Otter load for us. The hospitality that we received there is by far the best I have ever gotten anywhere and I have been to some damn nice dz's with uber super great staff....



Come on up to Delmarva sometime/anytime - and we'll take good care of you too! After all, believe it or not, "migration season" is almost upon us already AGAIN! We may not be a "resort" (although some have called us "paradise" ;)) - but you'll also be hard-pressed to find any place more welcoming and open and inviting to it's up-jumper walk-on's.
coitus non circum - Moab Stone

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skip the carnival ride and go right to the difficult stuff.


I object to this description of tandem skydiving. It may be some people's choice to treat it as such but I really feel this belittles the risk to the TI and the effort they've put in.

I started on tandems and I'm glad I did, I don't like the idea of a trial by fire when my life is on the line. It's the same reason I learned to ride my motorcycle in a parking lot first off.

For me, mitigating the risks is an integral part of being involved in these risky sports we all enjoy so much.

Each to their own of course but I really wish people would stop speaking about tandems in such dismissive terms.

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