SkymonkeyONE

Hooty HOO

do a trick!

Why not go as "Cuts off Other Swoopers" man?

Ass monkey, monkey, that funky monkey!

I never quite understand some people's reasoning for keeping and cataloging PM's and old e-mails. Some of my friends are fanatical about it, but I only have about five PM's saved permanently. Everything else, both incoming and sent, gets deleted at least once a month. I swear some people just keep stuff to use as blackmail later down the road. To each his own I guess. Chuck

On older Vector II tandems, and any other rig where you can move the drogue releases around, I make it a point to feed the excess cable housing back up into the rig. I do this at least two times on every skydive: -when I first put the rig on -right as I get up and start moving to the door Paul Rafferty taught me that when he put me through the course Chuck

I do. My one and only tandem reserve ride was a total with drogue in tow. After attempting, unsuccessfully, to pull both drogue releases and the cutaway, my only choice was to fire my reserve right into the drogue. It opened fine.

I would love to use in-air coms for AFF. I doubt it's going to become "standard" anytime soon due to the expense of purchasing and maintaining the equipement, but I think it's a fantastic idea. Chuck AFF-I (among other things)

Absolutely not. The notion that you cannot and should not flat pack an elliptical canopy is entirely false.

I was jumping/instructing at the GB club then, but was also a dues-paying member of the 82nd club. We, the GB club, were jumping on Sicily the day the AH-1 jump went down on St. Mere. I heard about it later that late-afternoon at the GB club bar from Fridge. Nice. It's my recollection that the "real" officer/pilot in the Cobra was kicked out of the army. The Warrant officer got a General Officer Letter of Reprimand and was allowed to stay in the army. They were certainly dimed out by a jumper in the 82nd club who was pissed that it was allowed to happen. That said, Fridge was definitely not shy about telling people in the bar about the jump either and that probably didn't help matters. Man, those were the good old days, eh? Dues at the GB club were $7.50 a month! They were still only $10 a month at the 82nd club. I made nearly 1000 free helicopter skydives back then. Hueys, Blackhawks, Chinooks. Can't bitch about that, can you? I always liked it when, once a month, we would run ops right off the helo pad behind 44th med and jump into the lawn in front of the GB club bar. Can't forget the XVIII club either! I still remember when we had all three clubs running ops on Fort Bragg. On that note, the old manager of the XVIII Corps club, Bill Verner, started jumping again about three years ago out at Raeford. I did his recurrency training. Bill owns a housing contrator company in Fayetteville and can be found on the dropzone every weekend.

To further lead this thread on it's Aerostat tangent, I would just like to add that there is one (well, actually two) in the Florida keys. Just outside Sugarloaf.

From what I have read in the USPA minutes, there is only going to be one class, "open" at the Nationals and everyone will run five footers (1.5m). I also read that there will be camping authorized on the beach in the spectator/packing area we had two years ago. Chuck

What? You don't watch American Idol?

Actually, Dave, that was when it was revamped the second time unless I am not remembering correctly.

That's because he was typing in a French accent.

Kevin, that sounds like you have your control lines run through different holes on your horns. I am assuming that you have assembled at least one new tail by now. It's critical, well not THAT critical, but important that you assemble your control horns the same, but with the slack-tightening wheels opposite each other. For most deflection, make sure you run the line through the lowest holes in the horns. I always assemble mine with the slack-tightening wheels screwed into the second hole from the bottom. I personally think it's much easier to fly these little v-tail planes in Pro mode. ESPECIALLY if there is any wind at all. If you get to running downwind with an Aerobird, the plane is really sluggish to turn around in "beginner" mode. You will find it much easier to get it turned around, and also to recover from unusual attitudes in Pro mode. What do you have to loose? Wings are $12 bucks for that plane and a tail is less than $10. Amazingly, my original Challenger fuselage still worked elecronically after like 20 massive straight-in crashes. I finally fried the electrics one day when I screwed around and put my big LiPo (from my P-51) in it. It flew amazingly fast for about two minutes then everything fried and it went in, magnificently, from around 100 feet. I bought an entire replacement Stryker airframe (minus electronics) because I was really tired of destroying flimsly P-51 parts; particularly the fuselage. I put that P-51 back together "one last time" and have yet to crash the thing again, even while seemingly trying to destroy it with wreckless aerobatics and flying in too-high winds. Hmm. I guess I will have to sell the Stryker replacement to Joey D'Annunzio. His has been stuck in a tree in front of Aviators for two weeks! Hooty HOO! You know what though; the day I sell the Stryker is the day I will fly the P-51 into a tree inverted or something like that. Chuck

If you are not a recent attendee to any Z-hills events, then that form will apply. Any of us that have jumped there within the last year need not re-waiver at the DZ. Boogie/event fees can be taken care of when we arrive. I can't wait. If it's any different than that, I wish Scott Bland or someone else of consequence would call or PM me. PS: I will have some new demo Firebird "R"'s for people to play with. I will be jumping my old, reliable three-year-old S3.

I am stoked to hear this! Not sure if my work schedule will permit it, but man, I really had a good time at Wildwood two seasons ago.

Don't fuck with grown-ups!

The chart says I could wear 21 pounds, but none of you will ever see me with anything like that on.

I am driving down and will most likely pull into town on Thursday.

Looks like you guys had a good time.

Just a quick note to say that Horizon is selling complete (with radio, batteries, everyfuckingthing) Aerobird Challengers for just over $100 now online!! Those of you reading this and hesitating on plunking down cash for a toy you are likely to wreck......repeatedly...... ought to jump on the deal. www.hobbyzone.com is one of their links. I am totally stoked on what Kevin Orkin is doing with his spy cam get-up and want to install one in my Aerobird Extreme prior to my next military contract trip. I used my plane as an "indigenous UAV" and spooked my young SF students out of their Guerilla Base during this last Robin Sage exercise! It was fantastic! Having a camera in the thing is going to be nuts! Chuck

Wow. Is a good gas-heli-capable radio that expensive? You need, what, six channels minimum right?

At Raeford we routinely halt loads due to strong, gusty and erratic wind conditions. We never, ever put students up in anything higher than a steady 14mph wind and will, on occasion, even ground them in with as little as 12 mph if it's gusty or "the Raeford Dragon" is blowing over the trees. We will also not launch tandems in hardly anything over 18mph. If grounding those jumpers means there is not enough to fly an Otter load, then we will hold the plane. If it's blowing around 20mph and people insist on jumping, we will restrict those loads to C and D license holders when we feel it is appropriate. Having been in operation over 35 years now, we don't plan on skimping on safety at this point. This is definitely one of those dropzones where you will see tons of grown guys with many thousands of jumps sitting on the ground laughing at the young guys whining that they still want to jump in shitty conditions. Chuck