JCW1966

You grow up, every time I'm here you have something smart alleck to say. Heck most of your posts regardless of who you are talking to has something smart alleck to say. You're not happy unless you're pissed. What a miserable way to live. USPA should not have pulled the dropzones memberships period. Let's punish the dropzones and all who jump there because of the owners owning Skyride. Didn't cross their T's and dot their I's, bull, that's what attorneys are for. And USPA's didn't do their job. Ya'll cry about ASC but the truth is you're just pissed because they do a ton of business. You made the statement that most rain checks don't come back, prove it, you can't. Get over it. There's nothing that says you can't advertise in other states. I design web sites and provide web hosting. Nothing says I'm limited to sticking to the city I'm in. If I had to do that I'd be broke because there isn't enough business where I live. If you don't like it then advetise your dropzone more. Like I said 90 percent of ya wouldn't like what I said and there's nothing I can do about it. Guess what I don't like some of the things you say and there's nothing you can do about that either.

Takes a bigger man to always jump my butt.

Yep some of you have been around longer than myself. And whether(not weather) you like it or not USPA took it out on the wrong businesses. What did USPA accomplish? Nothing, well they did waste the money of their members. But you know, I knew you would be the first to jump my butt, you always are.

You know what's stupid? Everyone who blames the ASC dropzones for what Skyride does or doesn't do. Skyride is a reservation business. The dropzones are a skydiving business. The reservations are not made through the dropzones. But yet people want to bad mouth the dropzones, their employees, and those who jump there. Bottom line, USPA was wrong to go after Skyride via yanking the memberships of ASC dropzones. By doing so they did not hurt Skyride one bit. All they did was hurt ASC dropzones and really didn't do a whole lot there did they? So much for promoting skydiving. Oh I guess that's what happens when you have dropzone owners on the USPA BOD. Kind of a conflict of interest there. A dropzone owner is going to look after his dropzone first as any smart business owner would, not the interest of the skydiving community as a whole. But because of that fact bad decisions were made on behalf of the USPA. Personally I don't think dropzone owners should be allowed on the USPA's BOD. By pulling the memberships of ASC dropzones the USPA punished the wrong businesses. Doesn't matter that they are owned by the same owners of Skyride, they're separate entities. And in the end it bit the USPA in the butt. It also wasted the money that we, as individual members, pay in the form of yearly dues. I bet USPA's attorneys won't complain about the money they made off of this mess. They should have told USPA not to do what they did in the first place. Instead they took our money and got the USPA into a situation they could not win. Doesn't take an attorney to figure that one out. Attorneys are suppose to advise their clients. Either the USPA got bad advice or no advice at all. Yet I haven't heard anyone complain about the USPA's attorneys. Get a grip, layoff ASC dropzones. They have nothing to do with what goes on in the offices of Skyride. If you want to complain about Skyride you should complain about Skyride and the people who work there. Not the dropzones, which by the way have excellent staff and equipment. As far as Skyride they had what, 300 complaints out of how many of thousands of reservations they make a year? My 1st skydive was an AFF LVL 1. I made my reservation through Skyride and had no problems. I even paid for the AFF package and dealt with Skyride until I completed my AFF course, not a single problem. I jump at the Cedartown and Prattville locations. I consider them my home and consider the people there my family and friends. As far as other litigation against Skyride that's what the Better Business Bureau is for. And if all complaints filed with them have been resolved then there's not much they can do either. I enjoy skydiving and ASC is the place that got me into this fine sport. I can't even begin to count how many people I have seen come into the sport after doing a tandem at an ASC dropzone in the last year and a half. If you really want to complain about something complain about how USPA handle the situation to begin with. And for letting DZO's on the BOD. Personal interests were put before the skydiving community's interest as a whole. And don't forget the fine legal team that took USPA's money, our money, in the first place. Speaking of conflict of interest I pay money to the USPA so they can go after the dropzones I jump at. Makes a lot of sense to me. But ASC requires USPA membership even though they were not a USPA affiliated dropzone. There's another conflict, ASC promoted the USPA while the USPA did not promote them. The USPA needs to police the dropzones and leave the policing of the reservation centers to the Better Business Bureau. At the same time maybe somebody needs to police the USPA. You know I figure 90 percent of those who read this won't like it. Guess what? There's not a thing I can do about that. Blue skies everyone, it's time to move on.

There is no butt busting in the video that you see I just never said the video showed everything. Like the 2nd jumper actually put up a big splash. The part of the field he touched down in was low lying and about a 1ft under water from a ton of rain the day before. It's just not in the video.

Thanks, but the video wouldn't exist without the jumpers. And Burke did an awesome job of flying The Flag. It was spectacular from my point of view and a priviledge to get to film it.

No attitude. In light of some of my past videos I was trying to be funny. Lighten up a little.

I'am so sorry to hear of your loss. May the next DZ you call home give you another 20 years of fond memories.

Yes there is another demo video floating around. http://www.2020vertical.com/media/skydiving/oct2007/savannah_demo.wmv Nothing fancy, no hook turns, etc... Oh and no one busting their butt either, sorry. And the bikers, some of which were vets, were told that the flag would touch the ground before the demo was made. No objections or concerns were expressed. Then again how do you keep a flag that is bigger than your canopy from touching the ground? The gator at the end of the video was a last minute suprise guest with a front row seat from the pond next to the landing area. Jumpers were as follows: Smoke: Danny Bryson & Tim Caudill(USMC Active) Savannah Harley Davidson Banner: Fast Eddie The American Flag: Burke Fitzpatrick

You're exactly right the NOTAM is just to let pilots know what is going on. That's why they should check them. If we see an aircraft coming into our airspace that aircraft has the right of way and we do not launch anything until the aircraft has left our airspace. Now once we launch a rocket we have no control over it(guidance systems are illegal) and any aircraft that flies into our airspace needs to steer clear of it, not towards it. Again this goes back to check the NOTAMS to see what, if anything, is going on.

All I can tell you is this. We have had US Navy F18's out of Merdian, MS. bzz our heads and knew they were coming. We have been notified of such things on the field by cel phone from the FAA. But don't think they're going to call us over a private aircraft because they won't. Their call, not ours. I can also tell you this, I have personally tried calling the FAA to try to back up our paper work and right of airspace and have found the FAA to be completely so messed up that they couldn't tell me squat which can't be good for pilots regardless of their hours or aircraft they are piloting. We file the paper work but it doesn't mean it can be found under the necessary circumstances which falls back on the beaucracy in which we had to file it with in the 1st place. We follow their rules. That's all we can do besides a visual check on the airspace around us. We file our waiver for 1 year. Sunrise to sunset for every weekend for a 1 year period. We then are required to notify the FAA 48 hours and no less then 24 hours before a launch. And then we have to call 1 hour before launch ops begin and then again 1 hour after they have ceased. It's up to them to make that info available, we can't do it. Any suggestions?

I know what he saw. It was 17 miles south of Pell City airport and was about the size of a telephone pole. And it was under a 35' round. He should have turned and flew away, instead he decided to fly circles around it. He got close enough for the onboard camera to actually pick up the sound of the motor from his airplane over the wind noise. The FAA was not real thrilled after he complained to them so we just turned over the video to them and let them listen to his motor. They came to the same conclusion we did. Once he saw it in the air he should have turned and left the airspace but he didn't. I guess his curiosity got the best of him. Bottom line - Do not fly your plane towards parachutes with telephone pole size objects hanging underneath them. Matter of fact don't fly towards any chute period. Glad it wasn't a skydiver. Onboard video: http://www.pmwonline.org/multimedia/walt_ub/overall_320x240.wmv - warning 62 meg video file, might take a sec to download. We take every precaution we can, check for clear airspace, etc... What I don't understand is why he chose to fly towards a 35' round instead of away from it. Once we hit the fire button that's it, there's no turning back. That's why we have waivers and NOTAMS for that airspace. On another note I haven't seen his airplane in that airspace again. Is he checking his NOTAM's now? Yeah getting my gear mixed up wouldn't be a good thing. Like jumping the 28' round in my basement wouldn't be any fun, at least not for my newbie butt. Do I have any takers? Manufactured in 1997, has never been jumped and is in excellent condition. Needs a harness. Can I use this thing like a parasail behind a boat?

Ok I'll PM you with a bill for watching

Thank You!

When I put videos up they are to show some of the things that I'm fortunate to be around. I didn't see any words of praise anywhere on my site. I served on an aircraft carrier for 4 years. My father was in subs in the 60's. And my step father who passed away on Dec 7th, 2003 served as Marine in the South Pacific from the attack on Pearl Harbor until the end of the war. I'd give anything to see have seen a stand up landing with the flag, it just didn't happen.

Videos have not been pulled. But you may have to scroll down the page a little bit though because there has been more video added. Newest at the top, oldest at the bottom. I did lock the page out for 2.5 days until some of the hate mail I was receiving stopped.

1st - I would like to say that I'm the owner of the www.2020vertical.com website. And the videographer in question. 2nd - I don't care how many times anyone links to my stuff. I put it up for others to watch and enjoy. And in some cases get a good laugh. So link away, that's what it's there for. What's the point of me doing video if no one is going to get to see it? What I don't like is the personal attacks and abuse that I have seen because I did something I love to do. 3rd - I own my servers so unless we near 750 gigs of bandwidth in a month it's not a problem how many times a video is watched. Ya'll have used about 8 gigs for this month so far so you still have 742 gigs to go. 4th - I'm actually thinking about selling banner ads. The stats for my site are reaching levels that support that and I can use the extra money. Just think Mr. DemoPolice you could actually be responsible for me having enough extra money to finally buy my own rig! 5th - What I do have a problem with is people such as [email protected] sending me, the videographer, emails telling me that I'm a f**king idiot. It kind of makes me feel like "Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player" - some of the younger folks might not get that one. I love skydiving, I love doing video work. I will do video at other places. Rode with a friend Sunday to Cullman and did some ground video and and a copilot's view while I was there. By the way it's up on the web site already. Brad's landing is funny, and if it had been at an ASC DZ I can only imagine what would be said about it. That's not fair. It's just a video, shouldn't matter who, what, or where. 6th - I'm not the one who jumped, I was just there to film it. And I will be there again and again and again. Some of the landings are going to look ok, some are going to look awful, and some will look awesome. I hope to catch em all on video. 7th - The people who did the jump are not only my friends, they're my family, I will get defensive over them, can't help it, just comes natural for me. 8th - I would like to say thank you to everyone for the kind words and emails. They far outweigh the few bad ones that I got. 9th - I do have one favor to ask. If you are going to go to my site www.2020vertical.com check out my other hobby/sport as well. The front page has a video of my latest rocket "No Joke", she is 3" in diameter, 87.5" tall, and weighs 7lbs. 10oz. On her maiden flight she flew to 11,320' and hit 1026mph getting there. Electronics on board are 1 PerfectFlite Mini Alt(altimeter) to record data and control recovery deployment which is done in 2 stages. A 9" drogue at apogee, and a 6' round main deployed at 500' for a nice soft landing. And yes I have to file FAA waivers and NOTAMS to fly this bird. 10th - Again to all who have been supportive and kind, you know who you are, thanks and see ya soon! Blue Skies!