SkymonkeyONE

I know I am one damn good looking guy (and quite modest!), but if you check the hit counters on the mug shots in the Pub, you will see that I am king of the hill by quite a margin. How is it possible that I get more than Kay? Chuck

Remember to pull your string, Monkey! Also, in addition to the Good Stuff, you should watch a Gwar concert video. Now, THAT will get you pumped up! Chuck

I could direct you to any number of outstanding full-service dropzones. All you would have to decide is what time of the year you would be coming and what geographical region you plan on visiting. Those factors weigh heavilly in making an informed decision. As you have just made the one tandem, several of the larger DZs have "all inclusive" packages that include all your student training, plus lodging, etc. I know plenty of euros that make it a point to do yearly skydiving trips to Arizona, Florida, or California. Some of the places where they flock look like United Nations summits over the winter. freaky, but cool. Chuck

Nope, the tagline under your name has nothing to do with your skydiving experience. Those are just a measure of your computer dependence and change every so often when you pass posting milestones. By checking the top 50 list in the Pub you can see that many of us spend WAY too much time on our computers. Dropzone.com stays up on my browser at work from nine to five because I have such a cake job. It is terribly addictive. Unfortunately for you, you and others seem to be caught in a sort of time warp! Unable to be recognized as even (newbie) must really suck. I recommend just signing up as a new name so that you can at least get "credit" for your posting. Doesn't that sound ridiculous?! Chuck well on my way to (old hand)

Your school is obviously not doing a good job of stowing the static line. I teach well over 100 SL students per year at the club I work for. What is MOST critical to rigging of SL student equipment is the first two stows (as you are rigging) of the static line. Let me tell you our procedure. First let me state that we use three different kinds of rigs: Quasar II's, Prestige, and Telesis. On all of them, we use a direct bag. Upon closing the container, the SL is routed out the top left of the container. Next, the closing loop is pinned with the ripcord on the SL. The first stow is in the upper left corner; it is a quadruple/single stow. Next, we go to the bottom left stow; it is a triple/double stow. What that means is the first loop is triple wrapped, then the SL is run accross to the bottom right and triple wrapped, then it is run back to the original (bottom left) stow and single wrapped under the same band. All of the other stows are double wrapped. I too have had a student yanked off the plane; she wasn't even out to the "hang" position yet. It turns out that one of our "part time" jumpmasters, who is also a senior rigger, closed her rig incorrectly. It could have gotten very ugly. We forbade the guest "rigger" from touching students again and have not had another instance of this in the past two years. Chuck Blue D-12501 SL-I, TM-I Skydive Raeford

Yes, the dropzone is still there and still run by Christian Shoemig. It is a complete tandem factory...period. If you want to go and make a skydive there, you had better be prepared for complete sticker shock. First off, a jump to 10 grand costs $30 out of a 182. Yes, $30. If you do not have two or three friends with you that are also up-jumpers, then you are relegated to just going up with a tandem and video guy. Still, even if you and your friends DO fill a whole plane, you are still paying $30 per person to 10 grand. Also, you better have proper floatation gear. The little aqua bouy thing does not cut it there. If all this is just small shit to you and you still want to do it, you had better call in advance and make sure he will even let you do it. I am in Key West on business at least once every month and a half. I bring my sport gear with me about half the time just in case I feel like driving up to Homestead, but I drive right past Sugarloaf. Christian makes no excuses whatsoever; he is a businessman pure and simple. Every lift that goes up without a tandem on board is money lost to him. And believe me, he keeps them backed up! Anyway, everytime I am down there I end up skydiving for FREE out of nice little tailgate aircraft like C-130s, C-17s, and C-141s onto Boca Chica Key. Boca Chica is the next key up from KW. Sugarloaf is at Mile Marker 23. The attempts I made to jump at Sugarloaf were just to say I had jumped there and to accomodate some of my fellow skydiving travellers who were not military HALO qualified and thus could not skydive out of the AF birds. Poor souls. LOL! Anyway, the number is in the Key West directory, or you could maybe just look up www.skydivekeywest.com. Chuck

The link is still there from yesterday! meet me in there if you want to bullshit. Chcuk

Sorry I missed you guys last night, but I had a bunch of "honey-do's" to take care of. What did I miss? Chuck

It does not rain alot in Atlanta, comparatively. It certainly rains more in Florida. Either way you move (if you do), either east or west is going to give you more rain than you get in OK. A decent option for you would be Raleigh, NC. It has a great job market; both high-tech (research triangle park) and otherwise. Housing is VERY reasonable in this area of the country. There are two GREAT turbine DZ's within an hour of almost anywhere in the city, too (CSS and Raeford). It's only 110 miles to GREAT beaches and four hours max from decent snow skiing. It might snow once a year around here, but only sticks maybe once every four years. It is NEVER too cold to ride my Harley and I have barefoot waterskied on the Cape Fear river on new years day. There is not quite the nightlife of Atlanta, GA, but then again it's not that dark in Raleigh either. Chuck

have webcam, will participate!

First, the Voodoo is a nice rig. The only problem with it is that the yoke is very wide. If you are a small guy (can't tell by your picture) then it sits quite wide on your shoulders. I personally don't care much for the center flap design either, but that's aesthetics and many people love it. As for people jumping them for RW, George Jicha (the organizer) swears by his. The ONLY reason I bought my Javelin Odyssey instead of another Vector (I had jumped them for the past ten years)was because of the cut-in lateral backstraps. It is the DEFINING characteristic of the rig and makes for the most comfortable fit I have ever experienced. The fully articulated harness rocks too. I have the very smallest size you can get and in the older (pre-odyssey) models, they would slide all over your back. This new rig sticks to you and does not move. The yoke is narrower on the Jav, and as I am a small guy (5'7", 155 lbs.)Under canopy this feature seems to give you a little more ability to "harness steer", but that might just be my impression. I am very happy with it. Chuck

There is PLENTY of open room at crosskeys away from the crowd. Chuck

I recommend the freefly video entitiled "liquid sky". It has some awesome swooping footage.

"What are they gonna do, jump from the space shuttle?" Well actually, yes they are. Not the people going for the records; but astronauts and test jumpers. The system has been in place for quite some time now for emergency egress from the space shuttle. There was a lengthy article written in parachutist when they developed the system. For those that didn't get to read it, it goes something like this: The crew will already, obviously, be in their space suits. They then get rigged in their parachutes (three stages) and move to the side door. The hatch is blown and a telescopic pole juts out, down and away from the craft. The crew hooks a large ring over the pole and then jumps out the hatch. Due to the downward curve of the pole, the jumpers are directed under the wing. As I recall, the pole sticks out the port side of the shuttle. Once clear of the pole, automatic openers deploy first a stabilizing drogue, then a series of parachutes. Quite elaborate. They tested this system in China Lake with a modified 737 (I think that is what it was). If I wasn't so swamped I would find the link for you guys. Chuck

Oh, there's homely ones too, believe me. LOL! Chuck

One thing to note about the rush to beat the record: while all of the projects are publicly stating that they are going for 130,000 feet, I know for a fact that at least one is actually going for 160,000.

"That's a DOUBLE FALCON." Case of beer! Chuck

Not peek? Gimme a break! The entire point of naked skydiving is to prove that you have absolutely nothing to hide and do not care who knows what you are up to. My only caveat to the "go big or go home" rules is that you must understand your operational environment. Landing right in front of the packing area at Raeford will get you run right off the DZ for at least a month. Being a girl, if you want to make a "private" naked jump just to see what "snapper-flappida" feels like, then that's completely different than what most naked jumpers do it for. It's kind of a bonding thing among friends. "Hey, I'm naked and so is everyone else, so it's no big deal." chuck

"They are horribly expensive." That is correct, that is CORRECT! LOL! Actually, the Z-1 is not a cheap helmet either, thus my main complaint about it's construction method (injection molded plastic). There are loads of people that jump both that and the A-3 at Raeford. I "like" them both, but kind of prefer the Z-1, though I would never pay for one. The Army Parachute Team uses both Factory Divers and Z-1's. Mostly, the style and accuracy team uses the Z-1 (for style; frap hats for accuracy) and the RW team uses standard (non-flip) factory divers. Chuck

If you don't understand, then it is probably just not for you. Most of the people who jump naked do it for the novelty. "HEY! Let's get naked and skydive!" Some people just like to try new and odd things. I have only made a couple in my considerable time in the sport, but they were ,in fact, pretty fun. Generally, it's the rowdy skydivers that want to do it, but I have seen cases where the quietest, most unassuming people show up on the DZ and ask to do naked tandems. To them, it's that since they are going to "jump out of a perfectly good airplane" once in their life, they might as well do it in the most outrageous mode possible.

Yes, I saw them firsthand when I was in Perris for the swoop meet. The first one (the one with the yellow back-half shown on the website) has since been modified to vent better. The solid carbon fiber one also shown is the generation II version. The back half of the newest ones aren't quite as bulbous and freaky looking either. Either way, it's still almost exactly the same size as an A3. When you flip up the "lens", the whole front of the helmet rotates up, kind of like the BMW motorcycle helmets you can buy. The helmet is solid carbon fiber and is very light. They were producing the Havoc while I was out there. The factory is pretty neat and is a great place to stop by and check out when you are on one of your mid-day beer breaks. The factory is within easy walking distance of Skydive Perris if you happen to be stuck out there without wheels. Concerning the Z1: I cannot believe they charge that much for that plastic contraption! Pretty to look at, but very cheesily assembled. Chuck

There are still plenty of places with free bunkhouses, but the nicer ones are well worth the few dollars it costs to stay in them. For example, the one we used to have at Raeford was only $3.00 per night (if you paid at all), but it was just an open bay with some old army bunks. It had heat, AC, a fridge, and cable TV, but wasn't used often enough in the past several years to warrant keeping it. Now, all we have for "homeless" visitors is "The Raeford Hilton" which is what was formerly the VIP bunkroom. It has it's own bathroom, shower, TV, Microwave, etc and costs $10 per night. Most people staying for extended periods at our DZ normally just hook up with one of the people in our RV park nowadays (which is right behind the former bunkhouse). My wife and I keep our RV there; it sleeps six comfortably and has everything a person would need to live in indefinitely. The new bunkhouse I just stayed at in Perris was simple, but nice. Four beds to a room, cold AC, and building-common bathroom/shower. I think I might have paid $5.00 per night, but can't remember for sure. There were plenty of people camped out in the tent city there, too. Chuck

I am not a very big fan of the Oxygn because of it''s large size. When I "must" wear a full-face, it's my standard factory diver, normally without the lens when it's warm outside (goggles over the top). SEVERAL friends of mine have had the problem of their visors flying up and then tearing off with Oxygns; others swear by them. An option here is the new BoneHead Havoc RW helmet. It is about the same size as the A3, but I guarantee you that the lens isn't going to flip up prematurely on that thing! The latch mechanism is simple, yet terribly secure. You can check out pictures of it on the Bonehead site. Chuck

At both of the dropzones I work at the general rule is that you do it late in the day and you land away from the main landing area, packing area, and spectator area. The pilot is always briefed ahead of time. Normally, we try and do them out of the 182, but if it is done out of the Otter, then the rest of the load is filled only with regulars; no other tandem passengers who might get freaked. Ten years ago a friend of mine was getting out of the Army. He just HAD to do a naked skydive so, up they went; three guys and a girl. After an uneventful jump from 10,500, they all landed on the other side of the DZ, right next to Gene Paul Thacker's house. Big mistake! GPT and Miss Billie had some relatives visiting from West Virginia and they were all standing outside when the crew came in for a landing. The ass-chewing they got wasn't pretty! Needless to say, after that jump anyone partaking of said activity landed on the backside of the airport, away from everything and everybody. Chuck

Agreed. I would probably skydive both places, but stay at Perris due to it's great bar,restaurant, pool, and bunkhouse. Chuck