SkymonkeyONE

Rip you a new what? The jump looked fun and the turn looked safe. Peace, Chuck

Turns out Dana gets a bit........confrontational I guess is the word to use...........when drunk Was he dreadlock boy?

Here's three other letters: WOB That's Waste Of Bandwidth

Yep, tuck tabs.

I have never experienced any "punch in one shoulder" due to flat packing or roll packing. For the record, I roll pack and have done so for over 20 years. I refuse to PRO pack a huge, ungainly tandem main for any number of reasons. Line-over possibility is one; much longer pack times is the second. Now Rob Warner is a much bigger guy than me, plus he has a lot more tandems than I do, so I respect what he does at his DZ. I would like to think that all of his smack openings were due to the inherently hard opening, no-longer used, non-flaring mains that we used to be stuck with. Such is not the case now; I have never been slammed by a Sigma nor an Icarus, whether roll packed or PRO. I have two packers who I allow to PRO pack tandems, but that's it. They work on the GK packing contract as well. I will allow it up until we have our first line-over. In the end it's all about working out a safe system and them stringently sticking to it. There are some tandem factories out there with attrocious malfunction rates; they all PRO pack. Bill Booth put a good post on here about a year ago concerning this. Chuck

104 was a good example of "Insane BirdMan Posse" action. Do I have the full on Charles Manson thing going or what??? LOL!

You da man, Sky. See you in Eloy, if not sooner.

I used to do it all the time with my Velocity 79. I have also successfully jumped a Xaos 69.5 and my old Velocity 75 with no problems. Before that, I jumped an H-mod Cobalt 75 for nearly two years in my old Skyflyer and GTi. All that said, I was/am very, very current on those mains and only very-rarely had/have off heading openings. It must also be noted that I have had two chops in my wingsuits under those small mains due to spinners. You roll the dice and sometimes you lose; it basically boils down to how much of a gamble are you willing to take? I have a 107 Stilletto in my staff rig, but I am just as comfortable jumping my Velo 79 in my S3 when I need to back-to-back in BirdMan suits. I keep a rig permanently sewn in my S3 and my main of choice is a Sabre2 97 for that application. It's a brilliant canopy. Chuck BM-I

more

More:

Here are some real Rantoul pics:

NOICE hair!

LOL. 3rd street putting the caddywompus on this moron. . WFFW Death Valley, NY

Bring it....

umm. dropzone.com/RB/SM fiesta?

I did not get a real slot, but I may very well be there for the fiesta.

Chicken, Pesto, Feta......period. Don't ruin your chow with needless, nasty fluff. Chuck K.I.S.S. is my food principle

Not likely. No amount of "regularity" on these forums will get you any leeway when it comes to me, or any of my contemporaries thinking we need to "hit the button" and shut someone or some thread down. Not to be crass, but like the man said, we are the authorities, pure and simple, and "this ain't no damn democracy." Peace, Chuck Edited because Michele made me laugh

April, I am gonna KEEEEEEEL you!

Why, Betsy, you dirty little bird!

At Rantoul I... -was once again fascinated at how many regular, registered dropzone.com members never made their presence known to the rest of us. I have, just today, found out that three of the people I trained to fly BirdMan suits at the convention could not figure out that Chuck Blue, BirdMan Instructor, is SkymonkeyONE. Odd, but then again the exact same thing happened in 2001, the last time I was there. I happened upon a great deal of dotcommers in casual conversation around bonfires, in the main tent, or in little enclaves spread all around the convention site. Most had not bothered to come by the dropzone.com tent at all; content instead to stay with their own crowd. I am sure everyone involved had a great time, but my greatest satisfaction at boogies small and large comes from networking and widening my circle of friends. I accomplished both tasks with incredible success, so I am completely stoked. Some groups do in fact choose to "stay with their own", my dad's "Alabama Gang" mob among them. They derive their greatest pleasure from setting up camp and having the opportunity to jump together from larger airplanes than they normally get to play with. While they certainly have a blast and thusly draw others into their group, they are not really interested in walking up to other people's groups and introducing themselves. When properly exploited, dropzone.com is a fabulous tool. Knowing members of this site can make for some seamless transitions from one dropzone to another after a move, carreer change, or while vacationing. I know an incredible number of people in the sport and around the world already, but this site has led me to some life-long friends I had lost contact with as well as a whole new group of people I might have thumbed my nose at under different circumstances. The point I am trying to make is, I wish all of you who regularly post here would make a little better effort to connect with others when we are in such close proximity. I recognize that some people are tremendously shy in real life and that others are simply too pompous, but the rest of you ought to get off your butt and get with the program. Some of the most unassuming people on here are actually quite fascinating in real life. Peace, Chuck Blue PS: It was a pleasure meeting "the rest" of you in my late night/ early morning wanderings.

Without weight bags in, my heaviest rig weighs 17.1 pounds. My BM rig weighs 16.3 (no CYPRES).

Ah! Another example of a dropzone.com user not bothering to identify themself to the others! Shame on you people! Hell, I was standing right next to you guys over at the Precision tent when Chris was working with you. Tsk Tsk Tsk. Chuck Insane BirdMan Posse

Hey Deuce, "TG" is what we call Tequilla Girl. You need to start calling Keving "BB" lest you get your ass chewed by our friend in Houston.

Agreed. No piece of paper is going to make one location better than another and no commercially run "certification" is going to make a poor instructor any better than the same person without it. Like Ron said, there are some incredibly bad skydivers out there with ratings and private certifications. People who, for one reason or another, eeked their way into passing a course. Conversely, there are an abundance of people out there with no ratings at all who are phenomenal teaching abilities because they have been doing it all their lives. The bottom line here is that you need to find a reputable school for your instruction with reputable, professional, USPA rated instructors. A school with a proven safety record and well-maintained equipment. While SDU has a nice, post-inititial-training sylabus, it certainly does not possess the golden fleece. Any number of schools out there offer brilliant training plans. Private certifications only matter to the groups of people who buy into the hype. The Atmosphere Dolphin "certification" was another perfect example of this. It was ludicrous to believe that paying a private individual to administer a test was going to give you any more credibility than more experienced freeflyers, but look how many people bought into that.... Unbelievable. Thankfully, USPA came out with it's own award and the general level of proficiency got high enough that now the AD is sort of an enigma. Who cares. Individual ability and experience is what matters. To answer the question in the subject line: No, not at this dropzone anyway. We have been teaching students at Raeford for over thirty years. The level of competency and profesionalism is extremely high around here. I understand that this is not the case everywhere, but sticking a franchise sign over your school is not going to make you a safer place to train. Likewise, getting a rating, or a private certification for that matter, is not going to make you a good instructor if you do not hone the skills taught in those basic courses. Chuck Blue D-12501 AFF/SL/TM/BM-I, S&TA, PRO Raeford Parachute Center School