gjhdiver

Well, although I swore 28 years ago I would sooner set fire to my penis than reform this band, it's funny what time can do. I'll be getting on a plane in December and flying back to the UK to reform The Shapes and do a short tour to mark the 30 year anniversary of the first single, and the UK and Japanese re-releases of the album. If you like your punk rock, here's the one to come see; http://www.rebellionfestivals.com/rebellion-london.html Some pretty impressive acts there. Oh yes, there will be drinkies.

Your post is well reasoned, but it starts off from a fallacy and builds in the wrong direction from there. I too started as an instructor before the days of tandems, but I see it somewhat differently. I'm not going to go off on a whole thesis about it but here's the jist of it. Last weekend, our DZ put up 146 tandems. By your reasoning, if tandems weren't available, we would have had 146 first jump students instead that would have either jumped AFF or static line, and possibly stayed with the sport. Obviously, that's not the case. Tandem is drawing a huge amount of customers from the pool of people that would never otherwise have considered making a skydive. We're essentially in two business simultaneously, the skydiving business, and the carnival ride business. Also, volume tandem jumping has done two major good things for upjumpers. It's allowed DZOs to increase aircraft capacity and to (for the most part,) artificially suppress jump prices for experienced jumpers. As the former DZM of Skydive City, I know just how many upjumpers you need to run a fleet of Otters, and it's beyond the scope of most drop zones. If your drop zone used to be a Cessna operation and now owns a King Air, PAC or Otter, it's tandems that you have to thank for it. Whilst the retention rate of tandems may be small, they allow the students that do stay to experience lift capacity that was unheard of 25 years ago. Basically, what I'm saying here is don't blame tandems for the bad business practices of some drop zones in respect to upjumpers. Those drop zones eventually have problems with staffing because they never built up a local staff of home grown instructors.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. dropzone.com has the most uneven and ineffectual moderation of any site that I've ever been subscribed to. The application of any rules seem arbitrary at best, and mostly dependent on who is posting, and whatever moderator is bothered to get involved. I gave up on any consistency in it years ago. I just ignore it, post and read what I like, and let them deal with it if they can be bothered. It's not worth getting excited about....

Dennis jumps at Lodi in CA, a non-USPA drop zone, so it's moot whether USPA would allow him to be a member or not. I believe that not only has he competed at Nationals regularly in the Classics, but that he's also represented the US in the World Meets in those disciplines.

OK, calm down here. Wicca has NOTHNG to do with Satanism, and the rede has NOTHING to do with Satanism. Both predate Christianity and Satanism by many centuries. Wicca is essentially an earth and nature philosophy, and Christianity co-opted many of it's practices and festivals. Easter is one of them for instance, as is Christmas. Also, don't put any stock in LaVey's dog and pony show. You can't put any more stock in something he made up from whole cloth in the 1960's, any more than something that was made up of whole cloth 2000 years ago. A true Satanist doesn't actually believe in an entity called Satan, as it's a belief system centered around pure self worship. The Christian church has made a habit of conflating every other pre Christian belief system with Satanism, which is a concept they themselves invented. It was used as a tool for the forcible conversion and the persecution and wholesale murder of literally millions of people. If you live your life by the rede, you don't need imaginary friends, as you'll have plenty of real ones right here and now. I'd just like to add that the Catholic fathers who educated me did not lead me astray in any way. They were a loving, attentive, kind order of men. I just realised that despite that, they were peddling a load of superstitious bullshit that I couldn't swallow.

[reply Sorry, but it is clear you havent read a Gospel, and I dont know why you would speak so against it if you havent even read it. Sounds a bit disturbing to me. Actually old chap, I was raised by Catholics and educated privately at school run my an Irish Catholic order of preists. I took communion, was confirmed, and served on the altar, as well as taking religious studies for many years. I have more than a working knowledge of scripture, which I'm trying to purge to be honest to make room for normal stuff. I just always had the nagging suspicion that it was all BS. As I grew older, I became convinced it was just all nonsense. I ditched it all, and have never looked back. It's great to live without fear. I live by the Wiccan rede. "Be it harm none, do what they wilt shall be the whole of the law". Works great.

Delta II. I had one and cut that OSI down.

Absolutely, it's just not the reaction they were looking for when I bite 'em. Consider it my gift to the world. I'll retrain them as fast as they come up to me.

This is unintelligible superstitious babble. If there was Jesus, even he'd be asking WTF that was. BTW, I took a Jesus on a tandem last weekend. Might not have been the one you were talking about though. I think this one worked in San Jose.

Jesus was just a carpenter, and not a very good one it seems. After all, he got nailed for the last job he did.

It's bollocks. I achieved true enlightenment the day I saw through and promptly abandoned all religion and superstition. I live my life without fear of imaginary friends. Not a fucking chance. There's lots of living things. Are you seriously telling me that there is an afterlife with every last insect, plant, bacteria, dinosaur, animal, and fish in it ? Bit crowded wouldn't you say ? I know, I know, your magic book has a get out clause for that. Just the talking monkeys get to play. Yep, and I've seen bugger all evidence to the contrary. We do. It's called science and reason, and it's nice to say that they are doing a great job of destroying the hopeless bullshit that is organized religion. Seriously though, I don't really care what you believe, as long as you don't try to enact your particular superstition into public policy. Not on it's own, but it sure as hell can allow you to be miserable in comfort. Organized religions are awash in money conned out of the sheep that tithe their money to them. Seems to cheer them up doesn't it ?

This will just make you an easier victim in future. I don't put up with any shit from anyone. You can't retrain an asshole, but you can make them stop behaving like one to you if they know that there will be consequences.

Because religion is a joke. Jokes are funny. There you go.

Nope. True ignorance is the belief in your imaginary "magic" friend. Religion is just superstition. Feel free to waste your life dancing to that imaginary tune though......

All I can say is was it wouldn't have happened if it had been a Wings.

I have two issues, because USPA can't figure out how to send just one to me and wife. I have one the right way up, and one the wrong way. I suspect foul play by UPT for Mirage's attempt at a Skyhook. Mind you, they both went into the recycling.....

I never know what I'm talking about. Consistency is important.

Just wanted to point out that some of that CASH you are earning comes from skyride scams as the DZ listed in your profile is a Skyride affiliate. Exactly. However, I have no idea which students are Skyrides, and which ones are not, which would make it damn near impossible to take any stance on the issue. By the time I'm faced with a customer, there's not much I can do about it really, and pretty much all of the drop zones in the local area take Skyride business. Honesty and integrity really don't have a lot to do with it. As for me, skydiving is my sole source of income. The whole business of professional skydiving dictates that if I don't take them, someone else will. I suppose I could just elect to starve and not pay my bills I suppose, if that would make people happy. All I can do is to approach them as professionally as possible and hope that if they have a good time, they'll come back as a normal customer. We have a few jumpers now at Byron who started off as a tandem from Skyride.

Relax. It's got nothing to do with honesty or integrity, and everything to do with realism. After nearly a quarter century in this sport, I've seen this deal before many times. This one is no different. This too shall pass. As for putting one's head in the sand, I can't think of a better example than the endless keyboard flexing on this subject on these forums. Thousands of post, and practically nothing has changed in five years, except USPA fell over their own damn feet dealing with it and wasted a shitload more of our dues, whilst emboldening the very practice they sought to stop. This essentially was the jist of my previous post. Posting about it here is like those magnetic Support Our Troops ribbons on cars everywhere. You know, it gives the impression that you're actually doing something, when in fact it's the barest minimum effort you could possibly put forth. Skyride survive because dropzones take the money, and instructors take the students and passengers. If they didn't, Skyride couldn't exist. If the general membership was really engaged, they could boycott the drop zones, and the instructors could take the financial hit of the lost income. Like I said though, it's easier to post and pretend that action substitutes for real hard choices. Dammit. Now I'm just as guilty of perpetuating this useless discussion, when I could be at the drop zone earning cash.

What ? You mean that they prefer the hot, humid, backwards shithole they're in now, rather than a nice new hot humid shithole in NC ? Really, how ungrateful.

Easy. Replace them with other mains Only two of the tandems at our DZ are Precision loaded. They are always the last to be used, if ever, and for pretty much the same reasons as you state.

I'd like to thank everyone here for ressurecting yet another Skyride thread. Can't have enough fucking Skyride threads can we ?

I figured 6 months was long enough of a wait before this was bumped. Anything new, maybe a release date? I shall ask for you and see where thy are with it all.....

Ahem. I'm a Libertarian, and I'm a left wing atheist who owns guns. Bob Barr is a hypocritical tool BTW.

He's on facebook. Go look for him and you'll find him there.....