I gave it another shot, well a couple of shots. First, Skydive Tecumseh is not in Tecumseh, it’s in Napoleon. Turns out the DZ moved and kept the old name. No problem, I can drive an extra half our after the last hour because I enjoy it. The caravan isn’t the jump ship anymore, or the Pac, or even the Kodiac, it’s a King Air. I dislike King airs because they can’t slow down and they are terrible for maintenance issues. No problem, I couldn’t jump it this visit because it was out for repair.
Determined to give the place another try, I headed out for another visit. I had to sign up for their “Big Brother” software to get on a load. I’m pretty sure I just opted to sell all my personal info to the KGB by using this crazy program but that’s ok because I want to skydive. I waited for the tandem work to slow, about an hour, to get on a load. I shared a few jumps with some nice, moderately experienced jumpers and enjoyed the well-kept landing area. They may have such plush lawn from recycling the poo from the overflowing porta-poty, really I almost yacked looking at this thing. After finding a semi private place to whiz near the hangar, I still wasn’t scared off.
I was determined to continue enjoying the day until the owner made an announcement…on a bullhorn! Apparently the sport jumpers weren’t packing fast enough for his taste so he began chastising them with a portable mic and bullhorn. I packed my rig, put my gear in the car, paid for my jumps, deleted the big brother app and left. Good luck on all your future business endeavors.