The DropZone Obituaries

[Bodhisattva420 0]

I made my first 12 skydives over a 4 year period at 3 different dropzones in Texas. All 3 have since closed their hangar doors ... well, actually, one didn't even have hangar doors:

RIP Skydive Caddo Mills, Eagle's Nest, & WesTex

Go ahead and feel free to post an obituary for your home dropzone of yesteryear.

[airtwardo 6]

Trackers Inc. in Annawan, IL.

A little 'outlaw' club in the middle of a cornfield...great peeps that took the time to give me my start.

They taught quite a few students but few were asked to stick around...must have seen something in me - that or they liked the beer I always brought!

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[BillyVance 34]

Skydive North Alabama, where I got my start, in the Hazel Green area. The student LZ was no bigger than a baseball field, well, the mowed area anyway. Never missed it on my way to the A license. Came perilously close to the power line along the road after a long spot. Large open field I could have landed in across the road.

Good memories of that place. The last time I jumped there, I remember being on the way up to jump run in the C182, and looking down at the runway, I watched a plane try to land the wrong way, with the wind behind it. It kept going, going, going, until it ran off the end of the runway into the field and promptly flipped on its back over the nose. We did jump anyway.

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[johnG325 0]

Skydive Paradise... Paradise, CA. Made my first tandem after my 18th birthday in 2003, and then my 2nd tandem there a few months later. Weird story. Very pretty place with a great view.

[Spooky52 0]

Fort Lee, VA (got my start there), Holtville, CA (ran the operation there) and Antioch, CA (Perry Stevens' place, now a housing development and high school). Ft. Lee was the Quartermaster Corps' training facility. It was narrow and long and completely surrounded by 100'+ pine trees (became intimately familiar with them a couple of times). The Holtville operation was just an abandoned WWII airfield that I and the others who founded the Imperial Valley SPC used. I finagled a brand new Aero Commander Lark to use and flew quite a few loads. Looked at the area on GoogleEarth a while back and there are not even any signs of the old sheds we used to pack in.

If you know how many guns you have - you don't have enough!

[drjump 0]

Rice University SPC, Conroe, Tx.
Galveston Sky Divers, Dickinson and Hitchcock, Tx.
AOT-Millican, Tx.
Houston Parachute Service, Angleton, Tx.
PARA-Tex. Weiser, Tx.

[hangdiver 1]

Pope Valley...

[inline pv_mug_.jpg]

Jump#15 3way round...May 4,1980 jumped @10,500 with the kitchen girls as the formation DC-3 champagne flight climbed to altitude for the 40 way "Sunset over Pope".
Landed in the peas on a Para Commander.

RIP




hangdiver

"Mans got to know his limitations"
Harry Callahan

[nndefense 4]

Lucedale, Mississippi in the 60's. Set a state altitude record there in 1965. 13,500 feet in 1965. Hahahaha! Went out the baggage door of a unpressurized Cessna 310 (I think) with a guy named Rusty Salley. Had gotten knee walking drunk the night before. I had like 5 jumps prior.
Wonder I ain't dead.

Of course my home DZ where I logged over 1200 jumps, Hammond, Louisiana. The DZ closed due to local politics and moved to Covington, LA. It's just a weed patch now.

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[NovaTTT 1]

West Wind Sport Parachute Center, Jenkinsberg, Georgia.

The dz effectively ended 9/29/85. Soon changed hands and operated as Atlanta Skydiving Center (a/k/a Billy World) for a few years.

Billy World was a fun place to jump, even if you didn't follow the rules.


ETA: "Billy World"

"Even in a world where perfection is unattainable, there's still a difference between excellence and mediocrity." Gary73

[dzswoop717 5]

York Sport Parachute center. Pennsylvaini 1966-1987
Extra Fine skydives Inc (EFS INC.) Hanover PA 1987-92
New Oxford Skydivers. Pennsylvania 1992-1997
The Skydivin' Place pennsylvania 1997-20010
Carolina skysports NC
United Parachute club PA ( The Herd)

[topdocker 0]

Anderson, IN- Jim Trantor ran the place, lots of fun and had 5 Cessnas, although not all were working at the same time....


Crazy Creek, CA- near Napa, mostly tandems, but had a few good boogies. Pilots flew gliders so they were always riding thermals to gain more altitude. You had to have a strong stomach...

top

Jump more, post less!

[aepiper 0]

Kendall Gliderport, SW of Miami, FL.
ESP = Everglades Sport Parachutists.
My time there was from 1978 until skydiving shut down there (sometime before 1981).
We then moved south to Homestead GA airport.
... Alan

[Deisel 35]

Anyone care to share why these places closed? I'd like to learn what mistakes were made while starting up my own operation.

Great topic, so what have we learned?

The brave may not live forever, but the timid never live at all.

[dzswoop717 5]

Loss of airport access. airports being sold to developers with the end result being the closure of the airports. One case, we were renting a private runway and the landlord's insurance company threatened to drop him if we didn't stop jumping, we couldn't secure insurance to make the landlord happy. 2 cases were just burn out. The best chance of staying in business is airport ownership but even then it isn't gaurenteed. Just ask Jim Nipper in FL. If you are on a public airport keep control of your people. Don't cause any unnecessary conflicts with the local pilots or community. You can't have a DZ with out an airport.

[hangdiver 1]

Damn top..how could I forget Crazy Creek? I was instrumental in that DZ start up...also made the first jump there.

I've been approached about a boogie there but don't have the energy now days.
If it ever happens we would call it the "Once a Century Crazy Creek boogie".

[inline crazy_creek_logo.jpg]


hangdiver

"Mans got to know his limitations"
Harry Callahan

[rdufokker 6]

Roseland, NC
Pinebluff, NC
Laurinburg, NC

Irony: "the History and Trivia section hijacked by the D.B. Cooper thread"

[propblast 0]

Laurinburg is gone?

Propblast

[jumpwally 0]

Hinckly,Ill.....

smile, be nice, enjoy life
FB # - 1083

[smooth 0]

jumpwally

Hinckly,Ill.....

Also Midwest Skydivers, Lansing IL; Skydive Sandwich; and the dz in Morris come to mind.

[wmw999 2,116]

Spaceland Parachute Center (the old one in League City, not the new one in Rosharon).

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[kkeenan 13]

Cleveland Texas

Now there was a DZ that lived fast and died young. Holy Stromboli did we have some crazy times there. Between the hallucinogenic local flora and the automatic weapons, it was destined to be a short-lived DZ.

SCR #3022 was awarded to me there in October 1973.

Kevin K.

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

[Deisel 35]

No, Laurinburg is still there. The Golden Knights are based there but fun jumpers aren't allowed on military aircraft.

The brave may not live forever, but the timid never live at all.

[rdufokker 6]

When Captain Cunningham left in the 90's it went to strictly GK, so I don't consider it a general populous DZ.

BS

Irony: "the History and Trivia section hijacked by the D.B. Cooper thread"

[david3 0]

Bodhisattva420

I made my first 12 skydives over a 4 year period at 3 different dropzones in Texas. All 3 have since closed their hangar doors ... well, actually, one didn't even have hangar doors:

RIP Skydive Caddo Mills, Eagle's Nest, & WesTex

Go ahead and feel free to post an obituary for your home dropzone of yesteryear.

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=3465307;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25;

[BillyVance 34]

Also, in Alabama in addition to the Skydive North Alabama DZ mentioned earlier, there were DZs (don't remember the names as they were before my time) in Pinson just north of Birmingham, and Gadsden, and another in Weaver just outside of Anniston. Also three DZs at Pell City in succession, with the last one being a skyride operation that eventually burned the airport for future skydiving operations, after which, the same group of assholes also burned the Prattville airport and the Clarksville airport in TN.

There was another DZ southwest of Mobile that was the precursor to Gold Coast Skydivers just north of Pascagoula, MS. Other DZs in the past were Skydive Headland outside of Dothan, and a short-lived DZ in Moundville, south of Tuscaloosa.

That's all I can think of.

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban