NickDG

>>I'll move back to the left coast where yer only worry is the ground opening up and swallowing ya!

>>But it feeds my addiction to Vampire fiction.

In a small way this reminds me of something else that occurred years ago again involving students. It was a DZO I know and respect so he'll go nameless here. He made a deal with a local finance company so that right after a first jump student landed he showed them a piece of paper where all they had to do was sign on the dotted line and the rest of their AFF plus a brand new complete rig was fully financed for them. And I'm pretty sure while the students were sitting in the FJC he was checking their credit ratings. Like I said this DZO is a good guy and I really believe he thought he was doing a good thing for the students and the sport overall. The interest rate wasn't exorbitant or anything, but there was some problems I saw with it. First off how vulnerable is someone right after their first jump? You know how excited they are so the chance they'd sign was pretty high. And you know how they all say "This sport is for me and I'll be back again!" But mostly they don't come back once the euphoria wears off. And one of his arguments in favor of this was if they signed it sort of made them come back. Second was the rigs they received. There was nothing wrong with them safety wise and they were sized appropriately so someone could make their first hundred jumps on it. But it was not a very popular rig and it had zero resale value in our part of the world. So the students who realized they really didn't like skydiving all that much got stuck with the gear. So he thought it was a good thing, a valuable service even, but I thought it was just slightly below underhanded. NickD

LOL, directed at me, and I couldn't even read it! Try paragraphs . . . NickD

>>Ha ha! you havent seen me freefly, I still lack enough skill to make it look wierd!

There's another even sadder possibility. The mother sent the child off to a safe location and then said, "Watch me become famous." It would work . . . NickD

Free flying is so accepted now, it doesn't even look stupid anymore . . . NickD

I've the names written down, but not where I am right now. But I do remember Ray Cottingham was on that truck. And like I said they took a lot of barbs for it. They were also all suspended, or maybe in the heat of the moment, I don't exactly recall now, banned for life from USPA. But they were eventually let back in. There are many twists and turns to this thing. Basically USPA got involved in pushing for legal El Cap jumps because Bill Ottley, Joe Svec, and others all bigwigs at USPA, wanted to make the jump for the same reason everybody else did. They were all fired up by Carl Boenish's films. But being USPA officials they couldn't go do it illegally. And I was at an early meeting at Perris where some of the rules that were later broken were implemented. At that time I was leaning towards BASE ever since I saw Carl's movie at its first DZ showing at Elsinore in 1978. But at this time, and for a few following years, the BASE community was so small as to be none existent. So basically this was a bunch of skydivers deciding how it should work and none of them knew anything about BASE. But when the jumps were stopped by the Rangers USPA dropped the whole thing like a hot potato and left everyone else who wanted to jump legally swinging in the breeze. Some of these people were actually holding permits that were now useless. But everyone at USPA who wanted to make a jump did, so they got theirs and the heck with anyone else. And all of sudden they came out with the line that BASE had nothing to do with skydiving and they officially recommended their members not engage in it. This also began the ban on even mentioning BASE in PARACHUTIST. A ban that lasted over twenty years. Some years later I was in Bill Ottley's office on another matter and noticed the largest photo on his wall was his El Cap jump. And I said, "You screwed a lot us on that one, Bill." But he went on about it being a board decision and for the good of skydiving, blah blah, bla." By that time I was B.A.S.E. jumping myself but I shunned El Cap because of all the horror stories coming out of the Valley concerning the Rangers. Especially the Yosemite Dungeon and the kangaroo court all busted jumpers appeared in. I was publishing a BASE magazine by then and the things I was hearing from busted jumpers didn't even sound like America to me. To use a more recent reference it was Gitmo in the wilderness. But I finally sneaked in and out of the Park in the early nineties when I felt experienced enough (a lot of practice off downtown buildings) to not get caught. And I'm El Cap #680 . . . NickD

Good . . . Carry on you guys! NickD

In this Caylee Anthony case I saw this morning there is now a mob stationed outside the family home. And they showed one lady who grabbed a bag of their garbage declaring she was going to look through it for clues. Is this what we've become? We should all be concerned in these cases to some extent but it's easy to see what's at work here. It's that show Nancy Grace (Caylee - All the time!) that's working people up into a frenzy. It's sad that TV shows have this much power but on the weak minded it does. And it doesn't bode well for us. They are going to have their dead body eventually, but I'm not sure it will be Caylee's . . . NickD

>>Much less expensive for the student than most AFF programs.

Ah, you blew it Steve . . . We had a nice little thread going here involving only students until you waded in. Sometimes it's good for us more experienced jumpers to just sit back and listen to students talk among themselves. They don't always catch things the way Instructors pitch them and this was our little window into their world. I suggested once there be a topic heading just for students like the "woman only" one. And maybe cap it at a 100 jumps. Everybody panicked and jumped on me saying they'd be giving each other dangerous advice. But students are smarter then we give them credit for and there is dangerous advice all over this site. Once an Instructor joins the conversation like you did they are all going to clam up now . . . NickD

Answer number 97 . . . I've got over 50 nights jumps (not counting BASE) and I've always found all that duct tape messy and a pain in the butt. So I just stick a chem light in my teeth. I wear a wrist mount alti so when I look at it lights right up. And it works with a chest mount too. Under canopy I hold the chem light in my hand. If I see or sense someone to my left I put it in my left hand or the opposite way when needed. I can even wave it around if necessary. The only thing you can't do is drop it. That just scares the hell out of everyone on the ground . . . NickD

They were actually called the Flat Bed Ten. (Jerry's just having some fun). And they were from Lake Elsinore. They didn't want to hike the whole trail so they moved a barricade and drove a flat bed track up a closed road. And you know, to Rangers that's the equivalent of murder. But they weren't the only reason the legal jumps were stopped as there were plenty of other skydivers breaking the rules. Jumping with no permits, jumping after their permits expired, or a day before their permits were good, also jumping at night, doing RW, and so on. But one thing you have to keep in mind is the Park only agreed to try the legal jumps mainly to gather enough ammunition to shut down jumping forever. And after it was over they had it, "See, these guys can't even follow some simple rules." But it also needs to be said these weren't B.A.S.E. jumpers, they were skydivers. Skydivers out on lark and taking things about as seriously as skydivers take anything. So I've never gotten too mad at them even though we've been paying the price all these years later. But the simple fact is the Rangers had a plan and we didn't . . . NickD

>>i doubt that's the case, I _really_ doubt that bill needs THAT money.

>>honesty not allways the best policy

1950s Superman 1960s Ripcord and Seahunt 1970s M*A*S*H* 1980s Hill Street Blues 1990s Seinfeld 2000s The West Wing As you can see I was a bit torn in the 1960s. A little zig this way, or a little zag that way, and right now I could be arguing the merits of regulators and the crappy state of instruction on some SCUBA site . . . NickD

Well, I guess we can say from the videos in that other thread the tandem didn't really do the trick in this case. But certainly two JMs could have better controlled that fellow and given him a better learning experience. I don't know what to say about this. Seven AFF jumps over three days isn't all that bad for some students. But the whole things smacks of being too accelerated and Accelerated Freefall program. A student signing up would be attracted by the price, if they checked out other DZs, but would they grasp the concept of single JM AFF, the time limit overall, and do it without thinking it's how it is done everywhere? And I couldn't tell from your post, but are we saying Bill counts on the fact some students won't finish the course so he can stiff them out of the remaining monies? I really hope that's not the case . . . NickD

>>If I chop this round, I wonder if a square will pop out.

I wish they understood a bottle of Scotch is appropriate on my birthday, Christmas, and all federal holidays too! NickD

Not promoting some long dead rock star - this is what I really feel like . . . NickD

>>It's a smart idea.

I think it's because the first AFF jump there is single Jumpmaster AFF. Put two and two together and think back to a weird thread from a confused student last week about getting kicked out of his AFF program . . . I first met Bill Dause in the early 80s and he's cut from different cloth that's for sure. It was at a Soldier of Fortune Convention in Las Vegas. These conventions were 10 percent the real guys and 90 percent wanna be types who only subscribed to Soldier of Fortune magazine. They were running a deal where convention participants could make an airborne type static line jump and it was the second or third year they were doing it. These people received a regular static line first jump course and then in fatigues, army helmets, and military gut gear they were put out from 3500-feet over the desert. But the preceding year one of the first time jumpers was killed. And they were going stop offering the jump altogether but after the death there was ten times the amount of interest for the following year. Go figure? So they fired the people who had anything to do with the jump last time and contracted out for all new folks. And this is where Bill and I came in. Bill was supplying the plane, his DC-3, and I was there with Frank Mott to do the rigging and packing and we were there because Frank had the thirty pristine sets of military gear they needed. Then they hired a third entity to do all the training and jumpmastering. I actually had a good time at the thing during the night. Dale Dye, a retired Marine I served with was there as he was the current editor of Soldier of Fortune magazine. And later he went on to get many parts in war movies so you might know who he is. He almost got me a part in the movie PLATOON. Dale was a friend of Oliver Stone and already had a part in the movie when he suggested me. He told me to send Stone a tape and I did. They called me in and I went through two auditions and had the part of Private Gator Lerner. And then at almost the last minute I got aced out by some guy I never heard of named Johnny Depp . . . So anyway jump day comes, and I'd watched some of the training and it was first rate. The only funny part was they were told to make it sort of like real airborne training so they had these fat armchair warriors double timing around the desert and doing push-ups and I was really worried some of them would have heart attacks. But I grabbed my rig and asked Bill if I could get on for jump too. He said sure thing so along with the jumpmaster and students I climbed aboard. There was probably 25 or so of them and with their fatigues, steel pot helmets, and gear it wasn't hard to imagine we were heading out for Normandy. Jump run comes and they are all standing with their static lines hooked up to a cable Bill installed that ran the length of the cabin. The first two or three went through the door cleanly before they started balking. One or two would finally go then the whole procession would stall out again. I was trying not to laugh but I felt sorry for them at the same time. But Bill was beginning to steam and I could here him yelling to get them out so he didn't have to go around. Finally he got up and came down to the door from the cockpit. He pulled the Jumpmaster out of the way so hard he fell over. Then he started physically chucking the students out the door one after another. He even had to chase the last one who kept backing away. He then looked over at me and I went through the door like a shot. So anyway, that's how I met Bill Dause at the Soldier of Fortune convention . . . NickD

I brought it up years ago that there should be some international signal for, "there's something wrong with your gear." My thinking was they could start deploying now while they were high and with the time to work things out. But your hypothetical points out the flaw in it. If they went straight for the main pilot chute, and why wouldn't they, it might turn into something they can't work out. So unless Billy Vance teaches us all to talk with our hands it's a real dilemma. One thing however is a completely disconnected Three Ring, or at least disconnected enough so you as another jumper would notice it, would probably be flopping around in the wind. So I think the jumper in question would see it or feel it. If not I don't think reaching in for their cutaway handle would work. If someone tried that on me I be thinking, "Oh shit, what did I say in the bar last night that now this asshole is trying to kill me?" I guess I would get their attention and point to the corresponding Three Ring on my own rig. And then make the aviation signal for disconnected. That's two fists together and then rapidly pulled apart. On the other hand this would really be out there if it happened. Sometimes people get distracted when working on their gear, but a Three Ring with the rings together but not locked off by the loop and cable wouldn't stay together enough not to be noticed by somebody at some point prior to jumping. I've seen fouled or miss-assembled Three Rings. Three rings with an RSL connected directly to one of the rings. And I've seen risers that failed on deployment on the RSL side that killed people, but never a fully disconnected Three Ring on someone in the loading area or in the plane. (Note to nervous guy, everything happens sooner or later so don't completely discount this one). NickD

>>I'm Ol' momma of the dope dragons. It kind of fits.