CDRINF

Here are some comments I made in response to a survey sent out by the organizers after the 2001 convention. I think they are still valid today. Keep in mind that the price references are four years old, but it is interesting to note that attendance has dropped as prices have risen while the boogie format has remained generally the same. COMMENTS/SUGGESTIONS I come to jump, not run naked through the party tent, so from the standpoint of having a large number of turbine aircraft operating on a continual basis, world-class load organizers, and high caliber jumping, the WFFC is fantastic. Facilities available are exceptional which means you don’t need to leave the airport so you can maximize jump time. The following are some observations and constructive suggestions: 1. The WFFC is overpriced. $59.00 registration and $18.00 basic jump tickets is pretty steep, and at the limit of what I think most jumpers are willing to pay. Registration and a reserve repack cost me $109 before I made a single jump! Specialty aircraft tickets are also overpriced. I never jump specialty aircraft because it meant the loss of the equivalent of 3-5 jumps from the standard aircraft. If, like me, you could only attend for a weekend, or several days, and you are there primarily for the skydiving, you are hard pressed to drink $59.00 worth of beer, and you don’t feel like you are getting your money’s worth from the entertainment. I’ll bring my own beer and make my own fun if it will lower the cost. At other boogies I have also jumped hard from turbine aircraft with excellent skydivers and organizers. These boogies, however, had a lower registration fee and used cheaper jump tickets as a draw. If you lowered registration to around $30-$40 and kept jump tickets at $16.00 or lower, I think that would be a big draw in and of itself. People would jump more and stay longer and I think you would come out ahead in the long run. 2. The WFFC has become stale. Do something to change the format and offer something new. The entertainment area should be looked at hard here. What we get now is a series of loud bands. There might be some cost savings here if you eliminate several of the bands. Mix things up and keep them skydiver oriented. Maybe a costume contest, or something like the stuff they do at Couch Freaks (polyester night, etc). Show more video footage shot during the day. Get a hold of every skydiving movie ever made and show them one a night. Offer night jumps if the moon phase will allow it. Have drawings and give-a-ways. The jet, of course, was a big draw, so every effort should be made to have at least one “novelty” aircraft (and you have to lock it in early enough to guarantee it will show – a lot of people got pissed off about that one). Look hard at introducing more competitive events. The pond swoop contest was a good start, lets see about having more activities that are skydiving related. 3. Keep the locals out! Sad to say, it was unruly locals that caused the cops to crack down, but the skydivers got the blame. I was at WFFC 2000 and the locals far outnumbered the skydivers around the beer truck and under the party tent. It was the locals doing the underage drinking and local girls flashing their boobs. The word was out in the town that there was a big party at the airport with free beer and little supervision. At registration there was a line of young local girls who waited to find a skydiver willing to sign them in as a “guest.” This was cleaned up some in 2001, and I think it showed, but since the cops could find no obvious trouble, they went looking for it. WFFC should be by skydivers, and for skydivers, not local punks looking for free beer. 4. Remember, it’s about Skydiving! Whatever decisions you decide to make, keep as your guiding principle this idea: “Will this help the attendees maximize the opportunity to make quality skydives”. Everything else is secondary. CDR

Lower the basic jump ticket price. Most boogies I have attended have a jump ticket price a buck or two under the going ticket price for the DZ. Skydivers are pretty much cheap bastards (I know I am). A jump ticket price of between $16-$18 would be incentive enough for a lot of people to come, and I think that the WFFC would make up the difference in volume of registrants. CDR

Everyone has missed the most obvious: You can't die in a wind tunnel. CDR

Oh, I'll be there! Just thinking of everyone else. CDR

What happened to the links to reviews of previous conventions? A buddy of mine, Keith Abner, has kept an on line diary of the convention since '97 that was linked to the web page. It's cool because he keeps it updated day by day during the convention. Great vicarious thrills if you can't be there. CDR

On the subject of special aircraft and cost: I think that the WFFC is about more than one airplane. I just don't get these people who say they won't come if the jet or a 130 doesn't show. I spent a year in Korea in 2002-2003 not able to jump at all and seeing the annual complaints in the various forums was like watching two fat men complain about having to eat prime rib instead of filet mignon. Plus, since being home, I jump at a Cessna DZ and get maybe two or three days out there a month, less in the winter. WFFC enables me to double my annual total of jumps in a week! So I am not complaining. As for cost, even with recent price increases, the USA is still one of the cheapest places in the world to jump. Your WFFC registration will not even buy one jump ticket at the one civilian DZ in Korea where lift tickets are $80 a pop! I go and willingly pay because of the world class load organizing and chance to jump with a group of very high skill level jumpers that meet and jump together every year. See ya in August! CDR

I was stationed in Korea with the U.S. Army for a year. There is only one DZ in Korea. They rent their a helicopter for jumps, and consequently, prices are very high. It coust around 200,000 won to join the KSPA and about 100,000 won per jump (about $80). I never jumped there, but was told to that they only did about 5-6 loads per day, and to keep my head on a swivel because traffic pattern were pretty much non-exsistant. CDR

UH1, UH60, and CH47. In fact my first 70 odd jumps were out of Army A/C with the Fort Campbell Sport Parachute Activity before I ever jumped a Cessna or King Air. This was one of the last "great deals" in the Army and is in fact still authorized by Army Regs. Unfortunately all of the Army sport parachute clubs have closed with the exception of Bragg, and they operate off post. Since the doors were always open, you were exposed to the elements. The "hell hole" of the Huey really sucked in the winter. On a Blackhawk the students sat on the rear firewall which was very breezy. I remember once during winter at Campbell seeing all 10 experienced jumpers on a Blackhawk load cram themselves into the small protected space between the pilots to stay warm. Best/stupidest was when one jumper climbed onto the roof of a Huey between the fuselage and rotor and looked down into the windscreen to wave at the pilots before rolling off the top. CDR

I did Army Airborne in 1985 and sport S/L in 1988. It was a slow progression, with a few restarts to get my three good PRCPs prior to 1st freefall. Then the progression from 5 sec to 40 sec delays, which if there was too much a delay between jumps meant going back to hop and pop or even an S/L jump. On the positive side, I built up more time under canopy earlier than an AFF trained jumper, and knew how to pack for myself by the time I was cleared to freefall. So, the S/L method of instruction has some advantages that one should not discount. Also, call me a traditionalist, but the act of being by oneself from the first jump onward was part of the appeal for me. It was always stressed to me by my instructors that "only YOU can save your own life! This sort of played to the rugged individualist side of the sport. As an old airborne recruiting poster said "When you jump, it's just you!" CDR

I think this sort of thing is cyclic. Look at the 1920's and 30's and you see the rise to political power of a generation of idealists (commonly referred to as the "Missionary Generation") who in reaction to the bad behavior of the "Roaring 20's" got prohibition passed, along with a whole series of "decency laws." Movie rating codes, the Mann Act, and numerous blue laws all date from this era. Characteristic of these idealist generations is that they see everything in black/white us/them terms and feel justified in imposing their views on others because they are convinced the are right (some might say "extreme right"). The idealist generation now in political power are the Babyboomers. Whether right or left wing, religious or secular, it is a generation with strongly held views that tends to want to impose its values on others and demonize those that don't agree. On the right it's abortion, school prayer, and the 10 commandments in court, on the left it's anti-smoking laws, environmental extremism, and gun-control (just a few examples). As a friend of mine once put it, it all comes down to trying to control people with "the only difference between the two political parties being that the Democrats want to control you in the work place, and the Republicans want to control you in the bedroom." Read the book "Generations" by Straus and Howe and it outlines this cyclic theory of generational types and how history does repeat itself in roughly 80 year cycles based on where the different generational personality types are in their life cycle. According to their theory, unfortunately, the period we are currently in that sees this sort polarization usually comes to end end due to a good old fashioned crisis like a major war or economic crisis. Last one was the double whammy of the Great Depression and World War II, before that, it was the Civil War. CDR

This is exactly the problem USPA created when it eliminated the Jumpmaster rating. The Coach can really only do air work with a student. What is missing now is a rating for the person who is responsible for assisting the S/L or IAD Instructor and for putting the student out of the aircraft. As written now, that person has to be an Instructor. It also has the effect in S/L and IAD methods of eliminating the "apprentice" level rating for the person working towards becoming an Instructor in one of those methods. All of the old JMs were grandfathered into Instructors, but now the only choice is to become a Coach (which teaches no method specific skills) and then jump straight to trying to become an Instructor. So, you now have to eat the whole elephant in an ICC rather than a bite at a time by training and getting practical experience in the method of instruction. Personally, I would like to see the Jumpmaster rating brought back. CDR

There is a non-USPA GM Cessna DZ north of Nashville in Russelville, KY run by a guy named Harry Rooks. They don't advertise much or have a website. CDR

You get more there for your money than any other boogie I have been to. Not just beer and entertainment, but two complete meals! Iowa pork chops on Friday night, and chili on Saturday night. Yum! CDR

Here are some more pictures of fun times on and above Son DZ at Fort Campbell, KY. This is the link to the Screaming Eagles Demo Team website: http://www.campbell.army.mil/pdt/pdt.htm As for old club alumni, I know that Jim West, owner of Skydive Greene County in Ohio jumped with the club in the early 60's, and Rich Worrall, owner of Skydive Temple in Texas jumped there in the 70's. Chris Reed D-15996

Russ, When I was on my first tour at Campbell '87-'91 we got a Blackhawk or Huey every Saturday and Sunday, and the occasional Chinook. When I returned in 1998 we were only getting aircraft one or two days a month. There had been big cutbacks in flight hours in the late 90's that affected all Army parachute clubs. The inevitable complaints came from aviators: "We can't get enough hours for training, but we have to fly the skydivers around on weekends." Of course, come the end of the FY when the aviation units had a bunch of unflown hours, we got to jump every weekend in September as they tried to burn up all those hours. The Rucker, Hood, Lewis, and Korea clubs all folded around that time and the Bragg clubs were forced to jump off post using civilian aircraft. At Campbell when we did not have military aircraft we would go up to Russelville, KY where Harry Rooks would give us $10 jumps from his C-180, which helped keep the club active and income flowing. The loss of aircraft support was a hard blow, and done in a very underhanded way. The Aviation brigade commander had a long history at Campbell and had always hated flying for the club. Now that he was the guy who owned the airplanes, he figured he could do something about it. He got with the post JAG lawyers and got them to craft a very strict interpretation of the regulations which essentially said that if he as commander could see no training justification for providing us aircraft, he did not have to provide us support. He said that since paradrop operations were not part of his mission, he did not have to do this. Ignored was the fact that this is how a lot of his staff pilots, who did not have time to fly during the week, got their flight time. So instead they now flew empty helicopters around the post, or up to Owensboro to pick up barbecue and fly back. Having friends in high places helped. I knew the Garrison Commander well from a previous assignment. He was an old airborne guy, and his daughter went through the First Jump Course. He loved us, and more importantly, was directly in charge of the folks who ran recreation activities on post. When we lost our aircraft support in August of 2000, the club manager resigned. The Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) folks were simply going to let the club die by not hiring a new manager. I let the Garrison commander know, and he made it very clear to all his subordinates in MWR that he expected them to hire a new manager and support the club 100%. The new manager tried hard to make the club work by doing some innovative things. He started the club jumping at Outlaw Field, contracted an occasional turbine, and did contract HALO Challenge training for 5th Special Forces Group. It was really hard to break even, though, and without the free advertising of jumping on Son DZ where every soldier in the barracks could see what was going on, the club slipped more and more from the public eye. I made an appeal to the Div CSM and CG, who were not happy about all this being vetted and acted on without their knowledge. The CG pointed out, though, that now he had been put in a catch 22 where if he over-ruled the brigade commander and there was an accident, it would be his butt. He told me to wait and we would revisit the subject (i.e. wait for that aviation brigade commander to change out). The old commander left, but then so did I. Then Sept 11 happened. The club struggled on a few more years. The manager left in the summer of 2004 to pursue other interests and MWR simply let it die by not hiring a new manager. As I mentioned in "Parachutist", the demo team still exists. It was split off from the club in the mid 80's and given its own budget and flight hours directly from the Division G3. It falls under the supervision of the Air Assault School now. I hope that someday maybe the club can be re-established around the core provided by the team. Well, all that covers the politics of the club's demise. I would rather indulge in the memories, however. I first saw the club jumping on Son from my BOQ window, and figured that would be a fun thing to do on weekends, so I wandered over. First guy I talked to was CPT Dave Stahl, a future commander of the Golden Knights. The rest is history, as they say. I did a lot of growing up because of that club and have many friends from it. It will always be very special to me. Attached is a picture taken 19 Dec 1999. It is of the group that made the last jumps on Son DZ. That's me on the far right in the black jumpsuit with red and yellow stripes. We sent it to LTG(R) Kinnard, the club founder, to let him know that his legacy continued. Chris Reed D-15996

Yes it is indeed sad! I did two tours at Campbell ('87-'91 and '98-'01) and was very active in the club. I provided the info that you may have read in "Parachutist" this month. I was also at the center of the effort to try to save it. Here is some additional insight: The club's slide toward closure began in 2000. It fell victim to a very mean spirited aviation brigade commander who refused to provide aircraft support, and to civilian administrators in the Morale Welfare and Recreation department who hated the cost of operation and potential risk of of an accident. New Army regs enacted in the late '80's required all recreation activities to be 100% self supporting. Without military aircraft support, it became very difficult to keep the club profitable. Interestingly, the club's main expense that put it in a financial bind was the club manager's salary. The club had operated for years under the voluntary leadership of it's members, but in 1988 the decision was made to hire a civilian manager. When I made a pitch to return to using elected club members to manage the club, however, the civilian bureauacrats flatly refused. They wanted someone they could keep under their direct control. So, the club was in an unwinnable catch 22, required to have a civilian manager who had to struggle to make a profit to pay his own salary, but without the means to do it, that being military aircraft. Like you, I have lots of good memories, though. Guys like Jose Malave, Billy Colwell, and Harry Parrish, mainstays of the club, taught me to skydive. I remember as a student arriving at the club as early as possible on weekends, sometimes while it was still dark, to make sure I could sign out one of the student rigs since there were usually 60 or 70 showing up to sign out gear. I made the last jump on Son DZ in December 1999, before it was put off limits due to new barracks construction. I also made the last jump of the club on post from Army aircraft at Corregidor DZ in August of 2000. It, a classic Fort Campbell end of day 14 way, combat big way that actually built for once. As it was building I "prairie dogged", looking over the top of the formation and saw SSG John Grace, a great friend and skydiver, on the other end of the formation doing the same thing. Our eyes met, and we winked at each other, just thrilled and happy to be there in freefall. It was one of my most memorable jumps, which unfortunately at the time I did not realize would be the last on Fort Campbell, but at the same time, I somehow knew was a feeling that would never be recreated. Blue Skies, Chris Reed D-15996

Saw it yesterday. Worst movie I have seen in a while. Some good individual scenes, esp the flying, but about an hour too long, horribly edited, and downright wierd in places. Thought by the end it was some sort of cross between "Pulp Fiction" and an Oliver Stone pic. It was like banging my head against a wall. I only kept doing it because it felt good when I stopped. Don't waste your money. CDR

Posted this in "History and Trivia" but am posting here also to cast a wider net. I am very sorry to announce that after operating since April 1958, the Fort Campbell Sport Parachute Club closed this summer. The operation lost much of its financial viability when it lost the use of military aircraft 4 years ago. The manager worked very hard to secure commercial aircraft and off-post arrangements. He departed this summer to pursue educational opportunities. The installation recreation services office decided not to hire a new manager and closed the club. I was heavily involved with the club during two tours at Fort Campbell (1987-1991 & 1998-2001), and intend to write an article for "Parachutist" about the history of the club. I would appreciate hearing from anyone who would like to contribute recollections or photos about the club, especially it's early days and how it operated during the Vietnam era. Chris Reed D-15996

I am very sorry to announce that after operating since April 1958, the Fort Campbell Sport Parachute Club closed this summer. The operation lost much of its financial viability when it lost the use of military aircraft 4 years ago. The manager worked very hard to secure commercial aircraft and off-post arrangements. He departed this summer to pursue educational opportunities. The installation recreation services office decided not to hire a new manager and closed the club. I was heavily involved with the club during two tours at Fort Campbell (1987-1991 & 1998-2001), and intend to write an article for "Parachutist" about the history of the club. I would appreciate hearing from anyone who would like to contribute recollections or photos about the club, especially it's early days and how it operated during the Vietnam era. Chris Reed D-15996

Hmm... This month I got two. Obviously some problems in the circulation department. CDR

I have been feeling the same way. I think that the combination of fatigue, extended exposure to the elements (esp if you camped out), and adrenaline crash makes you susceptible to opportunistic infections that your body might otherwise fight off. CDR

I just looked at the Golden Knight's web site and it appears that the commander has changed out abruptly with the XO stepping up to the team commander position. Looks like the CSM has recently changed out, too. Anyone know what the story is? CDR

I think in the midwest it's called "bait." CDR

Don't check it as luggage; carry it on in a backpack. I travel a lot with my rig and have only been tagged for a close inspection once. Once I explained what it was, the inspectors were satisfied. My wife's tote bag gets more attention. I have heared several horror stories, however, about checked rigs that had reserve cables cut when being inspected behind the scenes when the owner was not present. CDR

So True!