I'm an Oldie - Why I'm Disappointed

[Butters 0]

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It's an understatement to say we rushed our novices into more modern gear as we made them jump rounds until they had 100 jumps. Not only did this serve as a probationary period, it quickly weeded out the people who didn’t want to be skydivers bad enough.

I'm a real skydiver, blah, blah, blah ...

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In those days you could almost automatically trust a stranger with a couple hundred jumps because you knew the rough road they traveled to get there. Nowadays the road to a couple hundred jumps can only be termed as "easy street."

I'm so tough, blah, blah, blah ...

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The sport deserted us, that's what happened.

The sport (like everything else) has always been changing. You weren't deserted, you stayed behind.

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Go to any general aviation airport and note the amount of aircraft lying fallow. Lease one and form a non-profit club. With the way airlines are dumping pilots high timers are a dime a dozen and desperate for flying work. With the economy tanking renting Farmer McNasty's field isn't as hard as it once was. The whole current situation is ripe for a resurgence of skydiving clubs. In a club you don't hire a plumber, or a grader, or an electrician, and then pass that cost onto your customers. The plumbers, graders, and electricians are jumpers in the club who volunteer their time. Manifest is the girl too young to jump, food and drink is laid out potluck style and the Instructors are guys, like me, who don't need to make money by the head.

Some people will like this and some people won't. Find the people that will and put your plan into action. Good luck ...

"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

[JohnMitchell 14]

I went through the old days. I don't want to go back to Twin Beeches and round reserves, outhouses and no running water. I mix work jumps and play jumps about 50/50. I get to do this from a fast climbing Twin Otter or Caravan. People have better flying skills these days, too, so the jumps are better. This getting killed under an open, functioning parachute thing is getting a little old, though.

The only things I miss from the 70's are the safer parachutes, the better parties, and being 20 years old.

[kallend 1,623]

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That wasn't how I wanted it to come across.

Basically things will never be like they were in the "good old days".

Things never really were like they were in the "Good Old Days". Memory is very selective.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[pilotdave 0]

I think we're in the good old days right now. We'll realize that in about 20 years... or probably less.

Skydiving is still relatively affordable and accessible. It's almost completely unregulated. We're in the "golden age" of wingsuits, and progress is being made so quickly in almost every other discipline. I don't see this sport getting any better in the future than it is right now. Times are good!

Dave

[Dean358 0]

Hey Nick,

Thanks for your thoughtful and – as always – well written post. As has been mentioned in this thread, everything changes for better and the worse. More examples:

It sucks that Times Square has been turned into Disneyland, but it’s great that the streets of Manhattan have become so safe.

It sucks that we’ve replaced listening to vinyl records with listening to evil little MP-3 files, but they sure are convenient.

It’s amazing being able to Goggle all of human knowledge but sucks that this has produced a massive on-line culture that considers smarminess a virtue.

Skydiving is no different. I’m glad I never had to jump a round – I’m not tough enough -- but understand your point about the natural “filter” they provided. I believe the answer is to look at where we are and try to put as much positive energy into helping it evolve into something better. That might be starting a club for you or just making the tandem student sitting next to me smile and be a little less nervous. Not always easy – but far better than bitching about the old days, as that truly does make one old.

Cheers,
Dean

www.wci.nyc

[NickDG 23]

To those who think I'm whining and then pointed out the virtues of looking forward, keeping up, and accepting change. I'm 53 years old now and have been doing all those things or I'm sure, like a lot of jumpers I knew 30 years ago, I wouldn't be around parachutes anymore.

I think what I was trying to do is give some a glimpse of the sport before they came to it. And sure I pined away for the old days a bit because I do look back on those days with some fondness. And someday the same sense of nostalgia happens to everyone to some degree.

But, I've some serious ideas about what is real history. Napoleon was history, the war of 1812 was history, the sinking of the Titanic was history. I'm still alive so I don't look at anything that occurred in my life as real history. It's just my life experiences to this point.

In a PM conversation regarding this matter one fellow said he notices a uptick in outright nastiness being displayed by some "experienced" jumpers toward newbies on the DZ. It made me recall my early days before I had a hundred jumps. And I realized I was never abused by anyone I was just ignored.

It also made me think of something that happened not long ago to my girlfriend at Elsinore. She was doing a solo between groups and when she briefly paused in the door to glance at the spot in the Otter some young guy shoved her out the door. It hurt her back and after she landed she wouldn't tell me who it was because I was ready to kill.

So what I'm saying is in order to gauge where we're at as a sport looking back does become important. And okay, I did come off in that post as saying the old days were better, but I meant just in some ways, not all . . .

NickD

[beowulf 1]

Exactly. That is so true. We all like to remember the good things and not dwell on the bad things that happened.

[billvon 2,400]

>one fellow said he notices a uptick in outright nastiness being displayed
>by some "experienced" jumpers toward newbies on the DZ. It made me
>recall my early days before I had a hundred jumps. And I realized I was
>never abused by anyone I was just ignored.

You sure about that? I remember a story you once recounted:

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"Hi," I said, and stuck out my hand, "my name is Nick." And not only did he leave my hand hanging out there in mid-air, he said, "So what."
-----------

That's about as nasty as I've seen anyone be to any newbie* over the past few years.

(* - newbie that didn't deserve it, that is.)

[mdrejhon 8]

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I think we're in the good old days right now. We'll realize that in about 20 years... or probably less.

Skydiving is still relatively affordable and accessible. It's almost completely unregulated. We're in the "golden age" of wingsuits, and progress is being made so quickly in almost every other discipline. I don't see this sport getting any better in the future than it is right now. Times are good!

What is scary is you might be right. Tomorrow, I could be paying $80 per jump and it may be a more of a luxury sport.

Maybe not - who knows - the more efficient planes (i.e. the modern Twin Otters now being manufactured, amongst others) may be sold into the used market and subsequently to drop zones by then, and we'd keep jumping - at more efficient gallons per jump consumption. And we'd be manufacturing gas from algae or something by then.

[Andy9o8 0]

Another great, insightful post, Nick. And, aside from the usual "noise", some very thoughtful replies, too, both pro and con.
I started jumping in 1975, jumped into the 80's, then took off a long hiatus when marriage, career and kids intervened, and then I got back in a few years ago once my kids were older.

One thing I want to touch on, though, and it's something I saw you mention similarly in another recent thread, too, is the notion that, Back In The Day, the way that up-jumpers treated the newer jumpers like shit (unless they were girls) was somehow a good thing, because it was a crucible that weeded out all but the really, really dedicated (male) skydivers. I happen to think that was one of the bad parts of the old days, because it drove away people who did really want to become good skydivers, but just grew sick of the fucking attitudes all the time. It's one of the reasons I drifted away from my own first DZ, a medium-sized DZ that was probably the busiest one at the time in that region, and favored the other, smaller DZs in the region - because at the other DZs newer jumpers were treated like they were welcome, and not just barely tolerated.

This type of attitude toward newer jumpers didn't just make them uncomfortable, it frankly discouraged them from asking up-jumpers for help, advice or extra supervision - even when their safety might have depended on it.

In fact, in my own opinion, I hold that shitty attitude at my first DZ partly responsible for the death in the 70s of a student there, who I'd gotten friendly with. He was a nice, but small, timid and bookish kind of guy who was very out of place at that DZ, and most of the established up-jumpers there didn't want to have much to do with him. He also fucked up a lot, and that should have been a red flag to the DZO, instructors and experienced jumpers that he needed close supervision and mentoring. Instead, because he was a "turkey", he got the opposite. On his last jump, he packed the hook end of his Stevens System RSL lanyard into his main container. I have no idea whether anyone ever taught him how the RSL worked or what to do or not do with it. Compounding this, he was being jumpmastered by an older guy, also a bit of a nerdy goof-up, who also was kind of an "outsider". This guy (the JM) wasn't very competent himself, and probably had no business jumpmastering students (he jumpmastered me on my first freefall), but he was kindly and accomodating toward students. Obviously neither the jumper nor this JM caught the error in a gear check. Anyhow, the mis-packed RSL caused a main horseshoe/baglock, from which he (predictably) didn't cut away, and when the reserve deployed, it entangled with the mess and he went in. As far as I'm concerned, if he'd been properly mentored overall, and properly supervised on the jump, that accident wouldn't have occurred. Now, that's a worst-case scenario, but it's one that actually happened.

Other similar instances at this same old DZ - but which illustrate the point I'm trying to make, were once, when the DZO made a student feel like shit because he asked to switch his reserve for one equipped with an AAD; and another, when 2 students were mocked by experienced jumpers for riding the plane back down instead of getting out with everyone else at 1,800 feet when the pilot had to abort. So no, I don't think that treating novices like shit back then was a good thing, and I'm glad it happens less nowadays than it used to (at least as far as I've seen).

Blue skies, and please keep writing - I love to read it!

Edit: I wrote & posted this before I read your post #31 or Bill's post #33.

[billvon 2,400]

I started skydiving a little later than you did. When I started, we jumped Strong Starlites with DC5's for mains and 26" rounds for reserves. The rigs were set up for pilot-chute-assist static line, had a Sentinel mechanical AAD and no riser covers. We couldn't wait to get off student status because then we could finally turn off the AAD that misfired a significant fraction of the time. Everyone there knew better than to do RW with someone with an AAD; those things could kill you, and the SL JM's knew to keep their distance when jumping with students on later delays.

We jumped out of two old 182's and us newer jumpers were lucky to get one jump a weekend between airplanes breaking down, pilots calling in sick (or just plain not showing up) winds, weather, and cranky airport owners who did odd things like plowing up the runway one weekend "because I always wanted a dirt strip."

The days were long; I financed my first 30 jumps by packing the massive DC5's and dressing students. We'd work all day, make one jump (maybe two on a good weekend) and then go out drinking. New students were treated like visitors, someone to be taught, tossed out of an airplane, then given a handshake and a staticky VHS tape of their jump taken from the wing camera and sent home. It took a long time to become one of the "in" crowd, even after starting to work at packing and dressing students.

The jumpmasters were the real gods back then. Not because they were so amazing at what they did (although they were pretty good) but because they got to jump 4, 5, even 6 times a day. One of my friends would put out a few students then jump into the beach bar he worked at at night.

The year? Not so long ago - 1991.

Towards the end of my time there, the modern skydiving world started intruding. The DZO got a Monarch 190, which was such a dangerously fast canopy that no one else was allowed to jump it. I got to put a few jumps on a brand new Manta (amazingly high performance after that DC5) before I bought my first rig - a Swift container with a Pursuit 215. "That thing shuts down really well," commented one of my former instructors, a high compliment at a DZ where accuracy and demos were the order of the day. Someone showed up one day with booties and a Cypres which was a bit scandalous - do RW with someone who had an AAD?

Then I moved on to the Ranch, then I moved to California at least partly to be closer to DZ's. I spent a decade at Brown, gaining experience and ratings. We started with a 206 and then progressed through just about every jump aircraft in the US, finally ending up with a part time then a full time Otter.

The culture there wasn't too different, with a few big changes. One was that we could jump every day if we wanted to - even make 6 jumps a day if we could pack fast enough! Another was that there were enough experienced people there that we could do 10-ways. They generally didn't work, but that was still an improvement over all the 4-ways we did back east that didn't work. I could do tandems, put SL students out, teach first jump courses, or just do nothing and jump with my friends all day.

The DZ itself was an old barracks used by Braniff for their pilot training program, and we were always knocking down walls, adding doors, dragging mattresses in to sleep on and badgering Buzz for money to fix this or that problem. We had no snack bar, gear store or pool, but there was a Quiki Mart down the street, a bar less than a block away on the airport itself, and Buzz was a dealer for a few sorts of gear (PD, RI.)

Of course, it wasn't all goodness. The claims that "we were a tandem factory" came up quickly, and a few experienced jumpers complained that the really good jumpers all became instructors and got seduced by the easy money of tandems, SL and AFF. But we still had fun at night. As before, most students didn't stick around, but a few did, and they joined the fraternity we had there. Occasionally one of my students would graduate, gain experience, get their ratings and start hauling students with the rest of us, and those were some proud moments for me.

Then I discovered Perris, and started spending more time there. I realized how much I didn't know about skydiving and started learning to _really_ do RW first in the tunnel, then on player-coach teams. I got to know the DZO's, the bigway crowd, the instructors there. I started trying to get on, then getting on, DZ records, then state records, then world records. I started teaching at the school when they needed someone who didn't mind teaching the FJC for one guy.

And at a high level, Perris 2008 is very different than Skydive Long Island circa 1991. More aircraft, more teams, more competition. The Power Play, which represents more skill (and the consequent attitude about the jumping) than you see at most DZ's. The tunnel. The jet. Higher prices.

But go beneath that and you see the same basic stuff. Instructors who get to jump a lot. Other jumpers marvel at how much they get paid to jump, and new jumpers often worship them. Newbies who nobody knows and who feel left out, and their slow acceptance into the world of RW or freeflying. The same sort of heroic measures when it comes to helping other people out, and the same kind of petty (and sometimes scandalous) bullshit that has been and always will be part of the sport.

So while there is more out there, and it's more expensive, I don't see anything that's just plain missing. Sure, you have to look harder for it at a place like Perris, but that's because there's just more of _everything_ there. But if your thing is wingsuiting, you'll find wingsuiters there. If it's teaching, you can do that there. If it's just hanging out all day in the parking lot and drinking, then there's _that_ option as well. You just have to look for it.

>I saw Instructors of the 70s, once treated as god like, relegated to bum status in leaky trailers in the 90s.

But they've always been living in leaky trailers. (Or schoolbuses, or mattresses on the floor of the old Braniff barracks.) Some people treat them like gods, some people treat them like some sort of prostitute, selling out the sport for a buck. Again, I don't see that much has changed.

>We’ve over packaged it to the point a first time jumper hardly gets a fleeting glimpse of what drew all of us to the sport in the first place.

But again, that's nothing new. There's more of it, to be sure. But there have always been the glossy photos of the smiling static line student (and then the AFF student) to lure people into the reality of sitting in a classroom when it's 108F out while some guy tries to get them to arch.

Tandem _is_ a new paradigm, and it's one that I consider somewhat coincidental to skydiving. Beyond it giving jobs to skydivers, it's about as germane to skydiving as using the Skyvan to occasionally haul freight - a good way to keep the Skyvan in the air, but that's about it. But while you could argue that's bad for skydiving because it's not generating new skydivers, I'd argue that it's not bad for it for the same reason. It's somewhat separate.

If there is a bad side to it, it's that tandem students may carry that "wham bam thank you ma'am" philosophy over into the AFF program. That can lead to students who just plain don't take it seriously. But we still have AFF/SL (or the equivalent course in an AFP program) as a gatekeeper to the rest of the sport - and we as instructors still control that.

A related but different problem is the speed at which people can progress nowadays. When I started, you simply couldn't get through the course in less than about six months, because one jump a weekend was about all you could count on. We were, to use an engineering term, resource limited. The upside of that was that people ended up standing around a _lot_ learning by osmosis - watching demos, talking to old farts, watching students screw up over and over.

Nowadays you can get through AFF in two weekends and be doing 4-ways (after lots of tunnel coaching) a few weekends after that. And while you can now learn all the freefall stuff in that time, it's not long enough to learn all the other, more cultural material through osmosis. The ISP is an attempt to address that, but even that is poorly implemented at most drop zones.

The problem of rapid progression, though, is as much due to experienced jumpers as it is to newer jumpers who _want_ to learn quickly. And again, I don't see that as a bad thing, as long as they get what they need to know.

>And those hundred jumpers should purchase their altitude the same
>way they buy carpet, factory direct.

Well, to be fair, when you want carpet you don't buy fabric, glue and yarn and then rent a factory, hire a carpet maker and tell him to go at it. You go to a place they manufacture it by the mile and buy a few hundred feet.

> Go to any general aviation airport and note the amount of aircraft
>lying fallow. Lease one and form a non-profit club.

You could definitely do this. But why?

If it's the money angle, that has a funny way of sneaking up on you. You find a plane, pool your money and get a jump door put on, and get the owner to fly you. Cheap jumps! Everyone pitching in!

Then the owner can't fly one weekend, so you hire a private pilot who is a jumper's best friend and, according to him, a really great pilot. The owner wants him covered under his insurance, so you help out with that. Then the new guy bends a firewall during a landing, and the owner wants you to pay the deductible. Half the club doesn't; they are labeled greedy selfish bastards. The other half is willing to pitch in half, but there's NO WAY they are going to let the greedy selfish bastards jump the airplane after that! To deal with it, they get someone who is willing to calm down the owner, find an A+P, maybe a cheap used firewall. And of course a new pilot. That causes his friend to scream about favoritism and ignorant skydivers, but now you have someone to deal with that.

And before you know it, you have more expensive jumps, a DZ manager and that all-inclusive term - DZ politics. "You don't want to jump at that drop zone. They're arrogant elitists who won't let you jump there unless you kiss the manager's ass."

If it's the small-club angle that's the draw, they're still out there. Skydive Airtight in Tulsa and Lost Prairie in Montana (on all but two weekends of the year) are still small cessna DZ's, everyone knows everyone, and you can have a role in making it what you want. There are dozens of DZ's out there like that.

>But it was money, that dirty stinking love for a buck, that killed the spirit of skydiving.

Well, if that's true, we're the ones that killed it. Because we're the ones who wanted bigger airplanes, GPS spotting, better gear, cypreses, skyhooks, custom color containers with tie-dye fabric, multi-flex harnesses, spacer foam and stainless steel rings - and more importantly were willing to pay for it. And honestly I don't see better gear, bigger planes and more events killing skydiving, although it certainly does change it a bit.

If anyone is still reading, I'll close with an actual story from the Perris school. A new student (let's call him Jim) shows up and goes through the course. He does OK. Several instructors are friendly to him, so he hangs out at the school a lot.

He finally graduates with a little difficulty - and continues to hang out at the school doing coach jumps. I try to coax him out of the school into the experienced area, but when he goes there he meets with little acceptance. There's no one there to shake his hand and say "Hey, jump with us! We're experienced 4-way jumpers and we need a fourth with 20 jumps." There's only Darryld and Mark, organizing their endless marginally successful 6 to 20 ways. (Marginally successful in this case meaning something usually builds half way and no one gets hurt.)

I manage to make a few jumps with him, but as usual the demands on my time there preclude me from doing too much with him. There is video to shoot for the 8-way team, a TV to set up in the team room, a 4-way I committed to the week before. He mentions that he doesn't really like the bigger stuff but there's just plain no one else to jump with. I encourage him to look for other newbies, and so he starts asking around with little success. He learns that he can actually learn by hanging out with jumpers after the day has ended and asking them questions, so he does that, and starts learning all the things they don't teach you in the AFF program.

Now, I've seen this guy as he made his way through the school. Other than whatever it was that drew him to the sport, there was no "packaging" - no descriptions of the wonders ahead, just the usual debrief followed by "OK next jump is forward motion check out the syllabus gotta go bye!" Still, he thinks very highly of these guys who taught him to skydive - and a bit less so of the organizers that have little time for him.

This guy had far, far more opportunities than I had when I started. There is rentable gear. There are organizers that will actually jump with him. There's a freaking wind tunnel in the parking lot. Still, he faces the same sort of "there's no place for a newbie like me" problems that I had (and I suspect you had) when first starting out. And, I think, he will have the same sort of hurdles to overcome before he is accepted into the (say) RW community at Perris. That process hasn't changed all that much - and at least for this guy, skydiving is something he won't take for granted.

[NickDG 23]

>>"Hi," I said, and stuck out my hand, "my name is Nick." And not only did he leave my hand hanging out there in mid-air, he said, "So what."
LOL, that's not abuse, Bill . . . that's character building!

NickD

[danielcroft 2]

I'm just a noob but I always try to help new people (students & visitors alike) feel comfortable. I introduce them to people with similar interests (I know a lot of people around the DZ) in the hope that they'd be more comfortable and enjoy themselves.

I'm not sure if Tom was referring to my DZ earlier when he was talking about the mega otter DZ and I know my DZ isn't perfect but I think there's quite a good community and people really do get to know each other.

When students are hassled someone usually tells the hasslor to STFU.

I think the change in DZs is really a reflection of the change in society generally and from that perspective I can certainly agree that the lack of community feel & awareness isn't a good thing.

Having said that, I don't plan on going to a Cessna DZ any time soon, just don't like the idea of getting out of something that small but then again, I'm pretty lame.

[NickDG 23]

>>The year? Not so long ago - 1991.
And Bill, I've been reading your stuff since you first came online and I'll bet that's gotta be the longest post you've ever made!

Thanks, I enjoyed reading it . . .

NickD

[Andy9o8 0]

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>>The year? Not so long ago - 1991.
And Bill, I've been reading your stuff since you first came online and I'll bet that's gotta be the longest post you've ever made!

No, the longest one was the one where he patiently explained in detail how fish EVOLVED eyes and lungs.

[DSE 3]

I think I enjoyed that post more than any other you've made... Thanks for taking the time.

[cloudseeker2001 0]

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>>The year? Not so long ago - 1991.
And Bill, I've been reading your stuff since you first came online and I'll bet that's gotta be the longest post you've ever made!

Thanks, I enjoyed reading it . . .

NickD

Yea, I had to break that one up in three sections before I could finish!

"Some call it heavenly in it's brilliance,
others mean and rueful of the western dream"

[skyjumpenfool 2]

PEOPLE, PEOPLE, PEOPLE!

These are the good old days we'll talk about some day! Stop bitching and enjoy. Live for today and get the most out of each second. Stop writing long posts and go have some fun...

See ya

Birdshit & Fools Productions

"Son, only two things fall from the sky."

[jimjumper 25]

I don't post here often but I just wanted to second the comment about Darryld, Mark, and Bob doing their best as load organizers. I always refer my students to them to keep them enthused and wanting to keep jumping.

[wayneflorida 0]

[url] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSQeMBzHR0o&NR=1yes, the good old days

[VectorBoy 0]

I'll close with an actual story from the Perris school. A new student
This guy had far, far more opportunities than I had when I started. There are organizers that will actually jump with him. Still, he faces the same sort of "there's no place for a newbie like me" problems that I had (and I suspect you had) when first starting out.

[feuergnom 22]

man - monty python sure comes handy when you need em, don't they?

The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle

dudeist skydiver # 666

[FCipollo 1]

Apologies in advance for sounding irreverent but for all this talk of dzo's, drinking from hoses, nylons and olive trees, isn't the most important thing what happens for those few minutes between 13.5k and 0k. I know that's all I care about. The problem is folks who forget about that piece and start to focus on the surroundings/setup/etc. Was the sky different in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s? Probably not. So, instead of analyzing who does what, says what, what they wear, how canopies are sold and what dzo's think of to make money, maybe you'd be better just taking a deep breath, closing your eyes on the way over to the plane and opening them up once you're at the door.

[havensiangst 0]

here we go again nick........good old days blah blah blah blah, why dont you buy your self a pair of glasses where u can only see the world in black/white hahaha....i guess it`s your wet dream huh? do it nick, just do it...i buy those glasses for u if u can`t afford it......this needed to be said

[DougH 270]

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I know that's all I care about. The problem is folks who forget about that piece and start to focus on the surroundings/setup/etc. Was the sky different in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s? Probably not.

To each their own, but I think there is a lot more to skydiving than just falling out of a plane.

"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P