davelepka

There is indeed a gap, and younger jumpers may be more used to cameras being around, and things being filmed. However, this has no bearing on the nature of making a jump with a camera, as the fact remains that you are introducing a distraction to the jump, and unless you are prepared to handle the responsibilities of a jump alog with those of a camera, you shouldn't be jumping with a camera. The generation gap explains why some people find it so hard to understand the problem, but it doesn't erase the problem.

First off, it's not a PC, and the AFFI didn't pull the reserve side BOC release. It's a BOC mounted ripcord that activates a spring loaded pilot chute, and the AFFI pulls the ripcord. You can see the spring loaded PC and the channel on the rig for the ripcord. Still not on the coach rating topic, the problem here is gear related, and could possibly have been avoided with a better gear check. The rig he's jumping has an adjustable lateral, and you can see by how much the rig is moving around on hsi back, it's not adjusted properly. If it was adjusted properly, the BOC mounted ripcord would have been where it was suppsed to be, and the student might have had an easier time finding it. Another factor was that the tail of the lateral strap was not secured, and this is what the student was pulling on. If this strap had been properly secured, it would not have been available for the student to grab, and the student wouldn't have fixated on it. In terms of the coach rating, why do you feel that this incident has anything to do with the ability of a coach to pull for another jumper? As already mentioned, you can create more problems than you solve if you're in the wrong place or doing the wrong thing at pull time. Pulling for students should be limited to AFFIs who have been trained for that, and who have proven themselves to be able to handle that situation.

Then you don't agree with most of my points. My biggest point was that your 'process' is flawed, and not based on any real experience, training, or guidance, and while it's foolish of you to follow it yourself, it's irresponsible to suggest it to others, caveats or no. Maybe they do cause landing injuries. Mayeb they cause freefall collisions. Maybe they cause low pulls that lead to two-outs and landing on a roof. The point is that none of these incidents are recorded in any official capacity, nor databased in any way at all. The end result is that you can do all the 'research' you want, but you won't find much of anything about cameras because if something doesn't kill you, it doesn't get in the books. Trouble is, there's a whole host of things that would ruin your life, but still not kill you. I'm not sure, but if you're suggesting that this whole thing is a ruse put on by working camera flyers to increase their own job security, I'll say that you're not the first hot-to-trot newbie to suggest that, and that it remains one of the most laughable suggestions I've come across. There are a good number of threads these days about guys who want to 'cutaway' and work at the DZ, but they all seem to have about 100 jumps and no ratings. What I exaplined to all of them is that good jobs at the DZ are not just there for the taking. You need to be a skilled, experienced worker to show up at a DZ and expect to work. As an unrated, unskilled, newbie jumper, you're not going to get shit for a job, because that's not the way the DZ works. You need to hang out, spend money jumping, and become one of the 'locals'. Once they know you, and you start expressing an interest in working, you might get tossed some overflow work, where you can cut your teeth. After doing this for awhile, you become a skilled, experienced worker, and can go out and get a full-time slot being paid to jump. The point is that I shoot video, and you couldn't take my job no matter how hard you tried. I put in many years of hard work, effort and determination to get where I am, and I continue to try just as hard to maintain my skills and the quality of the product I produce. Not to mention, I have no idea where you jump, and I have no idea where any of you DZ.commers jump. I don't see how any of you would be a threat to my job. It's a rediculous notion. The bottom line is that the better that skydiving is in general, the better it is for me. The safer jumpers are across the board, the better off we all are. Less acidents, less funerals, less lawsuits, fewer DZs closing, fewer manufacturers failing, etc, etc, etc. It's all fun and games until it's not, then it get's very, very bad, and it only takes one 'mistake' to get there. Let me get 'old school' on your ass - do what you want, but realize your playing a dangerous game, and stand to take yourself (or someone else) out of the game for good. I've seen 100 guys just like you come and go, some of them by choice, some of them by ambulance never to return. Maybe they're not dead, but they'll never walk again (or sleep without pain meds for a decade). You want to take your chances? Fine, keep your trap shut about it, and do your best not to take anyone down with you if you fall. I would suggest you take another path, and realize that the reason I can say these things about what I did jumping 15 years ago, and the 100s of newbies I've seen come and go is because I've made it this far, and it wasn't because I tip-toed through life. I'm a jumper, like you, but I've managed to stay just on the 'upright' side of the line, where others have spent some more time in the 'horizontal' orientation. If you can snap yourself out of your 'awesomeness' long enough to see that, and figure out what it means, you'll see that I'm only here to help, and that I might be a good dude to listen to. I'm not your dad, your boss, or your high school principal, I'm a skydiver like you. I'm on your side, so drop the defences and use your brain for making your choices, not your dick.

As mentioned, don't use a knife or scissors for anything. If you're at the point you feel you need either one of those, consult a rigger. Don't overstuff a rig with too much canopy, or too tight of a closing loop. You can blow out a grommet or stiffener flap while tyring to close it if it's too tight. Again, consult a rigger if you're having problems getting it closed. Could be too tight, could be your not packing it correctly. Take care of the gear. Make sure the area you're packing in is clean and dry, and out of direct sunlight. Avoid dragging the rig, or putting your weight on rig. You might need to pin the rig down with your knee to close the flaps, but you don't need to sit on it. One knee on the ground, the other knee puching down just enough to hold the rig in place.

Good story. If everyone remembers the movie that inspired your term 'cutaway' (the movie Cutaway), when the lead character wanted to 'cutaway' and join the skydiving team, the DZO (or whatever) told the guy it was going to cost him $10k to train. If you want to be a newbie and 'cutaway', you need $10k to make it happen. Otherwise, you're right, get your skills together as a weekend jumper at a local DZ, then you can market yourself to DZs and 'cutaway' with a plan of some sort. Hell, there's a couple of packing jobs in the halp wanted section of the classifieds as we speak. Of course, they all want experienced packers who are fast and have proven they can pack 50 rigs per day for an entire season, but the jobs are out there.

Not like an airplane, that's for sure. I did see it mentioned that a motive could be land developers, but it seems like there's a lot of pieces that would have to fall into place for that to be the reality. For example, this fight has been going on since 2006 (I think), and six years is a long time for a developer to be 'standing by' with a confirmed deal. I can't see any city shutting down an airport (or any other property) because a developer 'might' want to build something, there would have to be plans written up and financing deals in place before a city would go to that length. Truth is, the city itself would have to be involved in the planning, as the developer would be looking to them for tax breaks and infrastructure support, so the whole business would have been on the public record before either party was willing to commit to anything. Let's also keep in mind the turnover of city government. If it's been six years on-going with the DZ, and then the time it takes to close the airport, build the mall, and for the city to see a return, it's going to be several administrations down the road, so you can pretty much shit-can the idea of a 'behind the scenes' deal with payoffs and the like. None of this is mentioning the FAA, and the problems they're going to have with them. Again, the scope and time-line of getting a federally funded airport closed just doesn't match up with the idea that a land developer is behind this situation. If this was simpler matter, like a vote at a city coucil meeting, where a couple of yays or nays in one direction or the other could seal the deal, I would buy the land developer angle. It that's all it took, and the DZ and airport were closed within 90 or 180 days, then you might have something, but a 6+ year battle with the DZ, all before getting into the ring with the FAA just seems like a long shot for developer (especailly in this economy).

Without really looking into this beyond this thread, I can't see why the city is trying to run the DZ off the airport. Sometimes you see complaints from the neighbors, but more times than not, there's expansion plans for the airport, and the city is eyeballling it as a cash-cow, and can't see a DZ co-existing with a 'flood' of biz-jet traffic and high-dollar avaition businesses. The solution, in their eyes, is to run off the DZ and then it's onwards and upwards for the airport and the city. In this case, however, I can't see the angle. If sounds like the guy was doing a brisk business, and we all know what that brings to a city - money. Taxes on all the money spent at the DZ, taxes on the money spent by the DZ (fuel), and taxes on the money spent around the DZ by jumpers/customers (food, beer, gas etc). With that in mind, and the almost certainty of a legal battle stemming from trying to give the DZ the boot, why would they even try? Without knowing how far this was going to go, the city could have easliy required that they (or the state DOT) be included into the DZ waiver as the land owner of the LZ. If they had a hint of how far it was going to go, they could have left the DZ alone, and banked the $300k in an investent account and had it as a legal defense fund in the case they were sued. None of it explains why the city is tyring to put the squeeze on a succesful, tax paying business.

Your first mistake, and I attribute this to the internet, is that you're very focused on fatalities, or the lack of them. All of your 'research', which by your own admission muct have been online (you admitted you have yet to speak with a 'live' camera flyer), is incomplete as the only incidents that are recorded are the fatalities. There are no records of any injuries, there are jumpers in wheelchairs today with no record of what happened to them, and no chance of anyone learning from their mistake. Your other problem, again by your own admission, is the list of things you did not do before jumping a camera, but now you seem to feel is important before doing it again. You may have gotten lucky in that none of those things came back to bite you in the ass, but what else is out there that you're not thinking of? Ever ask a whuffo how to make a skydive? They'll give you a simplistic answer like 'jump out and open a chute', but you and I both know there are more considerations invovled in making a safe skydive. How did we learn that? Proper training and guidance taught us what we need to know, and how we need to think. I sure you didn't stand up in the middle of your FJC and tell your instructor that you were going to do a solo exit, some back loops, and pull at 2.5k, right? I'm not sure why not, because there are jumpers doing that every day, so you should be fine, right? Of course not, and the reason being that you were making a good choice in following along with the advice of those with more experience than you. Don't look at this situation as a stand-alone example. Your camera jumps may gone fine, and may continue to go fine into the future, but the idea here is to get your thinking back in line before that's what get's you into trouble. You made a series of bad choices, and because they happened to work out without incident, you're defending your thought process as sound, but it's not. The lesson to learn here is not to stay away from cameras. For you, maybe the camera isn't a problem. The lesson is to see the error of your ways, and recognize that you used an incorrect thought process to reach your conclusion, and to correct that thought process.

No sir, you did. Your exact words were - What do you call that besides advice? You advised him on min. experience required, equipment selection, and training/preperation. You don't think that could be construed as advice? My question for you is, why do you think you have a place to comment on this at all? Let's be fair, in order to really understand the situation, you need to have experience. I have been a newbie with 30 jumps, I have been a newbie with 130 jumps, and I have also been an experienced jumper with 5000+ jumps, with 4500+ involving a camera. Until you have seen both sides of the coin, how do you know what is, or is not, an appropriate number of jumps? I know that when I had 100 jumps, there were jumps where I thought I flew 'well', and would have rated my performance as 'above average'. After a few 1000 jumps, I realize now that while I might have flown well for my experience level, I was not really burning up the sky at all, and that I was sloppy at best. The difference is that how many points I turned then vs. how many I can turn now has (or had) no bearing on my safety. For you to advise (which you did) as to what degree another jumper should bust a reccomedtion of the USPA, when you youself have no real experience to speak from is ignorant in irresponsible. You don't know one way or another what anyone should, or should not be doing, with a camera, and with that in mind, you should be keeping your day-dreams to yourself. Read, listen, and learn. Don't guess or simply repeat things you picked up here on the web.

Step one - go make a jump. The answers to those questions will all come in time, and none of it matter until you make your first jump. As far as tandem vs a solo jump, it's just personal preference. A tandem is quicker, the training is just a few minutes while a solo jump will have you training all day. The tandem involves less personal responsibility, so you might have more of an opportunity to just 'go along for the ride' and see what it's like. A solo jump, either AFF or static line, is more work, but it might be more rewarding. At the end of the day, you have the accomplishment of jumping on your own. Some schools will use a tandem as a first jump, so it would count toward getting your license. Some places do not, so the tandem would be an 'extra' jump. Finally, theres the cost. Tandems are typically in the middle of the price range, with AFF being more expensive and static line being less expensive. Just figure out if you want to jump alone or do a tandem, then pick a local DZ. Make an appointment and go jump. Worry about all that other jazz when the time comes.

You have 43 jumps, ever consider there's more to come? Keep in mind that most of the 'action' on a DZ takes place on the weekends, so if you're stuck in the packing room, you miss out. Even if the guy worked his 'day job' and just paid for fun jumps all weekend long, he still gets to hang out after jumping, he can still goof off during weather holds, but when the planes are flying, he gets to jump. Based on his post, it sounds like he wants to jump, not just live on a DZ by any means possible. Would he live on a DZ if he could get paid to jump? Could be, but at the end of the day, it strikes me that the guy's #1 priority to be jumping, and I advised him of the best way to do that. People seem to mistake what I'm saying as discouraging the guy from going after his dreams, but it's not. The best way to ruin the dream is to show up with no ratings, and get stuck packing to make ends meet. You'll lose your 'love' of the DZ in a hurry when it turns into your place of 'non-jumping hard labor' as opposed to your place of 'fun-jumps and good times'. What I'm doing is explaining the reality of 'life' on the DZ. It's way different than just visiting on the weekends, and having some fun.

Could have been worse, but should have never happened. Barring a malfunction or other complication that prevents you from opening a parachute at a 'reasonable' altitude, there should be no reason to exit the plane when you cannot make it back to the DZ. Winds aloft and jumprun direction are available to everyone before the jump, and nobody should board the plane without a 'point of no return' already in mind. EVERYONE should check the spot before they leave the plane, and if you're beyond that point, take the go-around. It's proven almost every day that you can empyty an Otter, Skyvan, or even a Casa in enough time for everyone on the load to make it back, so there simply is no reason for anyone to have to land off based on the spot. Granted, students and tandems can create delays with long climbouts, but that's why they exit last and pull high. As a fun jumper, it's YOUR responsibility to know the winds, the jumprun, the make up of the load, the spot, and the exit timing. If all of these things are reasonably close to correct, everyone will land on the DZ, again, as proven on most loads flown. When a jumper lands off, it due to their own failure to be aware of, and mindful of, the above perameters. Am I being harsh? To hardcore? I don't think so, I think I'm just expecting people to have some situational awareness, and act accordingly. What's the alternative? Property damage to the neighbors? Injury to the jumper? The stakes are clearly high enough, and if you cannot honestly tell yourself that you are aware of all of the above factors on EVERY jump you make, you need to revise your procedures. Jumpers need to start expecting more from themselves, because the sport as a whole has been expecting less and less every year. Hold yourself to higher standard, and then you don't have to be the example for anyone else.

Or Ted Kaczynski.

Do what? Go live on a DZ and get a job not jumping? Maybe get lucky and find steady packing work so you can feed yourself, but be busy packing 90% of the time the plane is flying? Or not get lucky and end up cleaning the bathroom and picking up garbage to make just enough to feed youself, and while you won't be busy during jumping hours, you won't the money for it either. If the OP was a guy a tandem rating, and a year of work under his belt, I would say it's the best idea ever. It's even a great idea for a job during grad school, as you can work on the weekends, no late nights, and make good money for only two days per week. Again, DZ jobs are not just there for the taking. You either need an 'in' at the DZ, like being a regular jumper there for a few years and paying your dues, or you need to have your ratings and experience 'in the bag' so they can hire you as a full-time guy right off the bat. Try this, go to the DZ for the next three weekends, and camp overnight. Budget yourself $10 a day for food and entertainment, and don't make any jumps at all. You're going to be bored, jealous, and hate your life, and that's on the weekend when there are people around and stuff happening. Try staying over for a Mon and Tues one week, and see the hell of a deserted DZ, with nothing to do and no money to spend. That's what you're encouraging this guy to do, you think that's good advice?

I hear what you're trying to say, but you're missing the point. Nobody is telling to guy to bag his dream, just that the reality of the situation is that he's a little too early to live that dream. How would you feel if you drove your camper to that spot in the woods, and discovered that you couldn't chop down a single tree for another year or two? That's what would happen to the guy if he went hunting for jumping work with 200 jumps, no ratings and no cameras. It's just not going to happen. Read the advice given, it all suggested taking the road that would allow him the chance to make the most jumps and the best chance for success. Spending a year and $10k on jumps will have him primed for getting a rating or two, and then actaully being paid to jump. On top of that, he'll be jumping and having a blast the whole year 'getting ready' to fullfill this dream. The way to do that is with the 'day job' that will put $35k in his pocket.

Don't be so sure about that. It seems to be a recurring theme these last few days, but the problem with all these 'I'm going to work on a DZ' plans, is that it's not that easy to work on the DZ. Keep in mind, that for every 'good' job on the DZ, there are usually several candidates, and if you only have 30 jumps, limited packing experience, and are going to show up as the 'new guy', you're a long way from the best candidate. You might not think so at first, but packing is a 'good' job on the DZ, and if you're looking to make money, it's close to one of the best. Because of this, there are qualified, motivated people after these jobs, and they're not just there for the taking. As with most other jobs on the DZ, it's tough to roll into town and get the gig, they typically go to the locals before they'll pick up a 'new guy'. You may have read any one of 1000 posts where we suggest to students/newbies who are short on cash that they see about packing for the DZ. Now this may sound contrary to what I said above, but that advice goes toward people at their home DZ, where they spent a good deal of money to learn to jump (or they are in the process), who are looking to pack a handful of rigs on a weekend day to pay for a jump at the end of the day. That's a far cry from a guy that nobody knows, showing up looking for 'work' as a packer. An up and coming local student/newbie looking to score some jump money is one thing, an 'out of towner' looking for a job is another. The vast majority of bigger, year-round DZs have an independent packing consession, and if you don't work for them, you don't pack on the DZ. You could try to offer your packing services to experienced jumpers, but you won't get any takers, and if you do, expect a visit from the DZ managment asking you to stop or leave the DZ. The better plan is to show up with a pile of money, and spend it on a ton of jumps. Hang out, and burn through about half of them, and then ask around about maintenance work around the DZ, or maybe some stray pack jobs.

While TIs and camera flyers may be bored with doing the same thing over and over, the paying customer is doing it for the first time and they deserve the 'best' out of all the 'professional' jumpers they hired to make the jump possible. With that in mind, there's a degree of 'wiggle room' in there. When a frat-boy shows up for a tandem, and wants to jump shirtless because he's got something written on his chest, that jump might allow for a little more 'creative' behavior than others. Even then, it needs to be respectful, and complimentary to the customer, but you be able to have a little more 'fun'. Overall, the idea should be for all involved to work on their 'craft', with that being conducting a safe jump, providing an enjoyable experience to the customer, and delivering a professional product that shows the customer in a positive light. At the end of the day, the customers are the reasons we're all spending the day getting paid to jump, and for that they deserve a certain level of respect.

Your other problem is finding a job where you'll 'jump every day'. With no ratings, or just a coach, and pretty much 0 camera experience, you're going to have a tough time finding full time, reliable work. Most working jumpers start at their home DZ, where they know them and have watched them learn and earn ratigns. Even then, they typically spend some time being the 'new guy' on the bottom of the totem pole. After a year or two of that, they have some experience and can 'shop around' for a full time slot if they want. But being just barely qualified, and new to the DZ, is generally not a good recipie for finding employment. Take the day job, and jump on the weekends. If you can bag $35k doing that, live like you work at the DZ making $20k, and spend the rest on jumps and gear, and maybe even ratings. If you can get a tandem rating before you go to grad school, and then get some weekend work at a local DZ, that's good money. Even 5 or 6 tandems over the whole weekend will put $150/$200 in your pocket, or at least pay for 6 or 8 fun jumps while there, so it's like jumping all weekend for free.

The downside is a possible downplane, or the reserve fouling the main (or vice-versa) or one flying around the other and twisting them both up. The idea of being too low to cutaway, and just dumping your reserve has a place, but I don't think this was it. Based on the fact that he was able to steer the canopy in for landing, and that it remained inflated the entire time, the main canopy wasn't 'that bad'. In the case of high speed mal, or an uncontrollable main, then yes, get as much fabric out as possible, because the risks are worth it. If your main appears to be OK, and you have enough control to land with a level wing and a good PLF, the intentional 2-out might not be the way to go. In any case, the best choice is to take action above your hard deck. Based on the time line of the video, I feel that this jumper had plenty of time above his hard deck to cutaway, and simply chose to take no action. Not looking up at the canopy suggestes to me thatthe guy was too scared to check the canopy or even consider a cutaway.

I disagree with your disagree, mostly for the reasons you stated above. Between youtube, and the availability of video cameras to everyone on earth, video editing, the techniques and technology are very available to anyone halfway interested in learning. I used to buy copies of 'VideoMaker' magazine to learn about editing and new equipment because it was all I had. Just to be clear, I'm not crying about the 'bad old days', just illustrating the lengths some of us will go to in order to 'do better'. These days, it takes 1/10th of the effort to do 80% better, and when people can't make that 'investment' for that type of 'return', it leaves me with that one word in my mind, apathy. Nothing wrong with that, if that's what he wants. How they reach those goals is another story. Imagine you gave those guidelines to Norman Kent, what do you think his video would look like? That's a lopsided comparison for sure, but imagine if you gave those guidelines and someone elses footage to Norm, we both know the end product would still be top notch. Like a lot of things in skydiving photography, it's about making the most out of what you have available. If it's little available light on a 'late' sunset jump, or a student who's clearly screaming in fear all the way down, you make the most of it. If it's low tech editing equipment or less than 'conventional' requirements from the management, again, make it work. Rewinding the source video while your finished product is recording isn't making anything work.

Not even close to acceptable. Let's say your only option is to plug the camera into a DVD burner (if that is even possible) and you have one 'take' to dump it to DVD. In that case, you shoot the video to match technology. Pick you shots and set them up so you can watch it as one presentation (as much as possible). I'm not suggesting that everyone needs to shut their camera off in freefall like I did, but aside from that you can shoot a clean video that lends itself to dubbing in one take. I used to my own edits and packing between loads, so my goal was to shoot a clean video that I could set up to record, and then go pack while it was dubbing. I didn't need to be there to cut or trim anything, just hit record, and then go pack for 4 minutes. Even now, I've had an editor handling that for me for ove 10 years, but it's very rare that they need to do any 'editing' on my footage. It became a habit to shoot it clean, and that's just how I do it. I don't shut the camera off in freefall anymore, but only because the one 'cut' they put into every video is a fade from the canopy opening to the canopy coming in for a landing, so it doesn't matter if that portion of the video is 'clean'. It's just apathy. When I think about the shit equipment and set-ups I've dealt with over the years, the one thing that was never shit was that we always tried to get the best product possible with what we had. How about 8mm (not even Hi8) and a mono VCR (no stereo sound for us)? No digital anything, no effects and sound only coming out of one speaker, but we still made the effort to make it as good as possible. What we would have given for digital video and computer editing. Come to think of it, we gave $1000's of dollars buying VX2000's and building Sony Viao editing stations, all to just dumb it down and record it all to VHS. It's just a clear sign of who's there to do the job right, and who's there to just make some money.

Even if you 'plan' to start jumping, get a license, etc, that doesn't mean it's going to happen. Even if you do those things, it doesn't mean you're going to be any good at skydiving. Even if you are a good skydiver, it doesn't mean you're going to be a good teacher/camera flyer/coach. This is one of those areas where not 'everyone' is cut out for any of this. The idea is to start the process first, and see how you stack up against the 'average' and go from there. If you do well, above 'average', you'll have tons of encouragement and support on your road to getting paid to jump. If you turn out to be 'average', you'll still have encouragement and support, just not 'tons', and if you're below average, you'll probably be encouraged to take up bowling. All that aside, there's not much money in jumping. IF you can find the right DZ, and IF you can get a full time job, you MIGHT make $50,000 if you crank out tandems like a pack mule. That's $50,000, pre-tax, with no insurance, benefits or workmans comps, and that's if you get really lucky. The pay is dismal, and the working conditions and job stability is also pretty bad. If you LOVE to jump, it makes up for some of that (for awhile), but if you're not already up to your neck in the sport, it's not much of a career option. Forget the working part for now, just get back to the DZ and start jumping. This time next year you could be on a 'realistic' track toward working at a DZ, or just be having fun jumping with your new friends.

Not even in 1990. They still had a think called the 'pause' button back then. Pause the recording, rewind the source tape, and then resume the recording when your desired scene is back on the screen. Back when I used to dub videos straight from my camera onto a VHS tape, I would even go to the trouble of turning off my camera just after the tandem canopy would open, but before I would roll off my back to deploy. It made for a seamless transition to the next shot, which was of the tandem canopy coming in for a landing. There's no excuse for that type of thing at any time. Even if you forget the money, how about taking a little pride in your work?

Good luck, but I think the operative term is 'pick up' work. The problem is that the DZ is going to give the work to the 'regulars', the guys who are there week in and week out, and have paid their dues. If you roll into town for a week, and the DZ gives you work over their regular, local staff, how do you think that's going to go over with those guys? Probably not that great, and for that reason, I can't see you getting much work. DZ tend to reward loyalty. Full timers (7 days per week) guys tend to get the most work. Next would be the guys who have been there the longest, and so on. That's how DZs get and keep employees, give them an incentive to be there and available to work, and the guys who really want it will be there. The bad news for (or additional bad news) is that most jobs on the DZ are like this, even packing. Truth is, between things like the weather, and the ups and downs of how much work a DZ might have, even if you could pick up work here and there, it's not a great plan for making money. One weekend and one DZ might be weathered out, and then the next weekend at another DZ, they might have a light schedule and not a lot of work to go around. There are two ways to get a job on a DZ. The first is to hang around for awhile (like if you live nearby) and make it known you're up for working at the DZ. Once you've been there awhile and are a 'regular', you can get in the line for people who want to work at the DZ, and they'll let you know if they need you. Maybe another guy quits or moves away, or maybe the DZ is getting busier, but when they need you they'll let you know. The other way is to get hired. If you already have ratings and are willing to move somewhere to work, a DZ in need might place a 'help wanted' ad on DZ.com, or just put the word out they need people. In either case, the idea is that they already need people and have to bring them in to fill the need.

Hardly. He's always been forthcoming about who is, where he jumps, and what he does there. To my knowledge, you've never been forthcoming about any of that. Beyond that, at least he makes an effort to be constructive with his posts, as opposed to hurling insults and asking 'how many students did you kill last year?'. Truth be told, if you had something intelligent to add, nobody would care about who you are or what your qualifiactions might be. The problem is that you don't have anything intelligent, or even civil to say, and you hide behind a blank profile on top of it all. I've got quite an imagination, but it's not a factor in this case.