NickDG

Good stuff at Greenie . . . NickD

I'm working hard on it, Brother . . . NickD

I had a meeting with Bill Ottley in his office in Alexandria in 1991 and the biggest photo (16' by 20') on the wall is him launching off El Cap . . . I think I mentioned, "What's up with that?" Like a few times . . . NickD

Joy, you know what you are charged with doing. No matter what happens, hang onto, "The Book." Let Rick fend for himself . . . NickD

The USPA suspended the "Flat Bed Ten" as everyone at headquarters, like Joe Svec and Bill Ottley had already made their jump during the 90-day legal season, and it was deemed better to distance themselves as the general membership is leaning toward anti-BASE. This was a period when BASE fatalities prompted local reporters to visit the local DZ for a comment. I remember quite a few DZO's who proclaimed, "Oh, those guys are freaking knuckleheads . . ." In the late 80s I begged the USPA to include, "How to Get Ready for Bridge Day," but they said we can't use the "BASE" word, and my argument that most of the first timers at Bridge Day are USPA members and PARACHUTIST is the best way to get out the word falls on deaf ears. And it still does . . . NickD

Not sure what face of the Eiger it is, but Eric, and I think Moe too did a Trango type thing there in the early 90s. They are up pretty high, with a short freefall . . . and a longish canopy ride. NickD

He's over Catalina right now, they are planning a long swing over Newport, the tower wished them well. Looks like RWY 25 Right or Left at LAX. Cleared to land . . . NickD BASE 194

Here's she comes . . . LAX has every thing rolled out Nick

>>Anyone, anyone...Bueller...

They just did an approach and a go around at LAX . . . NickD BASE 194

The nose gear is down, but way off center, it looks like they are going to LAX. Maybe the nose gear will swerve forward on touchdown, but if it doesn't . . . NickD BASE 194

In the early days of emergency parachuting no one practiced it. You did as needed. Even the Astronauts are banned from parachuting even when the "pole" was in use. My friend Bruce Gilkey is a Navy test jumper and he jumped the "pole" sticking out of a Convair wearing a space suit. A year or so later when the Stiletto first came out Bruce bought one and spun in with line twists up at the Hemet DZ . . . NickD BASE 194

Gee, Glenn, lighten up on the Brothers . . . NickD

>>(1) It greatly impedes your track. The belly mount is right where you need clean airflow.

I read what the Ranger said twice and boy, there's a bunch of stuff going on between the lines. He says, "We aren't picking on BASE jumpers," and then he manages to slip in, "Bridge Day wasn't started for BASE jumpers." Bridge Day "is" advertised by West Virginia as "The World's Largest Extreme Sport's Event." The bridge is completed in 1977 and the Governor throws a small party that later becomes an annual event. The first jump from the NRGB is done by Burton Ervin in August of 1979. In 1980 Brad Smith and two others did it, also in August. Bridge Day 1981 is the first one with legal jumps, or at least the first time jumpers are invited to come jump during an actual Bridge Day event. There are five jumpers that year, the locals go wild, and the jumps are the talk of the day. The next year 1982 saw 30 jumpers and for the first time people are coming to see BASE and the attendance at Bridge Day begins to climb. By 1983 there are 100 jumpers and the next year 350. By 1985 the people who come to Bridge Day aren't "attendees" anymore, they are now called "spectators" and there are 250,000 of them and they leak money. In terms of economic impact, the popularity of a successful event, and in deference to the other sports occurring there, I'm sorry, Mr. Ranger, but Bridge Day "is" all about BASE jumping. This Ranger, is either ignorant, or fibbing a bit when he says they aren't "picking" on BASE jumpers. The NPS is institutionalized in its hatred for BASE jumpers. It's so ingrained there are both young BASE jumpers and young Rangers who know they hate each other but don't really know why. The NPS will seize every opportunity to "win one" and just watch the career trajectory of the Ranger who rids Bridge Day of BASE jumping. I hate to be so blunt, but I've been seeing light and dark for so long now I can't believe anything they say . . . NickD

A dead person can make a tandem jump, so . . . NickD

It is called "Cliffing" by the few who practice it. There aren't enough others doing it so every time someone did one, it is a speed record. I remember a well known fellow remarking, "I like the sport of Cliffing better as it is purer than either BASE or climbing alone." I sort of tuned him out after that. Then, I thought of combining BASE jumping and SCUBA diving by strapping on 800 pounds of lead weight and underwater freefalling the Mariana's Trench. I'd call it "Seadiving" and it would be purer than either BASE or SCUBA alone . . . When jumpers visit me, the talk for some reason, turns to the old days and what's different and every time it's something new. I remember when skydiving is the stepping stone to skydiving. Now, it's a couple hundred skydives before BASE, a couple hundred skydives before camera, a couple hundred skydives before wing suit, a couple hundred skydives before boards, and so on. It was this time of year, I remember as it's getting chilly, in the fall of 1978 at Lake Elsinore when we first saw Carl Boenish's El Cap film. Since that time we've had BASE jumps inside a church, down holes, off moving things and ones that are almost more horizontal than vertical. What Miles did is now one of those things . . . NickD

"Proof" is the reason "Spinal Tap" didn't fool us . . . NickD

Enjoy the solo sub-terminal stuff and dig into the relative wind. By the time you get to 12.5 everybody else will be going, "oh crap, oh shit, here we go," and you will already be flying six steps away from the door . . . NickD

You said what I meant only shorter . . . Cool! Nick

We've always known someone can't sign away their rights concerning gross negligence. If you have a student who decides to turn right after you told them to turn left, and they bust an ankle on landing the waiver protects you. If you hand a parachute to a student and it's full of yesterday's laundry the waiver protects the student. That's how it should be . . . There's a bigger issue. You are coming out pretty strong, or at least making it sound like there are tons of incompetent instructors out there. I'll agree the ethics of some DZOs aren't up to snuff, and the overall brotherhood that existed between skydivers isn't what it once was, but most Instructors are still trying hard to do their jobs correctly. Our students now spend their first hours in the sport with a tandem master, (which depending on the TM can be great, or it can be something else) before a quick-how-do-you-do in seven jumps from an AFF Instructor. And that's if they aren't forced into some hybrid program where they get even less attention from an AFF Instructor. Then it's off to coach land . . . Goodbye . . . Next . . . ! So it's the system that's breaking down. A way of doing things that never recovered from the old days when we were mostly clubs and not commercial centers. In those days the Instructors and the Area Safety Officer made the rules and they based it on what was hurting people, instead of a DZO, we had a Treasurer, and all he did was make sure the bills got paid and the beer fridge was full . . . I'm seriously worried, however, about what looks like an increase in student injuries and fatalities lately. There was a time when student incidents were a horrible 40 percent of the total for a year, but the gear was complicated and harder to use in those days and everyone was going static line with round parachutes and it was dodgy on principal. The advent of modern gear and AFF instruction ushered in an era when you could truly say being a student was the safest you'd ever be in the sky. I hope we aren't losing that. In defense of Instructors I must say low pay loses us some of the best of them. And I don't see any ratings in your profile and while your opinion is welcome sometimes experienced skydivers don't truly appreciate what Instructors face day in and day out. On the experienced side of the DZ you aren't doing so hot either. You're drilling yourselves into the ground under good parachutes left and right like it's a normal part of skydiving. And yes - Instructors are getting blamed for that too . . . AFF worked fine in the 1980s, but in light of all the differences between then and now the whole program needs, not another – overhaul – but a rescue. Students should stay with their Instructors right up to the A license. In today's terms the amount of knowledge and "guidance" an AFF Instructor needs to impart to a student can’t be done in seven jumps. It's even worse for the best students, they ones who don't repeat levels, as they get even less instruction in the long run. The learning curve in a student from jump number one to jump number twenty-five is outrageous. And not to be squandered. There are things you can tell a person at fifteen jumps they wouldn't comprehend or even remember at six jumps. We take this portion of the student's most formative days and break them up into a hodgepodge of different methods and personalities so you get things like, "Sorry Nick, I know you said that, but my last Instructor said this . . ." And when both ways are equally right it's Joe Student who's left scratching his head . . . We sold tandem to the FAA, and the public, as a form of dual instruction, just like learning to fly an airplane. Well, let's really fulfill that promise and make our AFF Instructors more like Certified Flight Instructors, a person you stay with until you can manage to get up, (and in our case get out,) and get down without killing yourself or anyone else. So here's the plan: We scrap everything about how it works today. All monies taken in by the student operation of any drop zone is kept in a cigar box in the Chief Instructor's kit bag. At the end of the day we open the cigar box and divvy it up. We set aside a set amount for gear upkeep and give every instructor who showed up that morning $500 right off the top. Then they are paid for whatever jumps or classes they did. Then the "master riggers" who pack student canopies get $75 per pack job and the staff that answer the school phones and do the paperwork gets a nice little bundle too. If there is any left over the DZO can have it. The new deal with DZOs is after we train up competent and safe skydivers they get to milk those same jumpers for whatever the altitude pop is for the next thirty years . . . NickD

>>try train surfing...its about as big a buzz as you are ever gonna get...

Had they done things just a "little bit" differently they could have had a nice little side income for the rest of their lives, they could have also been the roll models for first jump marketing. I question what happened in those early days. I wonder about the exact moment a great idea went so horribly wrong. So, I offer you the following play, in one act . . . B- "We could be like travel agents." C- "Sounds alright, but how do we make money?" B- "Well, I suppose the same way; we get a small percentage back from the drop zones." C- "Why would a guy looking for a first jump not just look in the Yellow Pages like we did?" B- "Kids today don't use "books" where you been for Christsakes, it’s the internet age. We can market tandems the same way flowers get sold. The Yellow Pages are too expensive but we can put up websites for every city and then direct the people to the nearest drop zone . . ." C- "So, if we sold like a hundred tandems in a weekend we'd clear, what, $500?" B- "Yeah, and basically, just for answering the phone, but why a 100 tandems? Suppose we sold 500, or a thousand . . . !" C- "Hey, you know . . . if we just added ten dollars to the top, and took that, the DZOs would be happier and we'd double our income. You know how people are after a tandem, they aren't going to miss a few extra bucks." B- "Right and we might even be able to work a deal with certain drop zones and then cash in on both ends." C- "What's the internet thing going to cost us?" B- "There are all kinds of ways of working that. We can buy a few popular skydiving related domain names that aren't already taken for cheap, then we can use pointers and other gimmicks so when someone hits a Skyride link the local looking banner comes up. They leave their credit card number and bippity bopbity its money in the bank. And look here, I already mocked up a webpage." C- "Wow, that looks really pro, Skyride, that's a cool name, where'd you get the neat tandem picture?" B- "I lifted it right off the wall of the Perris Bombshelter one night." C- "You know, I can see it now, drop zones have never marketed tandems correctly. There should be a menu of services like for a bigger aircraft, or the sunset load upgrade, or hey, how about some weather insurance, man, there's all kinds of angles to this . . ." B- "And look at this travel agent's brochure. These guys are like the freaking phone company, here look, they even charge you a "port" fee . . .?" Curtains . . . NickD

Hey Brother, That's a big Space shocker . . . What's married feel like? Does it hurt . . . ? NickD

PRO packing and flat packing is the same thing. Flat packing is what riggers and most BASE jumpers use. It doesn't matter if you start on your shoulder or do it all on the ground. It winds up with the lines in the middle and the canopy distributed evenly on both sides which is a PRO pack. You're after a "stack" pack, or sometimes called a "side" pack. NickD