Well, I'm gonna dig this old thread up. For the sake of my buddy Kevin.
I'm probably the most non biased person you'll get to reply on this from the DZ in question. I personally like the DZO, but do find many of his practices pretty damn scary.
I have spent just about every weekend for the past year and a half at this DZ. So I see what goes on week in and week out. I've talked to people who jump elsewhere that used to jump there. I've also saw many people jumping there when I first started who have moved to different DZ's. He seems to chase a lot of people off....and these usually are the ones who bring up safety issues.
Kevin has brought this up with the best of intentions. We've talked about it, and he is genuinely concerned for the students that jump there. For licensed jumpers (with their own gear) this place is fine. The plane is kept in very good condition...landing area is sufficient, etc. The only issue is the student part of the operation. He cuts far too many corners IMHO. That said...I'm one of those that tries to help out the DZO, I do this because I also am concerned for the students that jump here.
The AADs he uses probably scare me the most. My younger brother jumped there for his first 16 jumps. Had a cutaway on his 4th because he had an extremly hard opening and it jammed the toggles between the risers and slider grommets. And on a later jump had a sentinel fire at around 600 ft or so. The good thing in this situation is it didn't really work very well. It pulled the pin partially....and not completely until he landed....which popped the pin the rest of the way out, and out came the reserve pilot chute. It was good that it didn't function properly in this situation....but if actually needed....this would have been a fatality. Which goes back to why it fired in the first place?? MY brother probably weighs 150 tops....jumping a 240 sq ft canopy. But said DZO blamed it on him....said he should have stopped doing spirals at 1500 ft. Which is funny because I've got the whole thing on video....and he'd stopped spiraling long before 1000 ft., which is where they are set to fire. I didn't really get upset...no harm no foul is the way I usually am. And my brother continued jumping...I'm just bringin up some of the specifics people seemed to want to know on here.
Radio is where I helped out when I could. The DZO is extremly short handed....and this is his own doing...at one point he had plenty of instructors....but ran two of them off....which leaves him and ONE instructor. No other coaches or anything. Around 100 (I have just under 200 now) jumps for me I started radioing students down...not because I'm really all that comfortable with it...but because if I didn't do it...no one would. So me radioing them down is MUCH better than nothing. There have been days I was jumping, and there was no one on the ground with panels, smoke, anything...just what the student learned in the class. Which is fine if the student truly paid attention....which we know students probably don't always do. There have been 2 or 3 broken legs I've seen because of no radio and obvious inattention in the FJC. So I have little sympathy for these guys...even though with radio maybe the outcome would have been different. Hey its a high risk sport S**T happens. But still.
Packing is also a M-Fker here....Okay I personally think packers are Gods gift to skydivers like me who hate packing and are lazy. And I think the FAA should go and leave us the hell alone on this issue. But what he is referring to isn't packers not being supervised...its students with less than 10 jumps being shown how to pack once or twice and then left on their own 9 times out of 10. The biggest issue I have here is after a student is left to pack his own rig while he said he wasn't comfotable yet. This happens countless times....probably just about anytime a student gets more than 5 jumps here. And is probably the #1 reason students drop off....It almost caused me to quit as a student here. I was shown how to pack 2 times.....around jump number 7 and 8. Then was left to do it on my own....and being the typical student this freaked me the hell out...as it does just about everyother student this happens too. After the two lessons....I was left totally unsupervised....and when asking the DZO and instructors to look at my packing....was told I was being to paranoid....go finish up...or ignored. Okay fine I came through okay...maybe this is why I hate packing . But on several other occasions students have voiced their concern...been told to get over it (slightly more politely said than that) and go finish packing. Only to make the jump and have a cutaway....and then told they were just ultra paranoid and didn't give the canopy proper time to open....this happened once while I was doing radio and scared the S**T out of me. Guy exits at 3500 ft....has a streamer for a good 10-15 seconds...I end up yelling "cutaway" over and over into the radio before he finally does. This is on static line with NO AAD BTW. When the student lands him and I are told we were over reacting...it was only 6 or less seconds and he need to cough up an extra 100 and something odd bucks cause he dropped his handles. So student packs a streamer after asking for help, and being denied...I'm doing radio just to help....and were both told we were wrong.
Also....reserve canopies grossly undersized.....240 lb or so students jump 170 or 180 sq ft reserves....the main is a good 270+. One incident had a student not jumping for a few weeks because of a very hard landing under one of these reserves....because of a hard pull out of a Vynl leg mounted pilot chute pouch. Which are too small usually and have no give....this is because the containers are 20 yrs old....and the spandex or whatnot has gotton worn out and he just used some bit of material he had lying around to make a new one.
Okay this is the last I'll say on this already freakishly long post. Reserves. We aren't usually talking about a month or so out of date reserve...some of the puppies haven't been packed in a year or more. Okay fine, they'll probably still open, but come on the DZO is a friggin master rigger! Some of these have reserve pilot chutes that are shifted so much that they look to be about to bust out of the side of the container. And they aren't even pencil whipped most times....go grab a reserve repack card and you'll find a date from 2004 on that joker. And another thing that was pretty humorous......packing reserves after having a few beers. Seen this happen several times. Good friend of mines brand new G4...first time its ever been packed...and he's downing another miller lite......stabbing at it with a rusty old screw driver...I'm sure the screw driver isn't hurting anything with the chute...but its a brand new rig...come on go find a non rusty one at least! But the killer is he forgot to hook the RSL up....and is trying to get the temporary pin back in under the pin...using his trusty (rusty) screw driver. This is already after putting a cypress in another rig back ass wards!
Okay this was a freakishly long post. But Kevin really has the students at heart. He has no personal vendetta with the DZO...he actually likes the guy except for this stuff. He's said so many times. I really like the DZO and the dropzone. I'll continue to jump there...because of the next DZ being 3 hrs away. Plus I will pick up the slack where I can...try and keep bitching at him to change somethings around....and picking up a radio when they have no one else. But I see the other side. I've seen things that scared me...but I wasn't gonna say anything...Kevin felt he had an obligation...at least morally to do something. He wants feedback on what other people would do. He doesn't want to see the place shut down...just some things to change. I do too...but would be too selfish to say anything. I don't want to drive 3 hrs. Thats cold and stupid maybe...but it's the truth. Like I said...I spend lots of time out here...am friends with the DZO....eat out with him just about every weekend. Stay chatting for hours after jumpings ended. Drink some beer with him. Tell him he needs to get some new AAD's, rigs, and switch some reserves around...and to quite chassing instructors off. I think I can handle his B.S. better than most. I don't care what kinda stupid crap he says....I deal with it most days at work anyway! .
P.S. To all the jumpers that I'll probably here from that still jump there (the ones that love him )...I'm not hiding behind a fake name because I will print this joker out and show him myself . I've said most of these things to him...just on my regular profile its got the DZ as my home DZ. Probably would have been stupid to post with that one! PM me if ya like ! See you guys at the DZ.