tdog

In my "hobby job" of concert lighting, I work in an industry that is as equally as small and political, and sometimes as immature as skydiving. I have successfully worked for all three of the arch-rivals in our state, maintaining a good relationship with each, with each knowing I am helping their competition succeed too. I tell them all my rules of engagement are: 1) First come, first serve. If I commit to a show, I will not bail for a better show. That means, if I book one day for company A, and the other company wants to send me to Vegas for a week (6X more money) - I am not going to bail on who I committed to first. 2) I never share information about each company to the others. They get comfort when they see me not giving information to them, so they assume I am holding their information secret too. 3) I am always honest about who and where I am working. 4) I do the best job I can so all three want to hire me over someone else. 5) I never "move" or "refer" business from one company to another... Their customers are safe with me. I echo what everyone else said, especially with giving as much notice as possible, and explaining that it is an economic decision with the distance to your house... I would change the "more fun" to "all my long time friends are there"...

tunnel training by Rusty Lewis and Mr Verner - and he doesn't even know how great an opportunity that is I think any good PR/Marketing guy will promote the tunnel over the visiting staff - as they don't want to give the impression that the "good guys" are leaving... The PR guys are hired to do PR for the tunnel, which will stay as the staff comes and goes... The purpose of that story was to sell the concept that anyone can fly - not that you need to be a world champion... So the spin worked... But, they put up more footage online! The site http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=e2ee5212-0abe-421a-0152-d56f38f50072&TEMPLATEID=b010ff41-ac1f-02c5-0009-00c014346932 the links on that site in case the site expires: http://www.9news.com/includes/buildasx.aspx?fn=http://wm.gannett.speedera.net/wm.gannett/kusa/backup/1141947874876-web pro skydivers.transfer.wmv&sp=http://wm.gannett.speedera.net/wm.gannett/kusa/pre-stream/bbe-att-feb06-384.wmv http://www.9news.com/includes/buildasx.aspx?fn=http://wm.gannett.speedera.net/wm.gannett/kusa/backup/1141947992329-web kirk skydiving.transfer.wmv&sp=http://wm.gannett.speedera.net/wm.gannett/kusa/pre-stream/bbe-att-feb06-384.wmv http://www.9news.com/includes/buildasx.aspx?fn=http://wm.gannett.speedera.net/wm.gannett/kusa/backup/1141948009650-web brian skydiving.transfe.wmv&sp=http://wm.gannett.speedera.net/wm.gannett/kusa/pre-stream/bbe-att-feb06-384.wmv

And video online today: http://www.9news.com/includes/buildasx.aspx?fn=http://wm.gannett.speedera.net/wm.gannett/kusa/backup/1141949492467-03-09-06-e-block-4p.wmv&sp=http://wm.gannett.speedera.net/wm.gannett/kusa/pre-stream/frontier-prestream905.wmv I wonder if Kirk (the news reporter) knew he was flying with Arizona Airspeed and one of the most experienced tunnel instructors out there...

He actually did ask, specifically, how you were doing... I told him that you retired from the sport and decided to take up bowling.

In how many jumping days... I.E. how many per day?

I am pretty bad about it... Once a quarter I pull a manifest print out and compare it to my protrack and paper log... Last time I did this, my protrack said I did two hop and pops for the life of me I can't remember... Turns out the first was a tunnel gone bad incident where my protrack read the pressure changes... The other, I must not have been awake for, because I assure you it never happened... But the paperwork says it did... Pretty bad, huh?

I got today's NSL newsletter, and I found out they ran a story on the league! http://www.skyleague.com/pages/news/showArticles.php?story=344

It just might be Skyventure Colorado! www.skyventure.com lists all the skyventure brand operating tunnels... There is also the flyaway brand tunnel - but it is more geared for entertainment instead of realism/training... Orlando, FL Perris, CA Eloy, AZ Denver, CO New Hampshire is still under construction????

Mr. MacNasty... I love your username... I will buy it for $10... Every DZ, including DZ.com, needs one, it appears... It is too bad the locals are so against this... I jump in a DZ in a highly populated area... I did the math last year... I paid $340 to a local woman who makes sandwiches out of her hot dog cart at the DZ on weekends. I paid $125 to the city, as the city charges $.50 per parachute landing. I tend to poorly plan, so I always buy gas when I am tired after a day of jumping - enough for all week... Somewhere around $1500 of revenue to the local gas stations, which brings jobs to the community, and helps support property taxes. I am just one of many people who drive to put cashflow into this city... I hear that the DZ has to pay "use tax" on parts and maintenance for the planes... They have provided $$$ to the city. I also care about where I jump, so I am likely to pick up garbage flying around the ground - and the one time I landed out this year, I made sure to leave no trace. I think most skydivers are very respective of where they jump. They don't want to die, and they prefer not to land "out"... When they do, they try hard to not hurt anyone else's property. It appears however, that this DZ will never get the support from it's neighbors, so it will face an uphill battle, like the one real farmermacnasty I know who will park his tractor on chopped canopies.... I love how the propaganda website against the jumpers uses fatalities and night jumps to scare people away... Here is something that just made me laugh from that website.... It is so sad when grown ups act like children...

Thanks Kirk... It was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot... I do have to say, those Airspeed folk like to fall fast, that tunnel was a-cookn'.... The thing I learned the most... While doing cat-360-cat, it is nearly impossible to cross reference an object spinning at the speed of light... He was spinning so fast I was getting vertigo before I even started my own turn... It was fun to fly with someone who can whip a 360 in the time it takes for me to blink my eye.

Newsletter that went out: Things are going great for the CSL. 1) The tunnel is awesome - and excited to host the tunnel league events. It looks like JP will be our guy at the tunnel to help us get all this together, as he was there in Perris, witnessing first hand the birth of their league, and he promises me that we will give them a run for their money. We are so excited. Who wants to play???? This will be ideal for the novices because of cost and learning curve... Experience required = a few minutes in the tunnel... 2) Kevin Chapman, from Team Levitation, is the first winner for the 2006 season, a Chipotle Burrito (thanks be to our sponsors) - for catching the August dates being published incorrectly. www.coloradoskydivingleague.com has been updated... Kevin, what do you like on your burrito??? 3) The first meet is only a few weeks away - that is right - the first week of April, April 8th and 9th... See the CSL website for all the info. I expect everyone to come excited for some scrambles action especially - that is right, you don't have to have a team to play! I really need to get working on this, because I am going down to Z-hills at the end of the month, so... Be looking out for info, but mark your calendar now, so I don't have to worry while I am gone.... 4) I watched some of the Air Force teams train today in the tunnel... We sure hope they will participate in the CSL, because we are going to have some fun! 5) Please, if you have not registered on www.coloradoskydivingleague.com (for free) - please do... There is a free tee-shirt awaiting. Travis

Me too, it seems... 1) I have a block on Saturday I am working on... "Our Saturday Night Flight Club" if you will... This time I hope to leave before 2:30 in the morning ;-) If you want in... 2) I think you owe me $$$ for last Saturday.

I did a handful of Prodigy jumps at the MOAB boogie... It was a great prep for the Phantom which I purchased... I can't say much about the exits because I was exiting a skyvan, and it was easy - and fun to watch flying on level with the plane... My learning curve on flight plan was the biggest curve, as I realized I had flown the entire length of the landing area before thinking, "where do I go from here, I turned too soon."

I had a good weekend too, on my Phantom... I think I have 10 jumps on it, and only a handful more wingsuit flights, so I am a total novice... Got down to new record lows for me, just trying to punch it out, sub 50MPH... One jump was going to be a flock with a Prodigy... Well, once I figured that getting close was going to be difficult, I opted for the "use him as a reference point" and punched it... It was cool to make a huge radius turn and carve around him as he cut the corners sharp.... Now, if I can just dial it in like Jumpnaked69, who did the same thing with me when I was the inefficient fast faller, and I watched him fly after I deployed, and he seemed to have the same decent rate as my canopy...

I have my phantom down to about 8 minutes... Or so I would guess by the 10 minute call I made yesterday. I am going to take a marker and label the tabs I skip, now that I have it dialed in... I think that will take a minute off, as I always count wrong it seems...

How high were you when you initiated the front riser on the main? What caused the two out?

This one is long... So, I did a coach jump a few weeks back with a young, physically fit, energetic, female jumper... Went well. I am happy that she got her A recently, purchased a rig, and is hooked on the sport. Last night, she joined Alan and I for some RW tunnel coaching, along with a group of students... They split up 2 hours of time across 6 or so people, and everyone learned a lot... (Thanks Skyventure Colorado for staying open until 2AM to let us coach them.) But this jumper gave me a run for my money, and I exhausted every drill in my bag of tricks... She had broken her leg badly snowboarding last year and had the rods taken out in August. But after seeing her joyfully walk around the DZ, and walked a full flight of stairs without a bit of a limp at the tunnel, I never even thought to ask... It wasn't until half way thru the tunnel coaching session that I was made aware of the leg being broken. OOPS - rookie mistake to not ask about any body parts that are not 100%, but truly, this student looks like she could run a race and kick the average skydiver's butt, so I learned my lesson on that one (and she had no dislocation issues so the tunnel had no red flags either) The most amazing thing happened in the tunnel... I saw the weirdest body position I had ever seen in the tunnel, that actually flew stable. Her whole torso was twisted 30 to 45 degrees laterally - and she was fighting very hard keeping from turning by ending up in this pretzel with one elbow at her side and the other arm way out front... This was accompanied by fall rate issues, forward and backward issues, and potato chipping when I tried to correct it... Eye contact was difficult because she was fighting the body position - and getting her to smile was, just, not going to happen... I was working so hard on the big picture issues, I could not see the minor details in her leg to know that was the root cause. After a few 2 minute sessions, I asked Alan to give it a whirl. Alan and I tried everything... Alan flew on the net with her, where her body position was good, but deteriorated the second it left the net. I tried flying two ways with her, letting her feel flight without the nervousness of bouncing around the tunnel... Holding on to me for stability, we spent time just going up and down, and around and around. I could feel an intense pull on my left arm, so I threw in the spins in both directions hoping she could feel some balance. Alan was the hero who, in flying two ways on the net, had her press her hands onto his palms and push. He felt there was no strength to one side... So, we learned that her leg, after being badly broken, was not performing... Why could she hold her own body weight standing on a bent leg, but not extend it in the tunnel??? I spent a skydive today analyzing how much pressure needed on my legs, and the force is light compared to running up a flight of stairs... I started to believe that she is having a hard time feeling what that leg was doing... I think there are some physical therapy issues in retraining that leg... Nerve damages? Muscle issues? Something funky, but I know if her brain could tell the leg to extend, she would have the strength to do it... The drill that seemed to fix the problem - somewhat... I went on my knees in the anti-chamber and had her look at me... Then I had her go backwards and forwards, a foot off the net, but instead of allowing her upper body to do any of the work, I had her hold her right wrist with her left hand, thus isolating her arms and elbows... Instead of pointing where I wanted her to go, I gave the signs for "legs out", "legs in"... This drill gave, finally the progress I was looking for, but it took 4 minutes of tunnel time to prove I was not crazy... She could keep her torso straight and move on the axis... I think it helped her "find" her leg... She was finally able to fly, and even turn, without crashing into the walls or net... But, I am still wondering, what to do when you face a student who has some paralysis or disability in one leg??? The 20 minutes in Eloy, then the 20 minutes in Colorado's tunnel, cost a lot of money for this student... I just wish I could have given better results for the 20 minutes I coached, so we could have moved on at the pace of a "normal" situation... I told her that she should take the DVD from the tunnel session to her physical therapist, because once we got the torso issues fixed and the upper body symmetrical, the leg issues become visible to the average viewer... The injured leg just could not move like the other, as if connected to her brain with a broken wire. Ideas??? Wanting to learn... Travis

Gaffers tape does not leave any sticky residue like electrical and duct tape does. It is also a cloth tape not a plastic.

What is the difference between "Gaffers Tape" and "Permacel Gaffers Tape"? Sparky Permacel is a brand of tape... Like a Hoover is to vacs or Kleenex is to facial tissue.

Just about every summer day is 90... So, I am holding you to your comment... (now we need a round, anyone wanna see JP wet?)

I just wanna see you swoop the round in the pond back then....

We use it like water in the concert lighting business to tape stuff, like cables to the stage or building cable bundles... I can get it for $8 a roll... I will gladly sell it to you for $40! Here is a retailer who sells to the industry. http://www.barbizon.com/shop/Group.aspx?g=20 You can google and get cheaper ones... I get it wholesale from http://www.brontapes.com/

Point taken... BTW... Sometimes I throw out the devils advocate ideas, especially online - so I can hear what people's responses are... Call it conversation or debate. Not trying to troll or anything, but getting thoughts out there to see what sticks... But I hear ya.

You are 100% right on that one!!!! Ya, but when a student completely messes up, but does what they *thought* they were supposed to do, and is completely *in the game* but playing by a different rule book.... Don't you as an instructor ever take *some* of the heat yourself for not effectively building the proper visualization for the student... I would... I accept the fact I won't be perfect ever, but getting one step closer each time by analyzing what went wrong, seems to be a cool thing to do... Something like, "my student thought I was going to XXX... How can I teach the next student to see it properly???" For an example, Hooknswoop one night at his house was telling me something like (this was a while ago, so I hope I am remembering in a way he would want), "video every AFF jump"... "Every time a student spins up or rolls over, analyze every part of their body, so you can learn the warning signs for next time and you can stop it before it happens..." I just thought that was a cool attitude. Taking that one step farther, when a student does something that you did not want them to do - shouldn't the instructor take some of the heat for not effectively training? (we are not talking about bowling candidates who are not teachable, or heat like getting fired, but personal evaluation to improve their own skills) Hence, that is why I said originally that the student was not effectively taught... Because "effective" means "success" - and the student was not successful... I guess when I have done coach jumps and they turned out less than what I wanted, I always blame myself for not being an effective teacher, not the student for "failing". Just throwing out ideas... I am not an AFF-I yet, and I have never played one on TV... Just trying to learn.

hehehehe... amen. I just recently got my AFF, however, I filmed a bunch last year. The most memorable one I filmed was this dude that just kept waiving off. On the ground he says, I didn't pull because you guys wouldn't leave. His dive was PERFECT up until that point. That was the advice that both of the instructors walked away with that day. We all got a chuckle for weeks. Sounds like the instructors "failed" to teach the whole diveflow on that one - if the student was that aware and had reasons for doing what he was doing..... There was one sentence that my instructor forgot to tell me on my level four that caused me to do exactly what I was trained on previous levels - and fail my level four... It was, what you are supposed to do if you lose your instructor... The video shows I spent 10 seconds looking for him with textbook turns, he just was flying above where I could not see him... This happened after a tumbled exit, so I thought he was far away... So, "If you lose one instructor continue the dive - if you lose both instructors, pull" rule popped in my mind... I had zero instructors within eyesite, so I thought I had to pull. I slowly waved off, thought, "this sucks, I am flying stable" and pulled, way up there... Found out on the ground that the rules changed, and the instructor who was on back-to-backs did not tell me in my pre-brief the "CIA" or "5 Second Rule" or what to do if I could not find him. Lesson learned as someone who is learning to be an instructor... Don't ever assume someone on a previous level taught something, and find a way to keep your instruction consistent, even when you are rushed...