IMGR2

There is a huge difference in watching the staff at the tunnel freefly then go to the dz and not be able to find 3 freeflyers who can fly relative. There is alot of learning to be had by local skydivers this year. I really look forward to it.

Well it looks like I will be leading by example. I was convinced by my local dzo to start teaching at his place. Time for me to quit whining and bring some young freeflyers up to par. I hope I have the energy and ability, wish me luck. And if any of you are in the Austin Texas area, drop me a message and we can get some freekfly on.

Hell, I think its awesome. But why do people say its for sale when its not. Thats a blatant lie where I'm from. BTW, I still have all those plastic canopies that I used to fly at SDH. And they are still in great shape. I'm still waiting for someone to make a production canopy out of this material. I recall actually placing at a swoop meet with one.

They didn't even ask my experience with HP canopies. I was told they were not for sale to the general public. I'm not the best HP canopy pilot but I have flown my fair share of canopies.

Well it seems that my true intention for this post has not been taken as I wanted it too, so I will say thank you to everyone for their insight and experience. Have a great weekend and I will see you around.

I think everyone is misunderstanding my post. I am fully aware of the freefly skill at other dropzones and I am NOT saying that there is no quality freeflying going on. What I AM saying is that it has died where I live and was curious if it has happened elsewhere or if it was only locally where I live. I have spoke to some of my close friends and it seems that what has happened is that some dropzones (maybe because of the economy or because of management ideals) that some dropzones don't care or support fun jumpers much anymore. Many successful dropzones support fun jumpers by having staff belly or freefly organizers, while some have done just the opposite by not supporting the funjumper. It looks to me that if I want to participate in some large quality skydives that I will have to start looking at traveling farther from home. Not something I really want to do but seems inevitable.

I don't jump very much anymore but I think in my area it seems to have a correlation to the management. It seems that the dropzones that have a strong freefly community also have experienced freeflyers that are either on staff or at least supported by the dropzone management. P.S. I wanna go to Spaceland so bad its killing me.

Yeah, I am aware of what's going on at Spaceland and I wish it wasn't a 6 hour drive away. I was mainly refering to central texas and asking if it is happening other places.

I don't know, just seems weird. Years ago when my teammate and I used to throw freefly competition/boogies there was a huge presence with a lot of skill. I don't see anything going on anymore.

Yeah, don't see me coming to SF Bay any time soon but thanks for the offer.

Ok, without a complete profile I don't know who you are or where you are.

I will agree that there is some ff talent at the wind tunnels but this mostly consists of tunnel staff and wealthy skydivers. And I am not saying that ff has not progressed, what I am saying is the talent is not as skilled in my area as it used to be.

I grew up in the infant stages of freefly, when I was going thru AFF hardly anyone knew what it was much less could even do it. In the next few years many people on my home dropzone were very efficient freeflyers, we were closing 8 ways and there were many freefly teams in Texas. I can't figure out what has happened to our discipline. Over the last 5 years I have watched an aggresive decline in freeflyer skills, I have been to several dropzone and foundit very hard to even get a 3 way to close, much less do multiple points. I was curious if this is happening anywhere else other than Central Texas. Years ago Texas had one of the largest presence at Nationals in freefly and had some of the largest headdown state records across the nation.

30 minutes in and its looking promising. Been waiting for them to follow up on this series. Fracking Loving It!

Me. And that is were I met Wendy Faulkner, a mod here now.

My old freefly team made up a move called the Tidey Bowl and another local freefly team invented a move called the MannLasher. That was both their last names put together. We used to have so much fun in the old days making up freefly moves.

Never met him but he was one of my first friends on dz.com. Truly part of the ole skool family. My prayers will be with his daughter. RJ, you will be missed by more people than you could have ever imagined.

I was personally questioning the paint brush. Guess I'm the weird one.

Yeah I was laughing my ass off. The first jumper, the one that fell on the spike is olympic skater Apolo Ohno. Horrible acting, stick with speed skating dude.

Those yappy ones make good target practice.

Add VFS and I will buy it asap.

Pretty awesome when an old-timer like me can get some freakflying on with Billy Dawson and Aaron Necessary. Had a great time tonight. Thanks to the IFly Austin staff.

Galveston has Moody Gardens too, if you have kids that place is the coolest!

I like to consider myself a fairly competent tandem videographer. In my small opinion I feel a little bit of both worlds delivers a very high quality video to the customers. My first and foremost objective is to get a clean exit shot and a close up face shot, in the next few seconds I try to throw in some different angles and lighting situations, then back to a close up, high five or handshake before deployment. All of this happens by utilizing both belly and freefly skills. Of course this all depends on the availability of freefall time. I am spoiled at my DZ because we offer tandems from 17k which gives you an amazing amount of time to experiment. I personally see no problem with trying to deliver a higher quality product as long as you never forget what exactly your being paid for.

I agree with this one. I have been coaching people in the real skydiving industry for a many years in belly, freefly and canopy. Never took cash, but cold beer, red wine or old scotch, NOW we are talking. Hugs are awesome too.