paulagc

Hey everyone. Thanks. I appreciate the quick help. P.S. To "gearless chris"...what did your rigger say?

I'm looking for information/suggestions on how to replace the the black plastic "shrink wrap" (for lack of knowing the appropriate term) at at the top of the cutaway housing that has ripped on a rig. What kind of material it this? Where can I get it? How do I replace it? Any help would be appreciated. Paula Coody

All of you have been so helpful, resourceful, or at least entertaining with your ideas. My jumpers and I thank you very much. I'll give you a target update sometime. Blue Skies, Paula

All right all you math and light bulb geniuses...now I need some additional facts and calculations: Assuming I'm going to dump a 1 1/2' pile (of washed, real pea gravel) on the ground, tapered at the edges, on top of some kind of landscaping cloth that allows water to pass through, in a clear area, free of turbulence, but clear of the swoop lane, but not too far of a walk that no one will use it [see, I've been paying attention], with about a 7 meter radius (erring on the smaller side is fine, to save $$ and it's really not for regulation competitions, just to try to get our jumpers to be able to hit a target)...I need to know the following: 1. How many lbs/tons of rock to do I buy...(hmm...I've never bought rock myself...I don't really know how you order it...weight, truck load, ???) 2. Assuming we're going to pick it up ourselves, in a full-sized long bed pick up, how many truck loads? Or, is it more practical to have it delivered? 3. How many skydivers, equipped with shovels, will it take to shovel out the truck (assuming we do it ourselves), calculating the amount of rock to shovel, and the average amount of work that one skydiver, working for free, is capable of doing 4. Most importantly, how many cases of beer do I have to buy to get this done?

Thanks all for sharing your knowledge, info, suggestions, ideas and the great math refresher course. I really appreciate everyone's help. Paula

Without getting into the Notam discussion, here's my $ .02 (I'm the dzo, but not a pilot. I know we have a standing notam and atc on notice of our operations, Fri-Sun, sunrise to sunset, year round, within a 10 mile radius of our airport. We do have to call flight services when we are doing nightjumps, since it is outside our regular operating hours. (Please don't yell at me about my facts or lingo...me talking "pilot-speak" is like talking to a non-jumper about skydiving. {clueless} I have to rely on my chief pilots for this stuff) The other reasons for not doing night jumps all the time are threefold in my mind: 1. I want perfect conditions---no high winds that might make for a bad spot; no clouds to try to spot around in the dark, etc. 2. They take extra planning and effort---making sure lights are available for the jumpers to carry and in the landing area, giving proper briefings, etc. 3. DZO Laziness---I'm too tired to stay at the DZ from 8:00am until 1:00am every night. I need to go home and sleep sometime (and have a beer and food sometime), so we only do them on limited occasions. With daylight savings time, our sunset isn't until almost 10:00, so, waiting an hour, you're looking at almost 11:00 to start jumping. Paula Coody Indiana Skydiving Academy Goshen, Indiana

Okay, you experieced folks out there who may have built a pea gravel pit for accuracy competitions in their hay day...how do I build one? I've been running a dz for several years. We took over from the former DZO who had already built a pea pit. Now, we've moved our landing area and without "the pea" to shoot for, our jumpers are quickly loosing their accuracy skills. (plus, we have a new crew of jumpers who need to earn their "IGLOT" numbers!!). We obviously need to put one in. Now, how? How deep? Do we dig? Do we line it with sand or anything else besides pea gravel? Standard sizing? I would appreciate any help and guidence that I can get. Thanks, Paula Coody Indiana Skydiving Academy Goshen, Indiana

I've probably been involved in about 30 transactions (both buying and selling) on dz.com. I've always had good luck and never ran into a problem. I'm a dzo and rigger, so I've acted as middle-man (woman) for several of my jumpers. Sellers can look me up on USPA and they ship to our business address. We usually hold the check, inspect the gear when it comes, and then forward the check to the seller. This works great. But, I've also done many tranasaction direct to buyers/sellers (since I AM the middleman, and don't have anyone else to do it for me). I've never had a problem. I usually talk to the person by e-mail and by phone. You can usually get a pretty good idea about that person's trustworthiness by talking to him. I've sent gear without receiving payment first to people I was comfortable with, they then looked at it, and sent payment afterwards. I've also done COD sales. In other cases, I've sent the check and waited for the gear, or we've agreed to send 1/2, get the gear, and then send the other half. All in all, I've found that people in the skydiving community to be a pretty close knit and trustworthy group. Talk to the person. Use your common sense to judge a person and a situation. Look them up, look up or call their dz. If anything sounds unusual about the transaction or the deal seems too good to be true - beware, there are scams out there - but those people probably don't know too much about skydiving when you talk to them, either.

Hey, Does anyone out there have contact information for Dick Higley? If you've been around skydivng for awhile, you may know him. Dick has come to visit family in Indiana several summers and has flown for us and jumped with us when he could. I'm trying to get in contact with him, but due to the "benefits" of electronic storage, have lost my phonebook. thanks. Paula Coody Indiana Skydiving Academy Goshen, Indiana 574-642-3156

Just bored tonight and reading some of the threads. A couple of quick comments. First, thanks for the clarification about prices..every student has a different pace and needs, so it is really impossible to say 7 jumps and then solos and then you're done. Or, x number of jumps in the S/L progression, etc. I own a small dz and we tried flat fees for a while, in all of the progression methods. What I found was that there was a strong financial motive to consider "passing" a student with questionable performance, whatever method. We went back to per jump pricing, with discounts for purchasing groups of jumps, and never again "sold" the whole program. I've had students fly through and students who needed many jumps at each level. I just don't think you can fairly price any program on a flat fee basis because of the tremendous potential for variability. I do tell students that the S/L progression is generally more cost-effective. But ultimately, if you follow all the levels of USPA's ISP, and don't go 7 jumps and then solos, the prices don't come out too different any more. Oh yeah, second point, S/L rated instructors can touch students once they reach the coach levels and are working on group flying skills, just so there is no confusion. Blue Skies (and no winds, hopefully)

Hey, this is the land of debt (I'm mean "leverage", which is a nicer term). I started a DZ for about 10k (a small, homey one, of course). We financed the 182, bought five good, but used student rigs and one tandem rig. Also, of course, a pilot rig, radios, jumpsuits, altis, helmets and such from another DZO that closed near the time we were opening. What the 10k wouldn't pay for, we used those nice credit card checks. Most public airports rent hangers cheap. Find one that wants you...you'll buy a lot of expensive fuel and the airport gets federal funds credit for takeoffs and landings. That was about six years ago. The DZ has been one of my greatest joys and one of my greatest headaches. The debt is paid (except the plane) and we make a little profit ("little" being the key word). Advice? 1) Doing what you love as work can be incredibly rewarding, 2) Don't quit your weekday job just yet, 3) You'd better like risk...there's no insurance for this business, 4) It's better to not have much in other assets (see #3), and if you do, put it in your spouse's name, if married, and own the DZ corp. in your name only, 5) If you're looking to maximize the return on your investment, try mutual funds instead, 6) Find hungry teenagers to pack for you (nothing causes small DZO burnout like packing dozens of new 290 sq. ft ZP mantas in August), 7) Static line or IAD is most efficient and profitable for a Cessna dz, but you need tandems, too., 8) remember not to stop skydiving (yes, your slot could generate another $20 on the next load, but you need to remember why you are doing this. 9) You've gotta be an instructor/rigger, or have a partner who is, or get to be one ASAP. In fact, going to a rigger's course is a good thing to do over the winter. I was bored eating lunch...thanks for listening to my ramblings...it was entertaining for me. Best of luck!

Hmmm. I haven't posted in a long time, but I was eating lunch at work and I found this thread entertaining enough to read it all and then of course, it's hard not to want to put in your 2 cents. (now that I read what I wrote, it looks more like 4 or 6 cents). I'm kind of a "reluctant" DZO. Many days I'd much rather be sitting around fun jumping all day, instead of having to deal with dumping the trash, answering the phone, trying to remember to feed the jump pilots, packing student rigs, trying to explain to angry student and their families about wind limits, and all the other really glamorous things that dzos get to do. Before owning the DZ, I had plenty of complaints about our DZO, S&TA, USPA....etc. However, one day our dz closed unexpectedly. We found ourselves having to travel a long way to jump and didn't always like what we found. So, reluctantly, we decided to re-start a dz at our local airport. Sometimes it's the most amazing thing to do, and sometimes I can't imaging what misfiring neurons in my brain caused me to do this. What I've discovered, both from my own experience and talking to many other dzos, is that except for a few very rare exceptions, there just isn't much profit in this business. I could have invested the same amount of money in some other venture, incurred less risk, and have given the same amount of my time and labor, and the resulting profit margins would have GREATLY exceeded anything in the skydiving business. Again, except for a few rarities, it's the love of the sport and the love of sharing it with others that makes someone open a dz. An odd phenomenon with this business is that our primary customers---licensed jumpers---actually often cause us to incur a loss, especially now with the higher insurance and fuel costs. Right now, a full load on our 182 of licensed jumpers is a net loss to me. Yes, I do cringe when my folks take 2 or 3 passes in the 182, or fly around for 15 minutes at altitude, looking for a hole to jump though, then come back down and jump at 3000 and pay our 3000 rate, since I don't want them taking chances with cloud clearances. Yes, I love our regular jumpers and there would be no sport without you, but please appreciate a little of what we do to keep you jumping and to keep your jump tickets cheap. Tight profit margins do create an inherent motivation to save money where you can. Sometimes, we have to change policies when we see something happening that could impact safety. Knowing the bills I had waiting for me to pay, I've been tempted to send up the students when wind conditions were borderline. Now, we intentionally have someone with no interest in the DZ as S&TA, and have given him final decision-making authority with respect to winds and other limitations, since he can make this desision purely with safety in mind, and has no profit motive. Also, we used to give students the option of pre-paying for their entire course through their A-license up front for a flat fee. Quickly, I learned that this created a motive for us to pass student when their performance on a jump was questionable, since repeating jumps cut into our profits. So again, we stopped doing things this way. I think that most dzos and their staff work very hard to make this potentially dangerous sport as safe as possible. I know that when I market our sport to a student, teach that student, pack a person's researve, and encourage people to fly on my plane, that their lives depend on me. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't give them the best training, best equipment, best plane and best chance of not being killed as possible, even if it sometimes makes me wonder why I'm in this business when I run our end of the years proft/loss statement. Our licensed jumpers really want us to get rid of our 182s and buy a shiny new turbine aircraft that can get them to 14,000 in ten minutes, without paying more for jump tickets. When we can't afford it, they may go off and jump elsewhere. My point is that this business is tough. Few get into it because the money is good. Most dzos are people who have a total love for skydiving, just like you. Because of this, and their willingness to take on a huge risk and burden, there are lots of places to skydive at very reasonable prices for licensed jumpers (and also because USPA, with a very small constituent base, has been able to hold the government regulators at bay). I know of very few places who would send up their students in 30 knot winds to make a buck. If you know of such places, don't ever go there again yourself, or send anyone there, even if their airplane is really big and fast.

I'm not an accountant...so don't take this too seriously. It's perfertly legit to report income from skydiving work and take the related deductions. One of the only real good tax shelters left is being self-employed in some manner. Be careful, like was said, and don't show a loss every year, because the IRS will claim it's a hobby, not a business, and you can't take any deductions. But, you probably should talk to your DZOs, if you like them, and find out how they handle your pay/trade for jumps, in their tax reporting. I think it's if you earn, as an independent contractor, over $1000, the business owner is supposed to send you and the IRS a 1099 reporting the payment. If you report more income from the DZ than that, and they haven't reported it, you could be getting your friends investigated. If you're going to report, and your DZ doesn't treat you as an employee and give you a W-2, which most don't, definitely do it on schedule C, as your own business. Otherwise, you've got a whole slew of other issues for your DZO to contend with, like not doing withholding, Social Security/Medicare, etc.

If for some reason I'm on a load doing a solo from altitude, Ilike to work on something, like trying to improve my really poor freeflying skills. But, I really love having a chance to do a solo on a day where we're only getting like 5-7k. There's something really cool to my just laying on my belly, totally relaxing, and watching myself fall through the sky...It's like wow...what an amazing thing we do. Usually, there's no time to just think about falling from a plane, when you're busy thinking about the next point, or what you're student is doing. You almost start to take the basic experience for granted.

Hi everyone. I just wanted to thank everyone again. We are going to take our first tangible step in rebuilding the dz tonight. Thanks to our friends' generous donations, we're going to begin by ordering the rigging tools that we need so that when we get some gear in, we'll be able to pack it

Thank you everyone for your encouragement. I set up a separate paypal account for Indiana Skydiving Academy - fire relief fund. It's under my e-mail at: [email protected]. When any of our friends that have helped us want to stop by the dz, jumps (and refreshments) are on us. Thanks again for all of the well-wishes and encouragement.

That is so awesome that people that have never jumped at our dz would even think of that. I feel a little funny about actually taking a monetary donation, but I would humbly accept any donations of "stuff" that might not be needed anymore. We will always remember and be thankful to the terrific skydiving family that is helping us get back in the air. And, once we're back there, come visit and jumps are on us. Blue Skies! Paula Indiana Skydiving Academy, LLC 963 Ridgeview Drive, Suite B Goshen, Indiana 46526

Hi everyone. Bo and Paula here. ("The DZO's that don't own a rig") We've never quite realized how great of friends that skydivers could be. After the fire, the only thing that we could think of was that we had to sell the plane and start reimbursing those that had left their gear with us. All of our skydiving friends started coming over, calling, e-mailing, offering us their own gear, and everything else imaginable. They started making plans to try to help us. We then started getting calls and e-mails from others that we'd never met. It's incredible. Let me backup and tell our story. We can't store any of our gear and equipment in our hanger over the winter because the melting snow floods the place. We had a building behind our house that served as our rigging loft and place for our skydiving friends to get together. Our daughter's new puppies also had an indoor home there. On the night of the fire it was 10 below zero and the puppies were inside. There was also a bedroom there where our daughter had been sleeping out with the puppies almost every weekend. We cannot be thankful enough that this was one of the few weekend nights that she hadn't been there. At about 1:00am, Bo woke to find firetrucks in our driveway, and the building fully engulfed in flames. Nothing was salvagable. We have a small operation, but we lost everything. Our tandem rigs, student gear, personal gear, and everything else that goes with a dz, except for the plane, two mains out for re-lines and a box of pull-up cords. The fire investigators were out the next day. It was clearly an accident, but because it was burned so badly, it was very hard to tell exactly what started it. On the insurance issue...none of our skydiving equipment was insured. The few tools and household good that were out there will be covered under our homeowner's policy, as will the building, but business equipment must be covered under a separate policy, and I have yet to find any insurance company willing to write coverage for a skydiving business. So, we're basically starting from scratch (worse than scratch, actually, because of all the costs this has caused.) We dearly love this sport, and the outpouring of encouragement from our jumpers who want to keep jumping at Goshen has been so amazing that we're going to do whatever is necessary to see that things continue. It's hard, since we've invested everything possible in the business over the last couple years to build it. Thank you to everone who so generously has offered help. What a great community we have. Bo and Paula Coody Indiana Skydiving Academy Goshen, Indiana

I'm curious about the going rate for tandem instructors at other DZs. The options are per jump, the pack job is not included, and it's DZ-owned gear. Thanks!

No. My understanding is that AFF jumps, while there may be two people in the air, are not what the license requirements mean by groups freefall jumps. According to USPA's new student program, an AFF progression ends at CAT E, and then Coach jumps start for CAT F, G & H. To properly complete these levels, several jumps need to be done at these levels. CAT F jumps, and CAT H jumps involve two-way docks, which should cound toward the group FF jump requirement. The new ISP is really set up that a student should do most or all of their 25 jumps as instructor/coach jumps, working through the levels. The problem of money comes into play, however. Students starting out throught the AFF method pay plenty for those jumps, and to try to make it cheaper to end up with an A-license, I see many DZs turning the students loose to do solos after 8-10 jumps. While there's nothing wrong with solos under a coach/I supervision, those students really haven't completed the ISP's A-license requirements, but the DZ have trouble charging them for a bunch of coach jumps after they've just shelled out big bucks for the AFF progression. I recommend reading the actual student program information in the SIMS, if you haven't. It's a good program, although some may dispute that, but it does cost more. If you're going through AFF, you've already committed to paying quite a bit for training, I suggest paying for the extra coach jumps and really finishing your requirements. You'll be a better, safer skydiver for it. I'm sure no DZ will say "no" to more coach jumps. However, there does seem to be quite a discrepancy over how much coach jumps cost. I've seen everything from free (the coach donates his slot) to almost $100 bucks.

Just fill out - paper or on-line - USPA's regular membership application. There is no license or jump number requirement. I gave my mom a membership for a gift after she made a tandem since she we so interested and wanted to start receiving Parachutist. As part of their Group Membership commitment, DZs require jumpers to be members. However, students don't have to be members before their first jump. I think there is a little leeway here for the dz to set their policy, as I see quite a bit of variation from place to place. At ours, we give our students the membership application and tell them that they need to join after their first freefall in the S/L program, and their L3 in the AFF program. This is generally the time that I think they are committing to the sport. They also enjoy getting Parachitist. The third-party liability insurance is nice to have, but there is really little likelihood of using it. The real need is the fee that is paid. USPA is our government representative and lobbying organization. Skydiving is so unimportant in the scheme of aviation/government that we'd probably be wiped out by regulation if we didn't have a voice through USPA. However, the number of skydivers, compared to so many other groups/sports is so small, that it is hard to financially support our lobbying organization. Getting skydivers, even students, to join as early as possible is financially important. They, too, are benefitting from USPA's effort by just being able to skydive. Anyway, sorry about the soapbox. Once you get your license, that information will be added to you membership card. Don't bother with a temp membership. Just join for the year, as we all do and good luck!

I've been very happy with my purchases from dz.com and enclave. I've talked with the sellers, got pictures sent, and then had things shipped COD. Also, most people will negotiate on the price. Make sure you get all dates of manufacture, and make sure they jive with the supposed number of jumps. Find out where the gear was used (sand = lesser value). And, get a good feel for what used skydivng gear is really worth. Good luck!

Right now it's only 1...2...3...4. Someday, hopefully, we'll have to do a head count. And, as a backup, our jumpers don't pay until they leave, so if I have an unpaid account after everyone's left, they'd better hope they went in. ;)

I think it's great that you want to be involved in the sport with your husband. He would definitely love to be married to a rigger :) Anyway, I'd encourage you first get comfortable packing mains. Learn what lines go where, how to hook-up a main, etc. Your husband can probably help you all this. Then, buy Dan Poyter's rigger's study course, and start reading. Then, pay to go to a rigger's course. I think they have one at SDC each year, and there are also other good ones elsewhere. Best of luck!

I had to deal with the same thing for my former law partners. There's a real problem with life insurance for skydiving. The actuarial risks are still looking at how skydiving used to be decades ago, not today's reality. Unfortunately, skydivers are such a small market that it doesn't make economic sense to reevaluate the current risks. What I found that worked was using a traditional life insurance company/policy with an aviation exclusion, and then purchasing accidental death policy/policies that specifically covered skydiving activities. USPA can help you find those. Hey, don't sell your rig. Skydiving's such an important part of life. There's always a way to figure out or negotiate a solution to business problems, especially as seemingly stupid as insurance.