SkydiveMO

Archway Skydiving in Vandalia, Illinois will hold its Halloween Party and Costume Contest Saturday November 3. There will be BBQ, Beverages and a DJ spinning some frightening tunes. Be there or face the wrath of the hook knife!

We have a strong challenger to Corn Freaks. It's "The Children of the Corn Boogie". The names okay but the poster is what really makes it.

Everyone has had great suggestions and ideas for our event so far. We haven't started to vote on a name yet so if you have a good name for a boogie there is stll time to post it. -Blue Skies

Little did you know I was simply fishing for ideas with the soul intention of claiming them as my own at the DZ. ***EVIL LAUGH*** I'm sure we can send a T-shirt to whomever's idea is picked and a free jump if they attend the event. As far as a plane ticket... well I'll let you ask the DZO about that one.

Ok well how about The Other Boogie... No not that one... not that one either... Yeah that's the boogie... Not "THE" Boogie, just that other one Corn Freaks is proving rather popular. It's the DZO's favorite so far. I'm all over kingbunky's idea of making up an add based on the Corn Flakes box.

I think you'd have to add a little to that... "We're NOT in Kansas Anymore, It just looks like we are" Boogie

“Corn Freaks”… Brilliant! I was trying to think how to fit corn into the name while ripping the other guys off. You know like “World Corn Jumping Convention” “Corn Fest” “Lost Corn Boogie”… too corny???

Archway Skydiving will be holding a Boogie July 20-23. Current aircraft - Cessna Caravan, Hot Air Balloon and Pitts Special (inverted bi-plane jumps!). Additional aircraft are in the works and will be listed as they are verified. Nightly entertainment is also in the works but nothing set yet. What we need now is a name. We’re trying to come up with something fitting for the Midwest but are open to just about anything. Any suggestions?

Hit the road Jack! Why does the convention have to be held at the same place every year? As the WORLD Freefall Convention I've always thought it should have a year in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, etc. Back in the day when America was the capital of all things skydiving and everyone was willing to travel to Quincy it all worked out great. Times have changed and skydiving is global.

Rantoul wants to be paid by Free Fall organizers 1 Published Online Mar 29, 2007 By Tim Mitchell RANTOUL – A village board member says he thinks the World Free Fall Convention should pay compensation to the village for failing to meet the final two years of its contract to hold the event in Rantoul. Convention organizers announced on Tuesday they were canceling this year's convention, which had been scheduled for the Rantoul airport. The village had a contract to host the event through 2008. "The village kept its end of the bargain," village board member Mike Graham said Wednesday. "It is up to the convention to keep its end of the bargain. If there are any contract obligations left, they need to pay us now." Convention spokeswoman Beth Mahlo said she wouldn't respond until after she had read a copy of the contract it signed with the village. "We'll have to examine the contract, but I don't think we owe them a monetary amount," Mahlo said. "All our payments were based on head counts. Without a head count, there is no money due." According to village records, Rantoul spent more than $226,000 to host the sky-diving convention since it first arrived in 2002. Rantoul Comptroller Scot Brandon said the village spent $130,000 to have M&R Builders construct permanent shower facilities. The village originally intended to pay for the 13 men's and 11 women's showers from money paid by convention participants and the convention itself. Under a contract the village board approved on Dec. 13, 2003, all convention participants were supposed to pay $10 per person to reimburse the village for the cost of the showers and other costs related to the convention. Under the agreement, the village would keep the first $30,000 generated each year by the fee. Money over and above the $30,000 would be spent for marketing and advertising for the convention. At the time the contract was signed, the village expected to raise between $28,000 and $57,000 a year from the fees. But actual money received by the village was much lower, according to Brandon. Brandon said the village received $15,130 in fee revenue in 2004, $10,640 in 2005 and $6,508 in 2006. According to Brandon, the village only recouped $32,278 for the $130,000 it spent on the showers. "The idea all along was to make it a better show from one year to the next to pay for those costs," said Rantoul Mayor Neal Williams. "When it didn't happen, we looked to (convention) management to improve that attendance. But the number of participants fell from 2,800 the first year in Rantoul to 800 the final year." Brandon said the village spent $6,835 on utility services, $5,316 on legal costs and $54,193 on other expenses, which included installing electrical and water hookups and leasing all-terrain vehicles for the police. The village also gave the convention $10,000 in both 2002 and 2004 in Rantoul to pay for advertising and marketing. Rantoul Recreation Department Director Rich Thomas said some labor from his staff was used to set up bleachers and mow the grass, but he said the costs were "negligible." "We enjoyed having the convention here, and they were good for the hotels, motels and merchants," said village board member Ron Loy. "But it was a yearly expense for the village. I hate to see them go, but it really isn't a loss." Village board member Chuck Smith said he was concerned over the expense of the convention. "We did invest quite a bit of money into the facilities to support their activities," Smith said. "The costs are there." Williams said that, while the village lost money on the convention, local businesses received a boost from the visitors who spent 10 days each summer in Rantoul. "I spoke to a mechanic who said the convention represented an additional $1,000 of income for him over a 10-day period," Williams said. "Our hotels, gas stations and retail stores all got extra business. Our bars and restaurants were filled with people during the convention. All that money will be missed." Brandon estimated that the village received $11,701 in additional hotel-motel tax revenue attributable to the convention over the past four years. Williams said the money spent on the showers won't completely go to waste. He said they will also be used by the Illini Boy Scout Jamboree and the I&I Tractor Club. Village board member Herman Fogal said the public relations Rantoul received from holding the convention outweighed its costs. "I think we got some good publicity out of it," Fogal said. "I think people had a lot of fun at the convention. I wish we would have them back again, but that's the way it is." HOW MUCH THE CONVENTION COST RANTOUL New shower facilities, $130,000 Marketing payments, $20,000 Police overtime, $9,983 Utilities, $6,835 Legal costs, $5,316 Other expenses, $54,193 Total, $226,327

Sky-diving meet canceled for 2007 Published Online Mar 28, 2007 By Tim Mitchell RANTOUL – The World Free Fall Convention will not be returning to Rantoul this summer. Rantoul Mayor Neal Williams said he got a letter Tuesday afternoon notifying him that the sky-diving convention will not be held this summer at the Rantoul airport. "I am surprised and disappointed," Wiliams said. "This event had the opportunity the last several years to be one of the better events in the county." Convention founder and president Don Kirlin confirmed that the 10-day event would not be held at all in 2007. It had been held in late July and early August at the Rantoul airport. Kirlin cited logistic and personal reasons for the convention's cancellation. "We need to recharge our batteries and start fresh reinventing the World Free Fall Convention for the future," Kirlin said. "I've always tried to think outside the box. I'm open to ideas, and look to the sky-diving community for ideas as we assess every aspect of our operation." "Mr. Kirlin has a lot going on right now, and he needs a break from the convention," convention spokeswoman Beth Mahlo said Tuesday. Kirlin said his organization has not decided where the convention would be held during the summer of 2008. "I'm not sure where we will be in 2008, but it is my desire along with the staff of the World Free Fall Convention that we will be back in the grand form in which the convention grew up from the 1990s," he said. The convention had been held in Quincy from 1990 to 2001 and in Rantoul since 2002. Attendance has been dwindling at the event since participation reached 5,732 jumpers in Quincy in 2000. The event drew 2,000 jumpers in its first year at Rantoul in 2002. Last year, only 800 sky divers showed up for the event, an all-time low, according to festival records. Mahlo said between 200 and 300 volunteers also attended the 2006 convention in Rantoul. Rantoul Village Attorney Ken Beth said the convention signed a five-year contract in 2003 to hold the event at Rantoul. That contract was scheduled to run through Sept. 30, 2008, Beth said. Rantoul Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Joe Bolser said he is sad it learn the convention won't be coming back. "It helped some of our businesses, especially those that sold groceries, clothing and gasoline," Bolser said. "I think the fun of the convention will be missed. It was an exciting thing to see. I'm sad not to see it come back, but I understand the economics behind the decision." The convention also brought tragedy to the Rantoul during its time in Champaign County. Five people died in sky-diving related incidents at the convention while it was at Rantoul. Williams thanked the hundreds of volunteers from Rantoul and Champaign County who supported the convention during its run there. "I think the village did an outstanding job in supporting this event," Williams said. "The event introduced people from all over the world to the wonderful things we have to offer in Rantoul, and I believe its impact will be felt for years to come." Kirlin said the event drew visitors from every state and more than 70 countries. "We have loved every minute of the past 17 years," he said.

I took out the Yellow Pages, turned to the Skydiving section and called the DZ that had St. Louis in its name. I thought well I live in St. Louis so it must be close. Man I was an idiot, lucky for me all the DZs in our area are top notch so it really wasn't an issue.

Level of risk is subjective, I agree. But my point is that in this instance there is no need for the introduction of any risk just to “have fun”. The “fun” is just showing off and no matter how you spin it. Videographers also introduce risk but there are rules that should govern their behavior as they work with the tandem instructor. I’ve outlined this in a prior discussion. Video is a service for the student and has a benefit for the DZ. You are correct to say that a 10 way with a tandem is also a risk. You could try to spin it and say the tandem is doing a RW style dive and so why not add experienced jumpers for some added “fun”. Like it or not it’s still a student dive and adding additional jumpers, no matter how experienced, is just not needed. As for the buzz job by the Otter, hey it’s all fun and games till there is a canopy strike or some one gets their canopy spun up by the aircraft wake and goes in. Look, I’m no Saint that’s for sure. I’ve crawled around on the top of aircraft. I jumped with a stuffed toy that spun me up into a real nasty malfunction then it stuck around after the cutaway and I couldn’t clear it till the reserve deployment (BIG STUPID). I’ve jumped a crossbraced canopy at a 2.4 wingloading. I’ll probably think up some new stupid skydiver trick this season too. I only hope better judgment takes hold before I try it. My stupidity involves me and no students. When I work as an instructor it’s the straight and narrow. The more that I’m around the sport the more conscious I become of the risks I take and how they will effect the people around me. I’d like to say everything I’ve done has only endangered me but it hasn’t. That’s the rub, we want to do all the coolest stuff in skydiving and are blinded to the risks or try to trivialize them. If we worried about the risks none of us would ever jump. What needs to happen is a culture where students are sacred and they are isolated from all the “fun” we like to have. It’s always tragic when a fellow skydiver is injured or dies in our sport but it’s very damaging to the sport as a whole when a student is injured or dies.

You know I had forgotten to add that one to my collection of videos for the malfunction brief. I will dig it out for certain. Thanks for the reminder.

If it's not hot dogging then what would you call it? What training value does it offer a student out on their first jump? Again, what's the point?

What’s the point? You just did a fly-by on a student, even if the person in charge of the canopy is an experienced skydiver in the end a tandem is a “student jump”. Not matter how experienced the pilots involved there remains a level of risk. The point of the rules regarding students is to reduce the risks as much as possible. Keep the hot doggin’ for your licensed friends. I’ll never buy the reasoning “but the student said it was ok.” I’ve had tandem students, who I know weren't joking, who thought it would be cool for me to push them out of the plane unhooked so I could dive out and hook them up in freefall. Hell, many “experienced” skydivers don’t understand the risks involved with the sport so it reasons that many students don’t either. That’s why we get students suing over injuries using the argument “I know I signed the waiver but I didn’t think I’d really get hurt.”

My fellow instructors and I are currently putting together the schedule for Safety Day. We observe Safety Day every year so most everything is already in place, it’s really just a matter of dumping what portion of the training on which instructor. Almost all of our instructors have been around since before the inception of Safety Day and things are starting to feel a little stale. Last year I tried spicing things up with a PowerPoint presentation filled with video examples but it still lacked a certain “fun” factor. The Safety & Training Newsletter from January 24 offered a few fun training ideas that could help us break away from the old safety brief format this year. We will be trying out the station poker and hopefully it will give the jumpers incentive to participate in all the training. I like the idea of breaking things up so not just one instructor gets stuck teaching. The newsletter also got me thinking about the safety forum and all the jumpers out there with great ideas. Why not ask them what they do at Safety Day? So, what fun things have you done, experienced or thought up recently for Safety Day?

Thanks for all the suggestions so far, everyone keep them coming. There’s just too much good music out there to find it all on your own. Many of the songs I’ve found for my skydiving videos were the only gem on some of the worst CDs I’ve ever listened to. It’s nice to let others help me filter through all that bad music. Blue Skies

There have been several threads with everyone’s favorite music picks for skydiving videos. These have come in very handy for expanding my current collection for dubbing. Now I’d like to know what new music everyone is using. Try and limit your suggestions to only the newest releases. Let’s say released in the last two years. Thanks Here's a few I've started using... Jerk It Out - Caesars Devil in Me - 22-20's Birdsong - The Golden Dogs The Boxer - The Chemical Brothers Here It Goes Again - OK GO

All are welcome to help us celebrate another fine year of skydiving. Archway Skydiving is the place to be December 9-10. There are no entry or organizing fees for this event. Mike Mullins' Super King Air will be rocketing 14 jumpers up to 14,000ft all weekend long. Saturday night there will be a celebration complete with Chili Cook-off, collection of dangerous and not so dangerous party games, music, beer and the premier of the DZ 2006 Year End Movie.

For USPA members with over 10 years membership, did you receive your tenure award? I recently started my 11th year of membership and realize I never received my 10 year certificate. After asking around the DZ I found none of the jumpers with 10+ years had received a certificate automatically. The only one who did receive his award had to request it. I'm waiting a bit before requesting mine be sent as I'm sure I renewed a week or two late on a few occasions but if no one is receiving their awards automatically I will just go ahead and request it now.

It’s cool, I remember standing in the landing area at the DZ with 50 jumps or something and asking the DZO why everyone was buying these new Stiletto things? Why would you go elliptical if it meant line twists and dangerous landings? Shooting accuracy with my PD210 was working just fine for me. I swore I’d never jump elliptical… well the last canopy I bought was cross-braced and I’m not going to mention the wing loading. I do still have a huge Falcon for shooting accuracy and it’s nearly as fun as swooping. The fact is, as you progress in your skills you’ll want to take on new challenges. The question is are you ready for them or should you put in a few more jumps first? To name a few disciplines that require a level of skydiving maturity before starting there is Free Flying, Camera, Swooping, and CRW. These are what the cool kids are doing at the DZ so naturally the new jumper wants to play too. Often there are jumpers in these disciplines willing to teach jumpers before they are ready. We should look out for everyone’s safety and make sure your fellow jumper is progressing according to their abilities and not their wants. Now as to whether my friends and I should be experimenting like we have been… well, you’re right we shouldn’t. That’s why I made the post. After taking a step back I realized we’d been lucky there were no injuries. Skydiving is dangerous enough without adding a few extra unknowns to the equation. If we all didn’t have a certain level of invincibility built in we wouldn’t have made our first jump. The trick is keeping a bit of sobering reality around to keep it in check… but not too much because skydiving is way too much fun to quit. All skydivers do stupid &^%$. It is just part of the sport. None of us are immune. So, think about the challenges before you take on a new discipline and help keep everyone safe.

They are jumping out at Archway Skydiving today (618) 283-4973. You could call and see if that's still going on. Otherwise we'll be jumping all weekend. Caravan so 13,500ft and we do freefly though we're no CDC or SDC. If you sweet talk the DZO we could even swoop the lake.

I don't see what my depression has to do with it And I was trying to loose the $#%& dog it just wouldn't let go

My last malfunction got me to thinking about skydivers, boredom and how the two don’t mix well. After years of editing video of RW, Freeflying and student jumps I thought it would be nice to collect footage of something else for a change. First there was wing walking on the Caravan... OK more like wing crawling. Then there was the roll of toilet paper that we dropped then shredded by flying canopies into it. Finally we tried jumping with stuffed animals. Each jump was planned out and we tried to consider all the bad things that might happen on each. In the end though it became obvious to me that you just can’t plan for everything and trying something outside the norm can really bite you in the ass. For the wing crawling stunt we tried to consider all snag and catch points to be avoided. However, one of the jumpers slid of where he wasn’t supposed to and skinned his shoulder, on closer inspection he was lucky he didn’t nick his riser or lift web. So, crawling on the airplane is out. Next we made toilet paper jumps. Actually those went really well and we can’t think of any dangers other than a jumper chasing the TP below 2,000ft and landing off airport in a tree or power line. The last in the series of odd jumps was made with stuffed toys… why? Well, I had this song that made me think of skydiving with plush toys. We did several uneventful jumps with the small plush toys so we decided to graduate to the large ones. On our last dive we took the largest of the stuffed animals we had collected. John jumped the large monkey which put him in a pretty good spin so he dropped it around 6,000ft and opened with no problem. I took out a large dog which I couldn’t sit fly with as planned but was able to belly fly near pull time. I thought I was plenty stable but didn’t realize the dogs butt was sticking up so high that my main bag would strike it when I pulled. The canopy twisted up and put me in a spin. I tried kicking out but the dog was between my legs. At this point I had planed to let the toy go and move on with emergency procedures but the spin caused the stuffed dog to stay in my legs. After cutting away, the dog remained pinned to me as I rolled over and regained stability. I wasn’t able to clear the %&$# dog until after reserve deployment. We planned to break and pull high but as you can see from the video things happened fast. I pulled at 3.5 rather than the intended 4.5 and this didn’t leave me time to free the dog before pulling the reserve. Now I’m a very safety conscious skydiver and am actually a Chesley H. Judy Safety Award recipient. However I do realize I’m not too good to make stupid choices in this sport. Often we want to make extraordinary jumps to separate ourselves from the other skydivers or to push the limits of our sport but the danger is often not worth the reward. Before you decide to throw yourself out the plane with something other than the regular gear consider the risks involved. Consult with someone who has already made the type of jump you are about to make (for example with a sky board, raft, or tube) or at least someone who has made a jump somewhat like the one you are about to try. They could offer some pointers or warnings that could either keep you safe during the dive or keep you from making the jump at all. Don’t be over confident about your abilities to deal with every situation. A fast type malfunction is just that FAST. Adding toys, boards, wings, cameras and what ever other distraction you can think of may just be what keeps you from saving your life. I am not against jumping with any of these items nor will I cease trying new things in the sport. What I would like is for everyone to step back and ask whether they are ready to try the odd dive before doing it.