Airdivr

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Everything posted by Airdivr

  1. I have to disagree with having more procedures/rules, just because I believe we should be able to deal with this situation without establishing more regulations. After discussion with various people at Roger's funeral, the consensus of opinion was that peer pressure is the right way to go. The same way we dealt with people years ago who were dangerous in freefall (10 or 20 people sounding on them the first time and the second time they couldn't get on another load) would work. All it takes is a bunch of jumpers in the loading area saying, "Sorry, I have to scratch off this load because ________ is on it and he doesn't fly a left hand pattern and is dangerous in the air, even if he's not in my group. Enough of this type of action and the dz operators will get involved (props turning while jumpers don't get into the plane, etc.). Additionally, training in canopy control is a must. I'm really not even sure if half the jumpers know what a left hand or right hand pattern even means. And each year it seems to get worse and more dangerous under canopy. I agree with Bill that skydivers continue to take safety inventions and turn them into detriments. We are relying on mechanical devices much more than ever, rather than eyes and ears. You can put your head on a swivel all you want and you're still not gonna see the guy coming from above and behind you. We need to set a traffic pattern and use peer pressure to enforce it. If someone can't or won't follow the pattern then get them off the dz. Elaine D-7863
  2. I'm not sure about "Agent Orange", it sounds right, but I am sure that the DC-3 we called Kool-Aid (because it formerly belonged to Guyana Airways) was at Bigfoot. The Herd flew out in it and flew back commercial airlines after it blew an engine. I think Sugar Alpha was one of Bob Branch's planes, but I could be wrong. I thought that was the one that crashed at the Nationals. Anyone have any help here? Alzheimers is starting to set in big time. Elaine NNFS #3 D-7863
  3. What I posted came directly from the website. Elaine Demme D-7863 NNFS #3
  4. I found this on the JimRome.com Website. I'm assuming that this is what his diatribe was on the radio and suggest that USPA or someone in an official (i.e. attorney) reply if anyone. Anything else will just add fuel to the fire IMHO. Roger Nelson ran (and I stress) ran a skydiving school in Illinois. I say this in the past-tense because dead people don’t usually run businesses. Roger is dead because of yes, skydiving. He died in an accident at his own school. Nelson’s school was under attack because he had a fatality rate 8 times higher than of other schools. Like that isn’t a problem! Isn’t that the first question you ask when you visit a skydiving school? “Excuse me, but how often do you kill people here?” or “How many people do you guys kill in comparison to the other facilities?” You’d think that after awhile, that number would shrink because after the word gets out that you’re killing people 8 times more often than the competition, you would have fewer customers to kill. I’m guessing the competition was all over that in their advertisements. “We don’t kill people as often as they do. You’re 8 times less likely to get killed here than with Roger Nelson”. That’s good. Think about it, if a dentist of doctor sucks, the word gets out pretty fast and he’s done with his practice. You would think that the same applies for skydiving schools, but somehow Roger was still in business up until recently. And how about Nelson getting killed at his own school? Hey, if this guy couldn’t teach you how to keep yourself from getting killed, odds are he couldn’t keep himself from getting killed either. Makes sense to me. Nelson’s death was the 14th fatality since the school opened in 1993. That’s better than 1 death a year. How about that for consistency?! The first one, I get. Accidents happen and you are jumping out of an airplane. There are some inherent risks. Two…maybe. But after the third death, don’t people stop coming altogether? I mean, why pay money to kill yourself? There are easier ways. So actually, I don’t blame Nelson’s school for death’s 4-13. That’s on them. The pattern was already in place. If you’re reckless enough to go to a skydiving school which is notorious for killing people, then I think you’re asking for it. But wait, this gets worse… Nelson was the captain of the U.S. skydiving team in 1982. Captain? So this guy was supposed to be ‘good’ at one time? So he was supposedly the best of the best in ’82? What, did the other members of that team kill 14 people and he only killed 13? What exactly made him worthy of being ‘captain’? If that doesn’t make his resume just about perfect, this will. He was sentenced to 10 years for drug smuggling. Safe to say that Ol’ Roger was quite the entrepreneur. Thoughts and prayers to the families of the first 13 fatalities.
  5. Joe may actually qualify for one of my most memorable meetings! I was actually grounded at the Herd (not a common occurrence in the 70's) for just hanging around with him! I had the privilege of being on some of his many SCS attempts (he fell like a fire hydrant) and generally consider myself lucky that I was around in the days when you could hear the stories from Joe himself....wish I could remember all of them, but senility is setting in here too![:)
  6. I'd love to get a copy of the cartoon. I remember many no-suit jumps organized by Mitch at Z-Hills in the late 70's early 80's. Some fondly,