Superfletch

Currently jumped regularly or EVER? Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Used an XT for years... works great and you can pick them up dirt cheap! Currently shooting in air with an XSi and on the ground with a 7D... Love my toys. :D Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Unfortunately I don't think Best Buy will replace his with a like new one from eBay... Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

+1 for the FTP! Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

The last guy found was one of my dad's best friends. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Zoom friendly and Non-Zoom friendly equate to dual-element and single element lenses if I'm not mistaken. You can zoom through a dual element but not a single element. Single element lenses are VERY low profile. Dual element tend to be longer and heavier. I started out with a Raynox 3030 on my CX100 and loved the video and the ability to zoom through it, aside from the occasional moisture ring I experienced on hot humid days, I was very happy with it. That is, until one day on climbout I *lightly* bumped the outside floater bar on an otter and watched the lens fall to it's doom. That was when I decided to give the century optics .55 a try. This lens is very, VERY small and doesn't way a thing hardly. It only sticks out past the end of the camera by like less than a 1/2 inch or so. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE this lens for filming tandem videos. It is plenty wide enough and I would even go so far as to say damn near as wide as the .3 Raynox. NO VIGNETTING. You CANNOT, however, zoom through it very far... maybe just less than halfway before the focus goes whacked. Small price to pay for the weight and size difference. I don't find myself wanting to zoom much anyway so it wasn't a big loss for me. If you need to zoom through it, I would say go with a Raynox 3030 or 3035, $120. If you can live without the zoom capabilities I would HIGHLY recommend the Century Optics .55x, $150. Those are my perceptions and suggestions to you. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Great Shots brother... Well done. :D Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Thanks brother... I'll check it out. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Does anyone have any contact information for someone dealing with this piece of software? The website seems to be down and I need some support. I would appreciate any feedback at all. Thank you. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Hells YEAH!!! Very nice... :D Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Great Stories and photos people... thanks for sharing!!! Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

I just wanted to take a moment and say thank you to all that may have sent letters to the city of Mount Vernon. Your voices were heard and the city voted last night to "extend" a lease thru the end of the year to both drop zones. Some time between now and the beginning of next year they will draw up "new" leases in hopes of addressing the concerns they have been presented with. No one knows at this point what the "new" leases will have in store for either drop zone, however, after the meeting it is apparent that the city is at least willing to work with us and is not looking to sacrifice skydiving anymore. Again... Thank you. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

What I find that works for me is on the ground I set it to autofocus and focus on a subject about 4-6ft away. Then I go in and change it to manual focus to "lock in" that setting. My videos look great and I don't get the occasional auto focus mishap in freefall. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

You're a gentleman and a scholar! Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Try really, really, really hard... to quit shaking your head. I'm sorry... I couldn't help myself. :D Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

I've got $5 that says Mike Wright is the lawyer... but that would just be a guess albeit a good one. Mike... or Stark... or whatever you're name is... I make my career out of Skydiving. The only reason I have ever bashed Skydive Missouri, is because for the past 3 years they have spent every waking moment in a court room trying to take my drop zone and my source of income from me. I never had a bad word to say about anyone over there... not one, until the day my name showed up in some legal documents in the middle of a court battle brought on by them, spewing with lies about me. Am I bitter... hell yes I am. But that is all issues for a different thread. This thread should be about any skydiver wishing to help keep an airport available to skydiving companies should contact sneely@mtvernon-cityhall.org and ask that she forward it on to the mayor of mount vernon and it's city council members. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Never been to the Flying "V" Ranch.... YET. However, Van and Emiko are class acts for sure! Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Theft of a domain name... man that is rich. Domain names have to be purchased you horses ass. And why would I, or how could I even answer any of your questions. I do not own freefall express or skydive missouri nor do I speak for them. The point of this whole post is that Freefall Express and Skydive Missouri are in the SAME position where hangar leases are concerned. Obviously you're not interested in what this thread is actually about and are just trying to flip it over to further your own agenda. You are a Troll hiding behind a made up brand new account so this will be the last post I deal with you. Dropzone.com really should make a better attempt to screen this sort of crap out or at least allow access to IP addresses so people can't hide behind fake user accounts. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

This post was made for a call out to all skydivers to write a letter to the city of Mt Vernon, MO to ask them to please reconsider their stand on not allowing new leases to commercial operations. Any skydiver who wishes to try and help save an airport for skydiving should write to: sneely@mtvernon-cityhall.org . It was not intended for bashing of either drop zone. FACT: One of the drop zones is suing the city for $1.25M (where the hell did they come up with that #?) and trying to bully them. City Council's words, not mine. FACT: Because of this, the city council has decided that they don't make enough money at the airport to put up with the crap so they want to no longer issue any kind of commercial hangar leases leaving BOTH drop zones out in the cold. FACT: I started this thread as a call out to all skydivers that wish to keep skydiving available at yet another airport and not to BASH any drop zone. It really doesn't matter why skydive missouri would sue freefall express or why they would then sue the city of mt vernon. Those can be topics of a different thread if you like and you can bash each other all you want. I do apologize to everyone because I did kind of bash skydiver Christopher J. Stark, but only because I think he's a no friend to skydiving, self serving PRICK looking for a free hand out at the expense of MANY other skydivers. Oops, there I go again. I only PM'd you because you wanted to talk about issues that have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the topic at hand, which is... The City of Mount Vernon, MO is considering not leasing hangars to 2 separate drop zones. There are SEVERAL of us licensed skydivers who hate the thought of our home drop zones being displaced in a few weeks. We would like the help of any skydiver who could take a moment of his time and just write a letter to the city of Mt. Vernon asking them to please reconsider their stand on the issue and allow one or both drop zones to lease hangar space and continue to conduct skydiving operations. Mount Vernon, Missouri is located just a few feet from Interstate 44 and roughly 5 miles outside of town. The airport is surrounded by cleared farmland. It simply is a very convenient and great location to skydive with many, many outs. It would be a shame for the skydiving community to lose this airport. Whether or not you like freefall express or skydive missouri or neither, I do assume that most people reading these post do like skydiving. If that is the case, do yourself and your fellow brothers a favor and drop an email to the city asking them to let the drop zones stay. This is the point of my post. Thank you all for your time. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

You are quite correct in that both drop zones have their issues. I will not disagree. Personally I didn't want to get into them here at all. The owners are having their days in court. The main issue and the only one I care about at this point is the city's stand on whether to allow commercial operators to lease hangars at the airport. Both drop zones leases are up in the middle of August. That being said, the city is leaning towards not renewing the leases to either drop zone when the leases come due. What this amounts to is Two less drop zones in the state of Missouri and yet another airport that skydiving has been removed from. Please help the fun jumpers of both Skydive Missouri and Freefall Express to continue to have a "local" drop zone to call their home by taking a moment out of your day and emailing sneely@mtvernon-cityhall.org and have her forward that mail to all the city council members and the mayor. It won't take but a minute and could help to keep skydiving at an airport located only several feet from Interstate 44. Even if you have never jumped here before, you may wish to stop and give it a go one day while you're traveling through on this major corridor across the country. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Skydive Missouri has been using skydivemissouri.org for a very long time. Bryan purchased skydivemissouri.com only several years after watching it lay dormant. I assume that skydive missouri was just too cheap to purchase it to begin with. If I'm not mistaken Bryan had to pay several hundred dollars for it or something like that. skydivemissouri.com would be a GREAT investment for ANY drop zone in the state of missouri. Yes, you'd be right in saying that skydivemissouri.com was part of the lawsuit against freefall express but they also dropped it too, and chose not to pursue it further. Probably because of it being so generic in the first place. "skydivemissouri.org" was their first and only choice in domain names... just goes to show you how bright the idiot is. Anyway, this thread isn't about the lawsuit that skydive missouri has against freefall express. It isn't even about the 1.25M lawsuit that skydive missouri has against the city of mount vernon. It's about the fact that the city of Mount Vernon is tired of dealing with Skydive Missouri and his croney skydiver lawyer Christopher J Stark, and is willing to sacrifice both drop zones to get rid of the one. We're just wanting them to reconsider their position. Sure, I would love it if they'd throw out the trouble makers and keep us, however, since they can't, I would just as soon settle for both companies being allowed to stay. I didn't start this thread to squabble about the various lawsuits that Skydive Missouri and his ambulance chasing skydiver lawyer Christoper J Stark has initiated. I started it so that Skydivers would be aware that there could be one less airport to skydive on in the country and that perhaps emailing the city council might make a difference. Being that your account was created today I can only assume you are connected with Skydive Missouri or his blood sucking skydiving attorney Christopher J Stark so I also have to assume you are quite aware of all that I've said and that the skydivemissouri.com website was part of a settlement offer that you guys turned down and ended up getting nothing. **edited due to some incorrect statements** Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

YEAH... Basically, Skydive Missouri sued Freefall Express Skydiving. When that case went nowhere... He decided to sue the city of Mount Vernon. Same Asshole. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

There is nothing to arbitrate. He is suing the city for 1.25 Million Dollars. The city is pissed at him, win or lose and doesn't want to lease him a hangar anymore. They can't figure out how to lease to us and not him and they say that they definitely won't lease to him so they're so sorry for us. That's about how it's going. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

The city isn't denying us access. They have stated on multiple occasions that they have no problem with anyone skydiving out there. They just don't want to lease us the hangars anymore. They've even had discussions about removing the hangars entirely and moving them to different locations in the city to be used for storage. The problem is... they do not want to lease one individual a hangar. However, we are being told since they are a municipality they can't choose to lease to one individual over another. They really are at their wits end as well. I've been apologized to up and down and they simply say, that they don't know what else to do. The two skydiving companies are the ONLY commercial operations on the airport and there are only two other civilian tenants. We're hoping that with enough public out cry that they'll just go ahead and re-issue the leases and hope that they win their lawsuit and that's the end of it. I believe the trial date is set for September 2, 2011. Unfortunately our leases are up on August 10 and 15. I'm quite sure the lawsuit will be won by the city. The city has addressed all his concerns by making us remove our firepit, and upping our rent to encompass our bathrooms and playground equipment and such... He really doesn't have a leg to stand on. It all comes down to the fact that he just wanted to stir trouble. I asked him the other day what his end game was and did he want us all thrown out and he just smirked and said... He didn't think it would come to that and I should just wait and see. And that even if it did... He had another place to go already. He's very arrogant and this lawsuit he has is very, very petty. I asked him out right about sueing us for supplying our customers with bathrooms and he said that his lawyer said he had to. His lawyer by the way is Attorney Chrisopher Stark a skydiver from Springfield, MO. If I had to guess, Christopher Stark is filling his head with delusions of granger thinking he will end up getting him something for nothing. Skydiver Attorney Christopher Stark is NO friend to skydiving. I've heard his claim to fame was taking a case all the way to the Supreme Court, something about strippers being able to copulate dollar bills or something like that. He's a real shyster, snake in the grass, worm. Just please... take a moment and write a quick little letter asking the Mount Vernon, MO City Council members and the Mayor to please come up with another solution other than suspending all commercial operations at the airport. Send it to sneely@mtvernon-cityhall.org and ask that it be forwarded to all city council members. PLEASE! Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer

Lawrence County Case Number 08LW-CC00094 https://www.courts.mo.gov/casenet/cases/searchCases.do?searchType=caseNumber As near as I can tell it looks like one dzo and one of his lawyer skydiver buddies is looking for a free hand out. I've tried to read through all the court house documents myself but there are literally thousands of pages. (It's a stack of legal pages over 6" tall). They are claiming that the city of Mt. Vernon likes one dropzone better than the other and provides them with certain amenities creating a failure to compete in the marketplace. Of course this is all crap. They sight the reasoning as we put in a fire pit, playground equipment and bathrooms, basically, on the city's property and the city allowed us to without upping our rent for some sort of ground lease. Plus our bathrooms are run off the city electric and water. The city told us that since we're only a weekend dropzone our electric and water use didn't exceed the minimum payment they had to make anyway so they didn't charge us more, even though we offered to pay. Basically, their dropzone sued our dropzone and the case didn't go anywhere so then the other dropzone went after the city instead looking for deeper pockets. However, none of that matters to me. After speaking to the city council members they have pretty much decided that they are tired of this lawsuit (it's been going on for about 3 years) and basically, when it's done and to keep it from ever happening in the future, they believe their best course of action is to deny all commercial operations at the airport from here on out. They are sorry that, basically we are getting swept up in the mess, but they want him out and the only way they see that happening is to get rid of both as to not be discriminatory and open themselves up for further litigation. We have had our dropzone here for over 15 years and have always maintained a GREAT relationship with the city and we just want them to reconsider. We're hoping if enough people write them, maybe they will. Both ours and the other dropzones hangar leases are up during the middle of August so we are running out of time. Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I Videographer/Photographer