stratostar

Don't forget the packing weights. you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

I heard about a month an a half ago from a staff member @ Lake Wales, that there was a operator on that private strip and they couldn't make the lease pmt.... then the boys from up north came down and set up shop from Start Skydiving there on that strip. IDK if that is true or not, just what I was told. you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

Back in the day they were good rig when Troy made them, then North American Aerodynamics bought the design. The last one I saw made by NAA, had a lot of draw backs to it, shitty riser covers and other out dated things... Can't tell the DOM on that one with out looking in my log book. 97 is not all that old in terms of age. Some pic of it would help, I have not seen a modern one in the field. I doubt you would find much out there not a common rig in the sport market. I would venture to say not the greatest choice out there... If you are looking for safe yet lower cost rig, a Altico Dolphin would be a good score and if you were going to buy and jump a NAA Centaurus, you wouldn't doing freeflying, so a dolphin would do just as good and you can find used ones pretty cheap, even a new on is cheap in cost but they are made very well. All that said, keep looking there is better used stuff out there, and if you can't find any info in a Google search... that might be your first clue as how good of a deal it really is. you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

A little common sense goes a long way in this business. you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

There is another part of this many people fail to understand or get. Let's say you want to open dz. In a lot of markets, sLyride scam has over saturated the market with a website for every little town or burb around and snag up every name. For example skydiving Omaha & Skydive Omaha Etc. There might not be another dz for hundreds of miles.... you try to pick out another name to use like skydive Bellview a burb in Omaha... Guess what.... Yea it's getting that hard to name a place and market it with the market flooded with not only sLyride scam, but now the other third party players doing the same thing. Sure I getting it, you now have to spend more money to rank as high or higher and hope that your local customers can find you after wading through all the bullshit scam sites. In the above example of Google search for "skydive Omaha, or Skydiving Omaha" not only do you see all the sLyride scam sites, you will find Doug's site pointing to one dz in Iowa and another in Missouri, both of those dz's are a few hours drive from Omaha, when Lincoln Sport Parachute Club is less then 30 mins down the road. Go try to pick out a name for a new start up dz in your market place and see how many sites are flooding your local market using every key word or snagged up domain and then let us how that works out for you. Yes there are work a rounds and ways to combat that crap, it's all an additional expense that will passed on to the consumer. And then we have those who get burned or later on find out they drove hundreds of miles out of their way to make a jump... it pisses them off and over all makes the sport look bad, those running the broker sites don't give a shit if it harms the industry or makes it look bad, they got their money. Once had a lady show up in Indiana, for a tdm jump after the jump while editing her video, making small talk, it turns out she drove from Rochester Ny. over night to be at her appointment to jump. That is close to a thousand miles round trip drive and she passed at least 6 other dz's. you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

Hmmm really? Did you learn all that in rigging school? If I need to I go to my rigging kit and pull out my rigging nippers and cut off the worn or broken bands and replace them, the nippers also come in handy for general gear maintenance. All that pull cord crap is unnecessary wear and tear, FYI nylon melts with heat, like from friction and you can always tell when someone has been doing that stupid shit.... hey if it's on your personal rig have at it, if I see you doing it on my rental rigs you won't be packing them any longer and you will pay for a professional packer or not be renting our gear. you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

It's bad enough that we have the sLyride scumbags to deal with, but now not only do we see the reinvented sites from sLyride, I believe those "new sites" linked are most likely connected to Cary in some fashion. But now we have the insider dealers. I like Doug Smith as a person, but I'm very disappointed to see his "pro skydiving" network, another third party getting between dz's and people in the local market. For example, in my area none of the small 182 operators in the state, all 3 of them are, refuse to join the pro skydiving network, or they can't justify the expense. So if you do a Google search in my local area and you are smart enough to wade through the sLyride bullshit (lot's of them one for each burb) you find the Pro skydiving crap. On there not one of the local dz's is pointed too, but rather all the competing dz's in the next state are... yea sure he shows their names in small print at the very bottom of the page and claims that is fair representation of all the players, when in fact it's a simple funneling of local traffic to "his" network players who pay to have him stand in the way. It's don't matter if it is sLyride or Doug's bullshit, regardless it's fucked up and driven by greed, it's not about helping DZ's or DZO's compete with the other 3rd parties, it's all about getting a cut of pie from outside their own market.... What is the over head on his new 2 million facility and those turbines? you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

And the name of the dropzone you own is? you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

Who says they didn't do that? Remember the RF sleeves back in the last decade? http://www.pia.com/piapubs/ServiceBulletins/SB_31012013_eng.pdf you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

http://www.tullahomanews.com/?p=13303 Bottom of page. you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

I really love my 3blk. You might also consider this: http://www.dropzone.com/news/Gear/Replay_XD_Is_it_the_New_Generation_of_Skydiving_Camera_879.html you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

Gary Billings at Skydive Iowa has eclipse. He is the S&TA up there, I have no other contact info for him other then FB. https://www.facebook.com/gary.billings.733?ref=ts&fref=ts you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

Yea right, you don't have whole lot of experience with the FAA then, do you. you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

On a demo into Indiana University on 4th of July, smack over the top of of downtown Bloomington Indiana, I was in back looking out the window, remember seeing the movie theater down below, I mean right over the top of main St USA.... Homie pops the door to spot with out chin strap fastened... I saw it go past the side window as I was looking at the main drag below... Always wondered what the hell it hit down there.... brand new mellon cap too... LOL you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

What makes you think so? That is an old write up. you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason, it's the American way. you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

It's a generational thing, you are a pre "mainstreaming" vs the post "mainstreaming" of the sport. You can thank a number of things for creating this mindset we so prevalent in today's industry. you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

Well ace, you were replying to my post that was directed to the person talking shit! No where did I say YOU were talking shit, you want to pick apart my post towards another and yet totally fail to grasp the point, seems clear to me, you to still fail to get the point that was being made, has nothing to with any good old boys club, and if you bother to take the time to research you fast find out I'm not welcome in the good old boys club and I have never been a card carrying member! The rest of what you had to say was the same old BLAH BLAH BLAH, someone to fucking lazy to do a proper gear check between different brands. Only morons and fools would ""set it and forget it" and yet if you go in because you forgot to do a proper gear check then yes you get a dumbass award. Tell you what if you are that bent out of shape about it you have four choices at this point. 1. send in your unit now for service and wait till it's done via any back log. 2. Sell the unit and buy another brand 3. Jump without an AAD altogether 4. Stop jumping No the sad reality is the large numbers of twits we have in the sport these days that can't take responsibility for their own actions or risks we face each time we jump, such as "The guy gets busy as shit, forgets his cyp check, gets into a wreck during his jump and bounces" sorry about that luck stupid fuck should never had rating to start with and second of all if you can't bother to do a simple gear check that would include checking the AAD prior to the SB and now adding a simple button push after the SB and watching a little light, because "your busy as shit and forget" maybe you take a serious consideration in choice #4. you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

They never said they wouldn't fit the units. However some people want to make a bigger deal then it needs to be made into and they want to go around bad mouthing and trashing SSK over something that is not in SSk's control other then being the service center for north America. I own seven units, 6 are under the SB, I'm not worried about them till I need to be worried about them, in other words I pre flight my rigs each jump, I look at the AAD each time to make sure it is on, taking an extra half second to push the button and watch a light is not a big deal. If for some reason I need to have service done before my 4 yr check, I know with out a shadow of a doubt that not only can SSK handle the servicing of the units, it will done in a quick manner and I won't be charged any extra for that update. I have no problem with people taking issue with airtec, but to go out of ones way to talk misleading shit about a good upstanding company, SSK, is bullshit, that is the point you and a few other can't seem to understand. you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

Do the next one on a full moon, you love it, don't need to stinking lights to see. you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

At least it won't be a surprise to you, like it was to that other guy. you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

Drones would blow his ass up. you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

Pretty disappointed with the video interview DSE did with him. When they first started talking about that rig, they were talking about having those handles the same, secondary on the lower left. Didn't see that in the video nor was it talked about, but his comment about handles made it seem as if they were all the same as the current DHT rig. I have all my primary handles permanently mounted on the I hip location, like it that way better. I think having the secondary on the left would be better, but I would guess Strong would like to keep the cutway drouge release as is rather then change it? you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

Well pretty sure those who went in with lines half hitched to a closing flap were thinking how that was a negative to that method..... you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

Gee did you ever stop to consider the fact that just fucking maybe it will take that long to get you an answer BECAUSE the damn part that is at issue here is not a random on the self part and that it needs to be engineered, tested and then assy in mass production in order to fix all of these units and until then you need to comply with the SB or not, your choice. Pretty damn stupid to ASSume this is all about trying to shaft everyone out of some more cash... yea would have nothing to do with designing, building, testing a replacement part because that one part is made by only 1 MFG in the world, you don't just stroll over to fucking Wal-mart or radio shack and pick out a new one and install them. What part of all that can't you and rest of pissing and moaning crowd NOT understand. Oh yea I forgot... it was an excuse made up by SSK to screw you out of more money down the road.... you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo