Zlew

echo

it was in responce to Rose's comment about me not having an icon up. but the answer to your question is: Nothing really.

I figued that since ugly guys out number girls in this sport, that there was no need to further add to the mess with a icon pic. This is a sport of double standards right? So I feel that all girls on the board should improve things by having a good, LARGE file pic for their icon. To show that I'm a team player..... I put my pic up. whoohoo so how long until I'm not a Newbie anymore? jeeze.

you have to understand, you guys are in skydive Mecca. There are many places where "normal" winds are 15-20 every day of the year. I usually call it a day if it's real gusty or over 30. I'd lvoe to live in a place where the winds are light every day! Z

Maybe that needs to be made more clear. THe main area is East west as I remember, and longer east to west than north to south... You had to land either east or west, and had to follow the first person down. So you would have to land crosswind, at least, if the wind was not East or west. Again, there was only one day of winds when we were there, and for the most part it wasn't an issue. I found it kind of funny. They were giving wind warning over the loud speaker when the winds hit 20mph. When I used to jump in west texas.... 20mph was low wind! Z

Sorry if the info was bad, that was just what the manifest folks told us last year. It usually wasn't nearly as much of an issue in the other landing area because so few pepole landed there (sometimes just 1 or 2 per otter load). It would be real nasty to have people landing more than one way in the main landing area. Oh, yea, forgot to talk about the no fly zone over the runway...was it 1000ft or 500? can't remember , but he way the jump runs and spots were last year, I don't think i ever had any reason to be over the runway.

I was there last year, and it was UN-REAL. It is skydivers Mecca! Sign is is pretty fast, Pay your boogie fee (well worth it, Beer Cart at night). For those who have never been, there are 2 landing areas. The main area is I'd guess 200 long, by 100 or so deep. PERFECTLY flat, watered and tended grass (like a freakn' pool table). You have to land the way the first person lands there (pretty much never any wind). The second landing area is a 2 min walk away from the main area. It's a little bit bigger, just as nice, and don't have to land the same way (lot less traffic too). MILES of open land all around if u can't make it back. Otter load one is annoucned for a 5 min call at 7:40. Otter 2 takes off by 8. Most of the time there were 3 otters and the skyvan in the air at all times. Groups openning every 3 mins or so. King air, and porter only did a few loads. DC3 loads were a few a day (same price). Sevarl Steerman loads, and balloons every morning and night. Most days ran around 60 otter loads (not counting big ways) and 20 or so skyvan loads. The airspeed boys did a lot of the RW organizing. You don't have to cover their slot or anything like that and get to jump with the best in the sport. We made 6 jumps or so with Kirkby (small ways) and I think Craig was doing most of the big way stuff. Pretty good party sceen at night. Tons of covered concrete areas to creap , pack/ practice. Free creepers all over the place. Eloy really is a little skydive city. Full bar and food joint, work out room, coffee shop, barber shop, laundry, gear store,.....Very cool people there. I promise that you won't regret going. Hope to see everyone there this year. Blue skies Z

get all the ratings u can get including Rigger if u want to go full time. You should be able to do pretty much anything at the DZ to make money if you can (including video). If I decided to go full time and wanted 30K or so a year: AFF I, SL I, Video set up, 2 rigs, Tandem (own the rig if the dz lets you and pays more for it is an option) Rigger. I make more on video stills than on AFF, but there are many days where I have mad a few hundred bucks on AFF and the other video guys didn't make anything because people didn't buy vid that day. The more ways u have to make money, the better. By you numbers, it looks to me like u are a good year-2 years away from really being able to do it (not to mention 10-50K$ in jump, equipment, courses etc.) Good luck to you, but understand it's not a gravy train. Z

We need bigger User Icons.... At least for the girls on the board. SO HARD TO SEE!!!

I'm trying to finish my Masters at UNT. I got my undergrad degree from that school that beat the Aggies at Kyle Field last week(Whoooooppppppss) Hehe. GO RED RAIDERS! No hard feelings, I'm sure I'll see you in Eloy if not before then. Blue skies Black Panties and RED RAIDERS!!!! Z

I'll be there with 6-10 of my buds fromTX. We'll have a few trailers WE'll have a few parties WHOOHOOOO

I don't really care how many min's the video is. To me, the video is about making the student the star, and the video should be ACTION packed. My video's usually run somewhere between 5-6mins (plus the DZ's leader). What drives me crazy are the long winded videos that show 4 mins of them putting on the jumpsuit and harness, 4 mins of in aircraft time, 5 miins of canopy ride, etc. My video: 1 Min pre interview 30sec-1:30 min, walk out to the plane and take off. 20 sec's or so in aircraft (alt. check, student shot, out the window to the gorund etc.). 1:30- 2:30 from the door to my openning. 20 sec's landing (camera on at about 800ft.) 1 min them landing and post interview. 5 differnt times in the airplane of turning your camera on and shooting the student just sitting there does not add to the experiance. Not to me any way. I like to keep things fast paced. This is SKYDIVING, not gardening. But don't rip your student off either. I don't think I would sell a video of less than 4 mins (and 4 mins better have damn good footage on it). Blue skies Black Panties Z

at 5-10, 180, you shouldn't have any problems staying slow, in fact, some guys your size have trouble keeping up with the faster ones. Depending on several things....tandems usually really are not all that slow. I'm aboug 5-9 and 150lbs and I use wings on EVERY tandem. Why is this? It's to stay up with them, it's to keep the angle I like (LOW) and stay with them. I learned the hard way, that even on fast tandems, without wings it's hard to set up low and pitch way up to get that classic shot without wings to hang off of. To dock belly is no big deal, but to get the angle is where the wings help me. Were you trying to set up low when u were having problems, or just comming in even? Something to think about. Z

Are there any digital point and shoot cameras that come with a factory external shutter 2.5mm jack? I'd love to have something low cost in the 2-3 megapix range for messing around with on non paying jumps. Z

Funny that you say that. The first twin otters were singel otters that were mod'ed to have 2 wing engines and tri. gear. That would be kinda funny to go backwards and make a new single otter... We have a Dash-10 (1000hp) single otter at our DZ. Has a few of the things you would like. Tail wheel gear, single engine... big slow wing. good climb etc. skies Z

I was at the christmas boogie at eloy.... I think I remember seeing you there...Hard to tell from your icon.... but I"m pretty sure. Tall right....bright colors.... You are not one of those people who easily goes unnoticed. I hope this years boogie is as much fun. Oh yea, if any of you guys are thinking of going to Marana if they have another boogie.... I wouldn't reccomend it. We spent a day there, and ended up spending 4 at eloy.

Something I would be interesed to talk to a jump pilot about is the no power landing speeds of a given jump plane at gross. For example, I'm pretty sure if I had to land with the plane off the airport (or at the end of the runwa) I'd rather be in something that can land as slow as a porter (caravan too maybe?) than a KingAir. How fast does a Twotter need to fly to land? How slow can ya go? Skyvan? CASA? etc? Assuming its just the loss of power, it seems to me, that landing in the sticks slowly gives you better odds than landing in the sticks fast.

Understood, but a 9.8 isn't exactly "not that fast off the line". that will still STOMP any production car made, and the vast majority of the tweeaked 4-wheel drag cars (no, not talking about NHRA or anything like that).

They are claiming a 9.8 1/4mile run..... tha'ts pretty damn fast even for a bike (stock). Think you would go a lot faster with a gas engine with a 1:1 hp/lbs ratio, but still..... 9.8 is 9.8 sec.

I think the one engine fear might have a lot to do with where you fly. If you are in an area without many trees or water, and tons of open fileds you might fear a one engiine plane less than you would a noob pilot death rolling the twin when they lose an engine on take off (too slow....or maybe feather the wrong prop.....oops). Put the flaps down on something like a porter even with a full load on board and you can set it down slow enough to get you a ticket for driving too slow in a 55mph zone. For me, I'd rather land off the dz in an engine out situation, or off the end of the runway nice and slow than be low and slow with a twin (queen air....SHUDDER...). It's a shitty place to be either way. Dont get me wrong, I don't FEAR twins at all. Love a twotter or skyvan (not getting into that fight now). I just disagree a little bit with the idea that the plane has to be twin to be a good jump plane. skies Z

I also like the really low angle on tandems. If you are not low, most of the studetns, even on strongs and racers, will not look UP at you, thus you get the tops of their heads and a great shot of the tandem master. When you get low you get both faces...no matter where the student looks. I learned real fast to use my wing suit even on fast tandems. I have great range anyway, and I use my wings more to allow me to get the right angle than to adjust fall rate. It's hard to get a real steep angle and pitch up without wings. My camera is on line with my line of view (not tilted up or down), and I have no problems.... but unless i"m shooting POV RW, I always use my wings to make sure I can make the angle. Z

I love black and white film. I'm a T-max and Tri Pan fan myself, but there are TONS of great bw film out there. The biggest problems with it is unless you can develop your own (wihich is simple if you know how) it takes most places 2 weeks to get it done, and also costs more (10 times more simple proceedure.....and costs more....supply and demand at work!!). You can get a lot of private photo studios to develop for you, but most places will charge u as much to do the negs alone as Walmart would charge for prints. I've had bad luck with the fake BW film (the stuff u can have developed anywhere). It's just not the same....at all.

I'm with you %100 man. My point being that 11 meg isn't at all uncommon (in reference to "seems like a lot of friggn' res..... us Spy planes and such). you don't need an sr71, U2, or spy satalite to get 11 meg res.... infact you can get it for 4 bucks when you buy a throw away camera at the drug store. thats all' Z

take a good 35mm still camera, pro qulaity film, with a top of the line negative scanner....guess what, you will get 2-3 times the resolution of the 11 meg camers. Think it's a move in the right direction, but not as "wonderful" as it looks.

Anyone else think we should rename Parachutist "Kevin Gibson Magazine"? Z