skydived19006

That may or may not be deceptive; I’d need to see the specific ads. My DZ is Air Capital Drop Zone; we’re located 15 miles outside of Wichita Kansas. Until this season there was a drop zone called Skydive Wichita (they folded up their tent, and sold off the assets) located 40 miles from Wichita in Kingman Ks (very common, no problem). I had and still have paid advertisements for the terms “skydive wichita”, if someone in Wichita is searching for skydiving near Wichita, they should know that I’m there. There is currently a DZ in Kansas by the name of Skydive Kansas, I also have paid search ads for the term “skydive kansas”, as I’m in the skydiving business, and located in Kansas (you’ll also see Skydive Kansas come up as the number 1 natural result, with paid ad, and we’re both behind the Skyride site ads for that term). The header of virtually all of my paid ads is “Skydive Wichita Kansas.” I don’t think this is deceptive at all. Martin Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

When you go the “offending DZ site”, is it obvious where they’re located? I use paid ads; they’re not all area specific. If you were in Lyons Georgia and searched for “skydive lyons”, you’d see my paid advertisement. Once you go to my web site, it would be very clear that I’m located in Wichita Kansas (DZ was formally located in Lyons Kansas). If I get a call from way out of my area I’ll generally refer the customer to a closer DZ, I like to think that most DZs do this. Once in a while I’ll get a customer from Kansas City (200 miles away, and 3 or 4 DZs closer than mine), but they want to jump in Wichita for one reason or another, generally friends or family here. I do not use a 1-800 phone number for multiple reasons. One: the cost Two: most people have cell phones and it doesn’t cost them to call long distance Three: anyone in Kansas will know that a phone number with a 316 area code is in the Wichita area. In a lot of ways, it’s hard to believe that there’s a DZ in this country that will still trade with Skyride. It’s incredibly short sided! You inevitably tarnish your own reputation, because 90% of your Skyride referrals will be upset about getting fucked (maybe they keep a tube of anal lube on the counter?), and see the DZO as a conspirator in the deception. I know of one KC area DZ that accepts Skyride certificates (to the best of my knowledge he still deals with Skyride). This guy is one of the most rule/law abiding DZOs in the business. It’s hard for me to understand how he can stand to have the constant taste of shit in his mouth. I know from personal experience how it is accepting Skyride certificates, and dealing with the customers. I did it for 6 months a few years ago. In those 6 months, I accepted 30 certificates, and did around 250 tandems total for the year. I quit Skyride, stepped up my advertising a little, and did over 300 tandems the next year. The year after that we were up to 400 tandems. Pull your head out of your ass, do some advertising, clean up your web site, do some optimization, and tell Ben and Cary to go fornicate with each other! Was I ranting? Martin Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Good point, I don't remember the day, but my guess is that it was L&V. It looks like I'm not even on the wind line (although could be somewhat deceptive). Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

We have Icarus 330s and 365s, on a no wind day even with a straight in landing the ground speed is fairly high. I’ve landed and looked back at the tracks left as my feet dragged along the grass, and it can be well over 50’, and up to 100’. With these canopies there isn’t enough lift to bring it back up to a stand up, and if you could it wouldn’t slow down enough that “running it out” wouldn’t be a problem. In my openion the speed isn’t a problem, and I definitely like the air speed when the wind’s blowing 25mph! In answering the topic, I virtually never let the student help with the steering all the way to the ground. We don’t teach tandem progression, it is landing a fast relatively high performance, and often somewhat loaded (can be over 1.4/1) canopy, the fine adjustments on final can be hard to communicate. Also, when you have a big strong guy in front of you, and he decides that it’s time to flair at 50’, it can be hard to override when he has the ability to put a couple hundred lbs pull force on the toggles! For what it’s worth, I’ve attached a picture of a no wind landing under a 330 Icarus. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

A lot of what I do is routine, but I improvise too, and some of that works into the routine. We’re doing hand cam now, and we interview in the airplane (C182, on our knees, I reach around with both of our faces in frame) after hooking up, and ready to exit. I often end that interview with “Wish me luck!” Nice little bit of irony. Martin Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

I agree with you Lisa! Fuck the dumb! If someone is not smart enough to keep from being deceived by a practiced con man then it should be absolutely ok to lie, cheat and steel from them. I run a DZ and whenever someone shows up and appears to be less than the most intellectual person in the world we go on overdrive and see just how much money we can con them out of! If they're dumb and attractive we not only try to work more money out of them, but do our damnedest to work them out of their clothing. You should see us work! Good damn thing that they have to be 18, and we've worked a few additional disclosures into our "special" waivers, the attractive women actually sign a sexual consent form! You just got'a love this country! Again Lisa, I'm all with you! Fuck the dumb, figuratively and literally! Edit to add: Disclosure: just in case anyone here is one of the above mentioned “dumb” and can’t recognize sarcasm when they see it. The above opinion is a good example of sarcasm. And in case you’re not smart enough to know what sarcasm is… Sarcasm: remarks that mean the opposite of what they seem to say and are intended to mock or deride. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Irony; Get caught steeling a candy bar at Walmart, or driving at .01 blood alcohol and you'll get to know a judge very well, and maybe have a 300 lb room mate named Bubba who thinks your sexy! Steel hundreds of thousands of dollars from people all over the United States through deception and no Attorney General, District Attorney, etc will touch it with a ten foot pole! Bunch of lazy fucks if you ask me, not an easy-slam dunk prosecution I guess. Maybe we need to mobilize the Mothers of this country against Skyride and the sort? "MAMORIES" (Mothers Against Marketing Of Really Illegal & Erroneous Scams) Not the best, but it seems that the first order of business in a movement of this sort is to figure out a really cool acronym. Maybe someone else can do better? Martin Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Jamie, My DZ isn't very far from Belle Plane, but I don't know that my dogs would get along with your kitty. I would think that someone would keep her for you, I just don't know exactly who. I could ferry her to Wamego in my airplane if she comes with a carrier, just don't know what to do with her in the meantime. Martin AC DZ Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

I don't know how you'd use this to help with the Skyride situation. Googlebombing 'failure' 9/16/2005 12:54:00 PM Posted by Marissa Mayer, Director of Consumer Web Products If you do a Google search on the word [failure] or the phrase [miserable failure], the top result is currently the White House’s official biographical page for President Bush. We've received some complaints recently from users who assume that this reflects a political bias on our part. I'd like to explain how these results come up in order to allay these concerns. Google's search results are generated by computer programs that rank web pages in large part by examining the number and relative popularity of the sites that link to them. By using a practice called googlebombing, however, determined pranksters can occasionally produce odd results. In this case, a number of webmasters use the phrases [failure] and [miserable failure] to describe and link to President Bush's website, thus pushing it to the top of searches for those phrases. We don't condone the practice of googlebombing, or any other action that seeks to affect the integrity of our search results, but we're also reluctant to alter our results by hand in order to prevent such items from showing up. Pranks like this may be distracting to some, but they don't affect the overall quality of our search service, whose objectivity, as always, remains the core of our mission. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

15 or 20 years ago when I was jumping a PD 260, I wouldn't have worried much about getting out at 2k, although I personally wouldn't have wanted the high speed. Currently on a Crossfire, for me I think I would just consider it a reserve ride, whether I dumped, and cut the main first or not, I don't want to be in freefall below 2000' regardless (unless it's between releasing a malfunctioning main and deploying a reserve). As I understand it, about half the load stayed on the airplane, a second pass was in the plan to begin with. They managed to get quite a bit more altitude for the second pass, so there's no telling exactly how many would have ridden the plane down. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Well, I guess we should count ourselves lucky that we're not complaining about rigs going lost! Somebody is some kind of junk pack rat! Sounds like some sort of shirt opportunity. I'll be keep'n my eye (one eye since I'll have one closed as to not see double) on you people! Martin Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

That's been my experience as well. I have about 1500 tandems, all on Icarus (Precision, and Icarus built), and have never had line twists I couldn't recover from (still 0 tandem reserve rides). Also, a contributing factor is hand cam (more negative fodder for hand cam haters). I’ve had the "dropped shoulder" thing two or three times, again generally on the one canopy that's going in for lines this fall, I will not put my hands up on the risers when I have the camera on my hand. I absolutely hate it, and feel helpless when you're snapped into line twists, the canopy is open and flying, and the momentum of the snap it still turning you the wrong direction! We deploy at 5500', so generally open and flying even with a slow opening by 4500, gives you quite a bit of time to deal with it. All that said, in 1500 tandems, I'd estimate that I've had line twists (beyond one turn) a dozen times. Twice this season with the hand cam, got good video of it (once we were turning out of the twists, and I knew we were fine). Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Sure, I'm almost always up for beer! Also, I'm hoping that a couple of our "borrowed" items may mysteriously be returned to "Camp Kansas" this year. We had a Kansas flag, "Jump" street sign, and my hat disappear last year. I assumed that it was supposed to be some sort of practical joke, like steeling the mascot from your rival high school or something, so it'll be nice to have our stuff back this year. If it wasn't a harmless prank type of thing, then I guess it would fall into the class of something like steeling PD wind blades. Now that only would be done by the lowest class of low life! Hopefully everything will be returned this year (including and especially the PD wind blades!), and my faith in humanity will be restored! I'd like to be an optimist, but I don't think it would work out. Martin Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Up for it? That's my Chapstick! Yep, I'm bringing a couple of tandem rigs. You know I've not taken a totally naked chick, maybe this is the year for that little novelty? (Beer!) I was considering not even working (tandems) this year, we've been so busy at home, and I'm a little tired of working 80 hour weeks (40 day job, 40 DZ). That said, we've been down (maintenance issue )for the two weekends before Labor Day, so I've had a little vacation (only working 40 hours a week, WOW!), so I may work the tandem concession a day or two anyway. Martin Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

You do work for them don't you? Of course you are going to defend them. You profit from their scams. Oh, was he defending them? I just thought that he meant that the piece missed the meat of the boiler room bull shit that Skyride is legendary for. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

I agree with what you’re saying, and that was basically my first thought after seeing the interview. There’s a whole lot more “meat” to this issue than they touched on. How about just saying “If you go through this booking agency, you’ll pay more, a lot more! You’ll often not be directed to the nearest, or for that matter best drop zone, and can drive as much as 4 to 6 hours, when there’s a DZ within 30 minutes of your home” etc. People just love to overpay, and drive for hours! Edit: Or, just boil it down to 5 seconds and say "They FUCK you at the drive through!!" Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

All I can say is SWEEEEET! Well maybe not everything I can say. I've been to every Dollar Dayz boogie since 1995. At that time I had something like 60 jumps, also did my first naked jump there that year (made Paul Harvey). Finally won the Best Dressed a couple of years ago, and retired from competition at the top! Started doing tandems there in 2000 or so, now have well over 2000 jumps and am an official ass hole since 2001 (DZO). See ya at the Beer Truck Wednesday evening! Martin Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Wow, been a while since anyone has accused me of being brilliant. Just a fluke I'm sure. Martin Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Wow Woman! You’re a girl who does her homework! Must be the lawyer in ya. I wouldn’t be comfortable hooking you at deployment; it’s just not something I do. Skydivers will tense at the hips on deployment, it’s not something that I think about, but seems to come naturally. Why don’t you ask your TI to give you a good indication that he’s about to deploy (whatever he/she’s used to), or if YOU start the main deployment you’ll obviously know, then just “un-relax” a bit. My guess is that if you know you’re about to deploy, you’ll automatically tense up a little naturally. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Thanks, Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

It’s my understanding that the Winter 2007 USPA BOD meeting will be conducted in Reno Nevada in conjunction with the PIA Symposium. PIA.com has all the necessary information, but on the USPA site they say as of this posting “The next BOD meeting will be held July 14-16 in Fredericksburg, Virginia”. As usual, they’re a little behind the curve. Does anyone have any current information regarding the 07 BOD meeting? Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

My vote is fix it if you can, then fly it. If I have a student who’s shifted, and has one leg outside, or has shifted to the left or right, I’ll reach down and shift it back to center. If I feel knees down in free fall, I’ll reach down and pat the thighs, I haven’t “hooked” a tandem passenger since my first few tandems. I’ve had a couple of tandems where the student put their knees to chest, and when I forcefully patted/pushed/almost hit them in the thighs they just went harder into the fetal position. I simply stabilized it, and threw the drogue (actually hard tight fetal is fairly easy to stabilize to me, but I’m 6’8”). Funny thing with one of them, we got to the ground and the guy asks “did I arch right?” To which I answered “Well, lets just say it’s a good thing I’m tall!” Not that a small TM can’t handle anything a student can throw at him, but it’s defiantly easier when the TM is 12” taller, as opposed to the other way round. My guess is that if you put me in front of a 5’5” tandem instructor I could cause a turn you couldn’t counter. Again, fix it, then fly it. Now, what’s the “dooms day plan”? If you’re in a turn that you can’t stop you deploy! In my opinion if the turn’s speeding up, do your best to stop it and deploy high, the higher the better. Worst case you use the main to stop it, then the reserve to get you down if you can’t deal with 20 turns of line twists. Now what if you have a tandem you can’t get flipped over? Do you fight it, and how long? Again, my “dooms day plan” is I simply dearch until the student arches, unless I can turn it over, if not I’ll let it stabilize on our backs, and throw the drogue by 7k. If they’re 90 degrees at the hips, and legs straight it’s not going to flip over. I have 1500 +/- tandems, and have never been over 1000’ off the airplane without the drogue out from a stable position, and I front flip off a 182. Martin Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

I have this (below) in my waiver. I think it would scare the shit out of me if someone actually opted to pay the additional $500 per jump! Never had anyone opt to pay the $500, and not yet had anyone walk away because of the Participation Agreement (waiver) 2. RELEASE OF LIABILITY. 3. AGREEMENT NOT TO SUE AND WAIVER OF JURY TRIAL. 4. INDEMNITY AGAINST THIRD PARTY CLAIMS. 5. OPTIONAL WAIVER OF CONTRACT DEFENSES. I understand that this Agreement is a contract pursuant to which I have released any and all claims against the Releasees arising in any way from my participation in or my attending the activities covered by this agreement, INCLUDING ANY CLAIMS CAUSED BY NEGLIGENCE OR ARISING FROM ANY OTHER CAUSE, ACTIVE OR PASSIVE, DIRECT OR INDIRECT, OF THE RELEASEES. I acknowledge that I have the option to purchase a waiver of the provisions contained in Paragraphs 2, 3, and 4 of this Agreement at an additional cost of Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00). Such waiver does not constitute a contract of insurance. Such waiver would waive the matters set forth in Paragraphs 2, 3, and 4 above, allowing me to retain my normal legal rights that I am otherwise giving up. (________) Please initial when read. I choose to: (initial one) A. PURCHASE (________) the waiver. (Pay $500.00, otherwise...) B. NOT PURCHASE (__ _____) the waiver. (Do not pay $500.00) Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

From the DZOs perspective Up Jumper and Fun Jumper are synonymous. Also from the DZOs perspective Up Jumper is somewhat of a derogatory term for someone who complains a lot, makes a mess and doesn’t clean up after themselves, stops up the toilet and doesn’t unstop it, stinks up the airplane, and provides little or no “black” to the bottom line. (That was supposed to be funny, so don’t take personally. Maybe would have been better suited for DZOs.net?) Martin Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

In my opinion it defiantly depends on the situation, and intent. In your situation at WFFC I have absolutely no problem with you asking a FAA rep who you know personally to talk to the guy. There was actually no violation, therefore not even a chance of anyone getting in trouble for anything. Now there’s a situation in KC where (third hand information) a DZ sent a group of tandem students who they know had been drinking to a neighboring DZ because they (DA #1) were having aircraft issues. Then got on the phone with the FAA to report that the neighboring DZ (DA #2) was taking drunken tandem students up. That is just chicken shit on way too many levels; I don’t care what had transpired previously! If it’s true, take it for what it is. If it’s untrue, then it’s a good theoretical example of when not to call the FAA. Martin Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ