zipplewrath

I have to chuckle. Sorry, but this is sorta an "okay boomer" moment. In the northern climes, no one had a "currency jump" despite not having jumped for6 months or so. Bajeezus people, we jump out of airplanes toward certain death. No one cares if your canopy or relative work skills are up to stuff. We enjoy flying DESPITE the risks for good God's sake.

Uh, no, I don't know this. It's an Air Force Base that does testing of experimental aircraft. There are many bases that doing aircraft and other testing. Most military jumping is probably done out of Fort Bragg.

I've got two reserves, ones been packed 25 years, the other for 14 years. I'm wondering if anyone is doing reserve age testing where they could make use of such things?

I was #5 on Flyaway 10. I always remember your father with a smile. Sorry that his last year was a battle. But I have to admit, Dick knew how to fight. May he rest now forever.

I've got about 200 jumps on a strato star. That's actually still in the Greenstar. But I don't really expect anyone to want to jump or install these reserves. I kinda figure at this point their only value is for testing.

Sorry, shoulda included what I knew. The oldest is a 24 foot 4 line release. Manufacturer is listed as "Steinthal". Last packed on 4-28-84. Packed in a modified Greenstar. The second is a Swift 5 cell packed in a Mirage from about '88. Well, the rig is, the last pack job is from about 2001.

So, I have a couple of reserves in old rigs that have been packed for between 10 and 20 years. They've been stored in air conditioned spaces and just been sitting there. The question is what to do with them. I can't envision anyone actually wanting them for skydiving. I do wonder if there is anyone, or any organization doing aging tests that might be interested for any reason.

You'd have a hard time proving such an assertion. Examples abound of aeronautical activities that don't have much FAA interference. I'm not saying that they are completely useless, but the historical reality is that they are mostly a handy structure for individuals to access when they want to take action. In and of themselves they rarely if ever take action on their own. PIA is perfectly capable of fully representing the sport, and the reality is that many of the same people involved in these actions through USPA could act through PIA as well. In fact, many either are, or work for, organizations that are also members of PIA. USPA isn't necessary, and there is surely no justification for them being nearly as "mandatory" as they are.

The one that fits. I had a mirage for years. Somewhere along the line I got hooked on Racer. The old expression turned out to be true for me. The Vector looks great on the packing table, the Racer fits your body. I suspect it has alot more to do with fit than anything else. Whatever fits is going to work well. The hard part is that you really need a "custom" fit to know. And of course it helps if the container was intended to hold the size main and reserve you will fill it with.

>>If you dont like dead ppl...this is the wrong sport.... >>Its like being a motocrosser and dont like dirt... >Despite whuffo perceptions, dead bodies are not >stacked like cordwood around the drop zone. You >are more likely to trip over a dead body when >you're out on a motocross bike than when you are >landing at a DZ Can't claim to know any real data for motocross. But that sounds suspiciously like "the drive to the DZ is more dangerous" kind of claim. I've never known anyone who died while involved in motocross, and I've known a few. A bunch of them got all busted up real bad though. On the other hand, I've known way too many who have died skydiving. Now, in general motorcycling riding, I've always been a tad suspicious that skydiving and riding had some similar risks, mostly because of the other cars. Either way, motocross is about the dirt, skydiving is about air, not death.

Well, I see things a tad differently, but the reality is that, yes, nothing new here. You're right, change the names and it'd fit in alot of places around the country. Look, as consumers, as a sport, we long ago "sold our soles to the company store". We're the spouse that sticks around as long as there's a nice house, a club membership, and a credit card that never fills up. We don't care who the spouse is sleeping with. We decided that we don't care a wit about how DZ's are run, by whom, or to a great degree for what price. We don't care who they throw off, what rules they break, or what they charge. From the DZ at Las Vegas, to all of the Skyride affiliated DZ's, we don't care what you do as long as you make planes fly close to where we live. Individually, we can all get in snits over one thing or another. But collectively there are always vastly more people who don't care than do.

In the end, there aren't alot of angels here. SDC got started by some folks that basically wanted in on "the action" and so started their own DZ. Richards was looking back then for a "winter" location for "His" plane (He may have only had one at that time, I don't remember). George would let it come down, but he'd fly his planes first. Richards was getting 2-3 flights per day some times. Joanie was running a store that had to "compete" with the gear store at the DZ. So the uncharitable expression is that what we have here is a case of the whores arguing over territory. Now, TK is a "late comer" to this game. I was no big fan of the way TK ran the place, but he was hired to come in an bring some business acumen to a situation that hadn't seen much up until then. It was a DZ rats paradise up until then with planes flying VERY light and a manifest that had trouble remember if you paid, or how much you owed. On more than one occasion, I had to tell THEM how many jumps I had made. And they'd keep forgetting to use the blank checks I left on deposit so there would be 2 -3 weeks of jumps on one check. And TK never made many bones about the fact that it was a business. I had run throughs with him in the early days when he harvested emails and hired someone to send out some VERY early SPAM when that still wasn't cool. TK was never going to do well at the State Department, but he was probably not fitting well at IBM either. All which leads up to the current situation. Many people credit Richards with bringing turbine aircraft to skydiving. One can make a case that he was merely one of the earliest. But when he first started showing up in Florida with his plane, we were doing 30+ minute climbs to altitude in WWII era planes. Within a couple of years there were ALOT of turbines flying (heck, even Eustis had a turbine at one point). And he had a program that was VERY popular called "frequent flyer", when you flew on his planes ANYWHERE, you got a coupon. After some number (20?) you "earned" a free jump. So there are no angels, but even I hesitate to truly call them whores. They've all made their contributions, but their motivations weren't particularly "pure" nor about "making skydiving better". They were about the money from right up front. And to a great degree they've been fairly "up front" about that part. Drama and Z-Hills go together a bit like skydiving and beer lights. And that will take ya all the way back to AT LEAST Hooper. And aircraft disputes go back to AT LEAST 40 Tango.

Most folks I knew that did both, would admit that SCUBA was more dangerous that skydiving. It's a strange calculation, but in the end, you know pretty quickly you're in trouble in skydiving and can start taking proper actions. In SCUBA, you can be getting into more and more trouble and not necessarily know it until it may be too late.

I was lucky enough to be around in the "bad old days" when this was pretty easy to do. It usually required a short sit down with the TM. Heck, I was on a 12 way with a skydiver's wife's 2nd tandem. We had fun.

Well, it's important in hypothetical to discuss the assumptions behind them. In this case, why would 90% of the membership be voting? You get the "beauty contest" now because people don't really have much they expect/need/want from USPA. If for some reason 90% of the membership voted, it would imply they had some interest in the outcome. Depending upon what those interests were it could significantly alter the outcomes.