TomSpoon

Isn't Mohawk valley skydiving closer? http://www.mohawkvalleyskydiving.com/

Ok, we've all seen John Elliot's thread trashing Frontier. I think we need a thread celebrating what great club Frontier is. Formed in 1960 by Brad Barter D477, Stan Zielinski D392, Bill Cawthard B226, Jim Lizzio D146 & Dean Verisco C2134 the club has somehow survived for 45 years and has evolved into a medium sized turbine drop zone. There are scores of people who have gotten their start in aviation at Frontier. I am one of them. Our club charter says we are to "promote sport parachuting" and that's what we do. Very well too I might add and it's great fun. Here's some old pics from the club. http://home.earthlink.net/~tspoond328/ http://www.frontierskydivers.com/

Ive got about 1,700 jumps on my spectre 170 loaded at about 1.2-1. The openings are very smooth and consistant taking about 400 ft. Ive also jumped the 150, though it went faster, it did so at the cost of a lower glide ratio. The canopy is very intolerant of being out of trim. It will let you know when it's ready for a new line set by opening in a rocking stall. I replaced my first line set at 554 jumps. When the rocking stalls returned at about 1100 jumps I cheaped out and replaced just the steering lines. This was fine for a couple hundred more jumps when once again the canopy started opening in a rocking stall.I had the lines replaced again at 1340 jumps. I believe this is consistant with PD's recomendation of replacing lines at about 600 jumps. At 1700 jumps the canopy still flies and lands great though it is starting to show some wear on the top center cell.I know I will soon need to replace the line set for the third time and I will probably send the canopy to pd for porosity testing before making that decision. When this canopy is worn out I'll probably replace it with another spectre 170 unless someone shows me a canopy that fies better and I can let anyone pack with out the worry of being whacked. Well it's two years later and I'm updating this reveiw. At about 1700 jumps I did send the canopy to PD and they did a porosity test, replaced the top skin of the center cell and installed a dacron line set all for $288 plus shiping. Great service from PD. The dacron lines do slow the canopy down compared to the spectre lines. I can notice the differance when jumping a freinds 170 with spectre lines. At over 2000 jumps the spectre is still going strong.

How is it this thread has been revived 3 years later? Anyway I need to chime in. Too much time on my hands again. What probably happened during the Casa upset was initially a stall of the horizontal stabilizer. The CG of an A/C normally should fall somewhere within the chord of the wing. Normally its the job of the main wing to support the weight of the A/C and the job of the horizontal stabilizer is to generate a downward lift component to hold the nose up. As the CG is moved aft of limits the stabilizer no longer is holding the nose up as designed but instead begins supporting part of the A/C's weight. When the horizontal stabilizer on the Casa finally stalled the A/C initially pitched UP not down as it normally would during a stall of just the main wing. This may help explain why stalls on jump run are so violent. PS: I did witness this upset from the ground at KRID.

Well said Jim. But you should be careful of what pictures you post. If word gets out that we have some of the sexiest girls in the industry on our staff we are gonna be swamped.

Well I got my Ripcord DVD from interstate pro video and It's of such poor quality as to be unwatchable. I don't recommend them.

You can purchase a DVD containing four episodes of Ripcord for about $13 here. http://www.interstateprovideo.com/pages/855798/index.htm

Got this one . No slider though.

Skydive city sure knows how to throw a party. There must have been hundreds of people there. The band [The Infidels] rocked and there was an awesome fireworks show by Johny Gates. This party gets bigger every year. My hats off to TK or whoever his social director is. Unfortunately the DZ looks like Woodstock did after the festival.

Price difference between used sabre and spectre -$700 Cost of MRI-$800 Cost of dischechtomy with plating -$10000 Cost of lost time from work-$30000 Cost of not being able to participate in the sport you love because you insisted on jumping an outdated canopy that was so cheap - Priceless Quality Saves Money

The comments about the Sabre are not "paranoid rantings" The fact is the sabre is a dated design. That is why they are so cheap on the used market. Their is no more a reason to jump one than their is to jump a rig with capewells or a blast handle. Rigs like that are cheap too. Over the years their were many jumpers who paid with their lives as skydiving equipment evolved. Their is now a generation of jumpers who have paid the price of accelerated wear and tear on our bodies as we learned about opening characteriistics of ZP canopies. Quality saves money. Buy a proper canopy. You are not invincible. Here is a post from Tinkerbelle: "Tinkerbelle Jumps License D 272 In sport 18 years Feb 19, 2004, 8:03 PM Post #44 of 45 (110 views) Registered: Feb 14, 2004 Posts: 481 Re: [TomSpoon] Sabres have opening problems.It's no secret [In reply to] Quote | Reply My Sabre 135 broke my neck- gave me 2 badly herneated discs 13 years ago or whenever they came out. I continued jumping with it, and today I spend my money going to neck specialists, Physical Therapy, neck injections, etc... instead of jumping! MadFrown They say if I continue to jump, now on pain pills, percoset, I will end up in a wheelchair paralyzed! I wish I had bought a different canopy long ago! You know those hard openings that hurt, well the hurt is permanent, even though you may not know it when you're in your 20s- it will catch up to you in your 30s! "

Quote" Can you even name 1 person who died on a Sabre opening? ". "Prove me wrong and come up with a name, or at least an incident report." AGE:68 Sex: Male Number of jumps:15,000 Time in Sport: 40-plus years Cause of death; Multiple internal injuries from a hard deployment and hard landing. System:Para-Flite Swift Main: Performance Designs Sabre 170

If you call and ask for directions to Buffalo Skydiving http://www.1800skyride.com/Skydiving/Buffalo/contact.html They will direct you to this dropzone http://www.skydiveburnaby.com/ Which is in a different country [Canada] and is also provided air support by this US operator http://fayardenterprises.com Interesting

I once asked Packing Cathy why she used colored rubber bands. Her answer was that rubber bands have a shelf life and by ordering a custom color she ensured that the manufacturer made her a fresh batch.

Frontier Skydivers ,Western New York's oldest sport parachute club is hosting the Back to Batavia Boogie. Act whatever at the Genesee County Airport in Batavia NY.from Wed July 6th to Sun July 10th. Genesee Cty Airport is just off I-90 midway between Buffalo and Rochester NY . Casa 212, ballon jumps and good vibes daily. FFI go to WWW.FRONTIERSKYDIVERS.COM

I think all you guys are over reacting. Remember this kid has adolescent invincibility. He can't get hurt. Only other people get hurt. Send him up to my DZ and we'll teach him how to hook it. PS Just Kidding

If I remember right Southern Cross was owned by George Kabeller and originally based at Chambersburg Pa and than at Phoenix Zhills. With its larger Wright engines and a gutted interior it was known as a fast climber. It was very loud inside though. I have an advertising video made for the Phoenix drop zone Called "The Magic is Back" hosted by Jerry Bird that shows a shot of the VSI steady at 1500 FPM. I especialy remember Dave Rickerby's mural on the aft bulkhead of the Grim Reaper admonishing; "Hey , Let's be careful out there". A quote from the TV series Hill Street Blues. I hope it's still there. Tom

I had an anterior cervical discechtomy with plating on C4 & C5 about 14 months ago. This is pretty common among skydivers. There are so many jumpers at Skydive City who have had neck surgery we could make an eight way team. The recommendations I would make are; 1]Find the best neurosurgeon you can. You want the guy who does two or three of these surgeries before lunch and has a proven track record. 2] Don't come back to soon. It will take over a year before your fully healed. I started jumping again after four months but with a cervical collar. 3]Realize that you can never get whacked again. That means saying good bye to your sabre 150 and getting a slow opening canopy with dacron lines You'll want dacron on your reserve too. Even though your fusion will heal the other discs in your neck are now subject to greater stress. Feel free to PM me if I can answer any more questions. Tom

Maggott, If you've had neck surgery.You definitely want dacron lines on your Spectre. I got them after having C4-C5 fused. Also you should have dacron on your reserve. A terminal reserve opening WILL be hard.

I was privileged to be on Jerry's 11,000th jump several years ago. Shortly before he retired.

Pac-n-Cathy lives in Zhills and stilll does rigging work. If any one can give you a quick repack she can. You may want to consider shipping your rig ahead and have it there ready for you. It will save you the airline hassel too. You can contact Cathy at 813 312 9558 or pnc01@attglobal.net.

I beleive the poster you are talking about is a still shot from Carl Beonish's movie "Skydive". The caption below the poster read " Some flights may be overbooked".

http://olympics.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=6631607 Maybe this is why. http://www.ericblumrich.com/gta.html

Thanks for making it clicky Nutz.

[ ........by the time Tom was jumping them they were older technolgy and better alternatives were on the market and the Hard openings were already documented..... Skybeergodd, How is it you know when I first jumped a Sabre? Even I had to look in my logbook. It was 1990 by the way.