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We'll miss you Gary. He was a rock of stability on the USPA BOD.

Gary Peek was found dead in his house yesterday morning. Concerned neighbors asked for a wellness check because they had not seen him around in recent days. Gary took an early morning walk every day. A few weeks ago Gary was in a car accident were his SUV rolled 4 times. He was treated and discharged by a hospital. No one knows, at this time, if this had a relationship to his death. Gary was a long time USPA Central Regional Director. In fact, he had the longest tenure of the current board members. Gary served on the Safety & Training committee during several of his terms. He chaired the Constitution and Bylaws committee last term. He was a strong advocate for the needs and concerns of small DZs and many were in his region. Gary also served on the Group Membership committee during several terms. Gary was also a prolific speaker at the PIA Symposiums. He gave talks on various subjects, including opening forces that he measured with custom strain gauges and recording devices that he engineered. He was also one of the test jumpers. One year he made a bunch of itty-bitty LED circuits with a 555 timer chip that could plug into expired CYPRES batteries and give a light show with blinking LEDS. Gary was well versed in the happenings at every DZ in his region. He called, emailed and visited the DZs frequently. After he bought his Cessna, he was able to visit the DZs more often. Gary posted in rec.skydiving and DropZone.com. He wrote several articles for DZ.com. Gary was instrumental in getting me a gig as a load organizer at the WFFC in 1996. He also recruited others as LOs for the WFFC. After I bought an arduino, Gary helped me with my tinkering with microprocessors. He even brought back issues of Nuts and Volts to the board meetings. He told me who the the best electronic component distributors were. There are a bunch more stories about Gary and the board, electronics and jumping. Gary Peek will be missed by many, as he touched so many people's lives, whether you knew him as a jumper, an electronics guru or board member. Blue Skies Gary Peek. RIP

The sport has lost a true ambassador as well a one hell of a nice guy. Blue Skies, Gary

Damn. The parachute opening studies he was involved in, from the 1990s onwards, as a jumper and electronics designer, were interesting. There isn't a lot of civilian, non-commercial work on such stuff, so he became known to me through the things that Parks College Parachute Research Group published.

BSBD Gary. No matter who you are, if you showed up at our dz and Gary was there you had a friend. He will be sorely missed.

A properly run AFF ICC will set a good foundation for a new instructor, but fitting into the flow and procedures of a particular dropzone can be a real challenge. Also, let's be honest, even experienced instructors get rushed or lazy or just develop bad habits. Also, without written guidelines, instructors will tend to drift away from dropzone policy until different instructors are teaching incompatibly different procedures, dive flows, etc. At any event, I've never seen an actual guide for working AFF-Is, so I wrote one. It was specifically designed for my own DZ, of course, so feel free to adapt it as appropriate for your own operation, or use it as a framework for your own guide, or just ignore it altogether. Whatever. Generic AFF Instructor Guide.docx

Update. I bought a pack monkey and used it to get my slippery new Spectre 150 in the bag. It saved me a ton of frustration and physical exertion! It didn’t get the canopy in the bag any faster than without it. However, it took less energy, less cussing and if you consider the random times when I’m exhausted from flying and the damn thing gets away from me while trying to bag it, it saves me 5 min here and there too.

So sorry to hear of Gary's departure. I had so many great conversations with him at PIA Symposiums, often early in the mornings after he returned from his walkabouts. I most admires what I call his "respectful skepticism, which led to so many great chats. Rest easy, Mate.

Truly a terrific guy with a great heart and a true passion for the sport....I spoke with him frequently over the years about some local airport access issues and some of the politics that goes with USPA. He was always a strong advocate for the everyday skydiver. I spoke with him just a couple weeks ago even though I have moved out of his region. Very sad to hear this news.

And yet here you are, not there. Remotely placed but not remotely satisfied with the limits of society in your enclave, you need to reach out to city folk and snowflake Oregonians for the intellectual stimulation you need. Except in your pretense, this forum is really no different than an assemblage of chairs on a porch where you go to hang. You're not here only to proselytize although I suspect thats how you rationalize being so involved for so long. You are here, like the rest of us, for something else you crave. So believe as you will but as long as you maintain an internet connection and membership in forums like SC you are still in the city and we are still your neighbors.

BSBD, Gary. I always appreciated your transparency and willingness to help. Your insights on this board were phenomenal - you'll be sorely missed.

I knew he was a great guy who cared about the sport, and who used that care to improve the sport. But that was a wonderful obituary. Wendy P.

Wow, Great guy. He will be missed.

That isn't quite the same: "Them coming for anyone at all" isn't something that should be happening, period. So this saying just illustrates that you should care, if something bad happens, even if it doesn't happen to you, or people that you care about. If we were arguing "They should be coming for law abiding gun owners", i.e. putting them in prison or deporting them without any legal due process or reason other than they are gun owners, then your argument applies here. The typical "slippery slope" argument is a different one: It says, we should not consider taking action A, which in itself is potentially a good action, because it may then lead to action B, which leads to action C,D,E,... and because at the end of that line, somewhere between E and Z is an action that is so extreme that nobody can justify it, we should never take action A. It tries to get around even arguing about if action A, in its own right, is a reasonable and useful action. It kills any subtlety in a debate (and usually also tries to make it look like proponents of action A would be in favor of the completely crazy action Z at the end of that line.) In both cases one should instead be looking at the proposed action itself: "Coming for the socialists", which probably means putting them in prison or something like that, purely on the basis of their political belief is in and of itself a bad thing--I think most would agree on that--even if they are opposed to their philosophy. Regulating dangerous and deadly weapons in some way, shape or form, is not in and of itself a bad thing. It is something that can reasonably be argued about. Not looking at this by itself, because eventually it could lead to the complete banning and confiscation of all kitchen knifes, is not a well reasoned argument.

A jumper with no license is called a student. You would need to enter the student program and be assessed from there.

Wouldn't miss it for the world. Linda was such a sweet soul, always ready to help, with a smile and kind word. Even though it's been years since we connected, I will miss her. Fly Free, dear Linda. May you fly with the dragons . . .

I wasn't taught that. I let it open all by itself. I don't grab for rears until it's open (slider all the way down). I'm 'feeling' the opening for odd stuff, looking around to check for traffic, that sort of thing. First action after opening is to look up briefly (there & square?), then a good look around for traffic (rear riser to turn if needed). Then rear riser turn towards the dz. Then get the slider collapsed & down. Its easier to get it over the toggles if they are still stowed. Then pop the brakes and do a controllability check. Interesting question. I'm interested in hearing what others do and why.