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jjrainyday

Writing in the landing area

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We have a tandem student that wants to propose to his girlfriend (also doing a tandem), so he wants "Will You Marry Me?" written in the landing area. Does anyone have experience with landing area messages?

I was thinking we could mow it in, or paint it on a big banner and put it flat on the ground, or...?

Thanks!!

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Mowing a message is farily hard if its a complex message. For instance, more than a few letters long. Even then it doesn't alway stand out too well depending on the color of the dirt, grass and surrounding area.

Perhaps a good handful of bedsheets (white) with paint (black in color) would do well for a sign. Add some tent stakes and you're set. Maybe 5-7 cheap twin sheets to make a long banner. Make the letters as tall as the sheet's width and put the sheets together end to end to get the full message.

Be sure to stake down each corner of the sheets or they may blow around. Also, please put them somewhere outside of the main landing area. ;)
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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I did the following for a couple of friends...
2 tandems + 2 videomen + me flying 2nd video on HER. I separated and opened higher, deployed my home made 5x3ft (approx) flag on which I wrote : Meargot, will you marry me.
Next step was to go flying close to HER tandem (close enough but safe distance) and get her impressions, and then fly to HIS tandem and tell him the result. Which was a : WEEEHAAAAW YHAHOOOOHOOOOHOOOO or something similar:|

The wedding is this saturday.
scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

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Dave,

Seen the sheet idea done and it looked real cool from above, it looked even cooler as I was setting up to land a tandem to the side of the proposal and the RW jumpers had a fellow catch afoot on the edge (staked down sheet) and ball it all up.

I was laughing even though I felt bad, I laughed even harder when I saw the footage in slow mow on the Tandems video.

The point? oh yeah, be careful with staking things down in or near the primary landing area.
An Instructors first concern is student safety.
So, start being safe, first!!!

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Oh I'm clear on the safety issues, hence the

Quote

Be sure to stake down each corner of the sheets or they may blow around. Also, please put them somewhere outside of the main landing area.



in my post.;)
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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I've done this many times.

THe way that we make the proposal sign is we have a very large peice of heavy black plastic. I think you could probably get this at Home Depot or someplace like that.

Then take register/receipt tape and a packaging tape gun (Obviously with clear tape) and go at it. We have one huge sign at our DZ and we just change the girl's name on it when we need to.

"Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

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We did flour. But a word of warning. Flour lasts longer than you would think and more than one subsequent tandem ride thought the message was for her. Be sure to put a name in the message.
My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

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We did 4 proposals this year. In each case the guy had his friends bring out a big tarp with the message painted on it. After the plane took off and cleared the runway a few of us jumpers would lay it out. Normally they can't see it in freefall, but thats ok. A tandem student in freefall wont notice it anyways in most cases.

The tandem instructors were obviosuly in on it and would make sure to do an approach to the landing area which made the sign easily readable.
~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

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We had a guy who asked his girlfriend just before he got out the plane. there were two banners on the ground one saying yes and the other no. Her tandem master then landed on her response! pretty funny stuff, particularly as he flew over the no first!B|

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When Guy Wright "Bucky" use to work at the ranch there would be bucky signs every where. Someone made chocolates with a bucky imprint and wrapper.

Anyway they took fertilizer and burn the grass with it and made this huge bucky face. You could almost see from exit.
"You can take the kid out of the ranch but you cant take ranch out of the kid"

"NO GO" GO ON" what movie?
Track high, Pull LOW!!!

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Clothes, Flour and Human Bodies...



GO ON!

----------

Anyway... years ago at Cal City... when Mark proposed to Monica... he had a bunch of his buddies write "Monica, Marry Me... Mark" or something like that in big letters using flour on the experienced pit while they were on thier way to altitude in the plane to do a 2-way... Monica had a total on the jump, terminal reserve ride, landed out, never saw the proposal written on the ground... he gets her back to the hangar, gets her calmed down, does the "ya gotta get back on the horse" speech, gets a substitue rig... and off they go for another jump... she has ANOTHER total on the second jump... I'm not lying... another terminal reserve ride, doesn't see the sign on the ground again... we pull Mark aside and say something like "fate is trying to tell you something here buddy"... :P... but he disagrees and walks her out to the target and, she's able to read the message / figures it out and he gets down on one knee and proposes to her... this was years and years ago and they're married still to this day. :)

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Can't you just write in really, really small letters on the inside of her goggles. That way she will think its written on the ground :)




That made me laugh out loud. :)
_______________
"Why'd you track away at 7,000 feet?"
"Even in freefall, I have commitment issues."

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