SStewart

Quote

If you're looking for an inexpensive open faced helmet. Get a ProTech. You can easily mount an audible in one too.

ZZ pretty much nailed it. You can't beat a protech.

I jumped one until I had almost 2000 jumps and I got lots of shit for it. "Hey lets get that student to go on this 30 way with us" (fraphats)

But mine was custom, I had it lined with red Caribou hide on the inside and on the outside stickers you can't get anymore.

Sniff... It was the best $29 I ever spent. I think they have gone up a dollar or two since then.


More later,

Yep, only five cells.

Crickets, Hobbitts and Wizards were seven, not made by the same company either but thats another thread...

I don't remember the Goblin but that sounds like a cool name for a canopy. (unless you do CRW)




.





.

Not a Strato Star, or a Safety Flyer.







.

Not a bad guess but no.

I am also too fat to land this thing on the hard ground. But for deep water landings it still works just fine




.

Probably an easy one, I jumped it into the Susquehanna river last Saturday during Maytown's annual water jumps.

We had a total of 10 "vintage" parachutes splash down. I believe I won the splash contest.




.

Quote

Quote

Dont forget he was flying the plane and jumpmastering at the same time in both instances

So I'm hearing that "Fandango" was based on a true story?

Yep; except Pecos parachute school was in Oregon and not Texas.

And; Ted had 13 fatalities in about 9 years at a small cessna DZ. Roch Charmet bounced there and at the time he had more jumps than anyone in the world. (over 10,000)

It was a sad story all the way around and I always liked Teddy. But, I would never send my sister or girlfriend to make the first jump there.

Sheridan was the ultimate outlaw DZ back in the day. The parties were legendary and fatalities were common.


More later,

$35 is ten minutes at the bar. Add a cheeseburger and some fries and you shot your wad for the day.

I have easily spent over $7000 of my own money in the last year to do this job. No complaints, I knew the realities when I got involved.

But please don't even think we are being compensated for our efforts. We are volunteers and this is our way of giving back to the sport.


More later,

I wondered about that as well.

I bought a reserve canopy from you and got a good square deal. No problems at all. (a little slow on the shipping but hey, shit happens) It seemed strange to me that all your ads were marked as scams.

If you need a reference let me know.

more later,

As far as I know Ted Mayfield is the only USPA member to get the lifetime ban.

Are there others?

I jumped with Grover, he was the last one out of the doomed aircraft. He died a few years later. Agent Orange or something like that.

Grover was down at Ralph's after the crash and we were doing an 8 way out of the Beaver. His main popped open and I closed it with a borrowed pull-up cord. (in the plane on the way to altitude)

He was cool.

What a bummer!

Disclaimer;

I was a pro ski patroller and EMT for 17 years. In my younger days I was a big advocate for mandatory first aid training for all USPA rated instructors. As was mentioned above it used to be part of the ICC and JCC.

Now;

I think this is a bad idea. With the cell phones available the first thing you should do is call 911 and let the pros deal with it. Sure, everyone should have these skills but it should never be a requirement for any DZ staff.

I have made many rescues and climbed a lot of trees but I would never expect any DZ to have a guy with my skills on hand 24/7

More later,

Quote

Okay, Butters, I'll probably be sorry for this, but I'll take the bait . . .

I was specifically talking about "Tandem Mills" and not tandem in general. But I'm not afraid to go there too.

While I've been a Tandem Master myself I see tandems mostly from the point of view of an AFF/SL Instructor. And I've also been around longer than tandems so I can see the sport on both sides of their invention. I think we were better off before. Sure, tandem has brought big money into the sport, but at what price?

One peeve of mine is hearing someone say, in talking about their first tandem jump, "Gee, I could never have done that on my own." But my entire generation did their first jumps on their own, and I taught a whole generation to make that first jump on their own. So it's a shame we present first jumps that way because it's simply not true.

Also a first jump student going AFF or static line actually gets a chance to immerse themselves in the sport for a full day, or sometimes more, compared to a tandem student who spends two hours, makes the jump, and leaves for their yoga class. An AFF or S/L student gets to connect with their Instructor, who if he's worth a damn, will leave them thinking, "Man, I want to be like this guy." I'm not saying that for my own vanity or gratification, it was the way I felt about my FJC Instructor. It's why I stayed in the sport, and it's why I became an Instructor myself.

Most students land, tandem included, saying, "Boy, I'll have to do that again!" Yet, at least the AFF or S/L student has some small inkling there's more to this sport than meets the eye. Again with a good Instructor whose subtle enough they can see a road from where they are now to becoming full fledged skydivers. Tandem students, after the initial euphoria wears off, feel like, "Skydiving, yup, been there, done that."

Now I've actually seen some "Tandem Mills" (and by that I mean a DZ that excludes up-jumpers, that weren't exactly horrible). But none of them have been in the USA. I've seen them where if you really want to continue, instead of milking you for a few more tandems, they'll say here's what you do. "Go to this other drop zone and sign up for this program." And you get maps, directions, prices, and an overview of what's ahead.

Who really doesn't think that nurturing our future experienced jumpers is job number one? What's going to kill this sport faster than anything else is not airport access, high fuel and jump prices, or an inept governing association. It'll be the dwindling number of experienced jumpers at the DZ. You can toss out numbers and statistics all you want, but I know, because I see it, there were more people at the DZ 20 years ago than there is today, a lot more.

Now I know tandem has begat more student starts, if we call someone without a thorough course of instruction, a start, but there are less student stays. And a student who goes on to become licensed is the goal we should be striving for. Okay, a bunch of you are going to say, "Gee. Nick, I started with Tandem and I'm an experienced skydiver now." But that's not a fair assessment. If everyone who had ever made a tandem jump, and never jumped again, posted to this site, you'd feel like you were looking over the wall at the Alamo.

I recall when tandem first appeared and I was the Chief Instructor at Lake Elsinore. Our DZO bought one and we all gathered around giving it a first look. It appeared innocuous enough, kind of cool really, but what we weren't capable of seeing is here, in disguise, was the very Devil Himself. I was actually pretty happy about it. Here, I naively thought, was finally a way the blind, the infirm, and the very old, could actually make an easy and safer parachute jump. That's all I thought tandem would be. But I was wrong and so were Bill Booth and Ted Strong who invented and let loose the beast. Their idea for tandem sort of made sense. It was a way to teach skydiving to everyone because skydiving, at the time, was almost the only aviation endeavor that didn't provide some type of true dual instruction. But in my mind it always seemed like strapping on a person to teach you how to swim.

Well, what I thought tandem would be, and what Bill and Ted thought tandem would be like didn't happen, at least not initially. Now again some of this will seem wrong to you if you came to skydiving after tandem gained a foot hold. It would just seem more natural and acceptable to you. But it didn’t to me. I didn't want anything to do with them at first. As a rigger I found them interesting of course, if not a bit complicated, and as an Instructor I was curious what their effect would be. But at first I couldn't shake the idea they were simply too complicated.

But then the real effect of tandem started to appear. After a few weeks of offering tandem jumps at Elsinore a funny thing started to happen. We were drawing the usual number of students every day but the AFF and Static Line classes started to get markedly smaller. It was human nature and I should have seen it coming. A prospective student walks up and asks to make a jump. They'd get the spiel about the three ways they can do it, which in their minds, basically boils down to either alone or strapped to an experienced jumper. And alone started to lose out.

Also I saw right away there were less first jump students around the bonfire at night. Where once, after already spending the entire day in class, and jumping around sunset, it was normal they'd gravitate to it. They'd eat with us, drink with us, and listen to the stories. At the time, and looking back on it now because it just seemed normal, I didn't realize, and I'm sure students didn't either, that they were deviously being indoctrinated into the sport. People naturally want to belong to a group. And skydiving offered that in spades not to mention for a lot of the younger aimless types, it was better than joining the Army or something. So again in hindsight, what we were really selling wasn't altitude, it wasn't a skill set, and it wasn't even action and adventure. It was a way off the block, a way to separate you from whatever and whoever came before; it was the Foreign Legion of the sport's world. And a lot of us signed up. But I'm afraid less and less do after tandem.

I was traveling once on a BASE road trip and we passed a DZ and stopped. It was a tandem mill and the first I'd ever really seen. As we drove up it was mid-day and you could see people leaving in their cars. Before tandem people arrived in the morning and left at night. As soon as I walked into the hangar I heard, "Hey, Nick!" And here was the DZO, a former student of mine who I hadn't seen in years. So he's shaking my hand and introducing me around to his staff as the guy who taught him to skydive. So naturally like we all do when visiting a new DZ, I wanted to make a jump, but I didn't have a skydiving rig with me. So I asked him to let me borrow his. He said, "Sorry, man, we don't allow experienced jumpers here, and if I make an exception for you, I get grief from everyone else who asks, you can understand."

Well, I didn't understand and I told him so. "What are you really doing here? This isn’t why I taught you to skydive." I let him know how disappointed I was in him and we left. Later that night we were camped out under a bridge we'd been jumping that afternoon, and I mentioned to no one in particular, "Man, if what I saw today ever happens to B.A.S.E. jumping I'm going to blow my brains out!"

And luckily for me, so far it hasn't . . .

NickD

Fucking awesome man, I could not possibly have said it better.

I remember when tandems first showed up at the DZ and I said "You gotta be kidding, Who are you going to get to do that? "

I thought it was going to be a novelty, a safe mister bill but nothing more. Boy was I wrong. I think tandems are killing our sport but now that the genie is out of the bottle what can we do?

A good friend of mine recently made a quoteable quote and I think it should be on the wall in big bold letters.....

"This is not a drop zone, It is an amusement park!"


more later,

Velocity all the way!

Those small clubs still exist, I jump at one.

They just need a voice.

I don't remember the name Jerry, he was an old timer that used to jump at Beaver Oaks. As I recall it was a top secret container but don't quote me on that.

Hey Gregor, we are also doing actual water jumps into the Susquehanna river on August 9th.

None of that sissy swimming pool shit.

I used to know this guy who had TWO MA-1 pilot chutes in his reserve.

When I asked him why two? His response was;

"Because I couldn't fit three in there!"

True story!

27 years and I still have not lost a friend or witnessed a fatality or been present on the DZ when one occured. I did lose two close friends in a plane crash in 1990 and I was supposed to be on the load.

Just lucky I guess but the DZ's I have made most of my jumps at have outstanding safety records. Two of them have not had a fatality since the 70's and another has never had one.

Many of my old skydiving buddies are dead now but it was other stupid things that killed them. Drugs, drunk driving, health problems, old age, and even a few suicides.

You guys did an awesome job Chuck! I got a real kick out of talking to Ray after the jump, he had some interesting stories for sure.

I told him I hope I am still jumping at 83, actually I just hope I am still alive at 83

Who ever it is I bet they are in New Zealand.

Quote

Quote

How would you deal with a cocky jumper? I have to students who think they know everything, one I have already recomended be ground as he did a hook turn to land, with 36 jumps under his belt.

Not letting them jump at all comes to mind. They may not be worth the liability.

I agree with Gary. Hit the road Jack!

Retired Firefighter US Forest Service, (wildland) EMT, Pro Ski Patrol, Avalanche control, Dog trainer/ handler. I was stationed in the Pacific Northwest but I have worked fire assignments in most western states including Alaska. I expect to relocate back to the west in the near future and I may get back into alpine sports and maybe fire in a support role.