jimjumper

"Usually! that doesn't cause a malfunction....":)

Mine says "Master". I kind of like that better than expert😃

I stand corrected. I just checked the awards application form and it now requires a "C" or "D" for awards. I still don't understand the link between awards and licenses but at least a "C" is doable.

You can get a "restricted" D license but you have to show cause why you can't do the night jumps and the Board of USPA has to vote on issuing it. In normal circumstances it's not going to happen. I don't have a problem with the license requirements themselves but I do have difficulty with understanding why the license is tied to the issuing of achievement awards such as Gold Wings and Freefall badges. One doesn't have anything to do with the other and excludes the recognition of achievements of the average fun jumper which oftentimes takes years to achieve.

I was about 230 and bought a 27' Russian PC because it landed softer than the ragged out T-10's the dropzone used for students. Couldn't jump a square till you had 50 jumps and I needed something that wasn't going to break me before I got there.

My father used to make deliveries to the Switzer licorice factory. They run sample batches for quality assurance that are usually thrown away. He brought home 2 5 gallon buckets of licorice. One black, one red. The red was gone in half the time of the black. Household of 3 boys and 3 girls. Good thing we had a union dental plan!

It will certainly be a leg muscle and flexibility building experience!

I wear a wrist, chest, and audible. The wrist, I can see while on grips, the chest, others in the formation can see, and the audible tells me when my student should pull, I should pull for him, and when I should give up trying and save myself. They all usually read within 2-300 feet of each other.

Sounds like a great t-shirt fundraiser to me! I can just imagine the design...

You do know that some of us used to skydive before tandems were invented?

Re-enlisted for 4 years.

When I was in the military we had a guy who would pick a subordinate that was weak and use him as an excuse every time there was a problem. The guy was amazingly effective at making it look like everything was the junior members fault and then making himself look good by supposedly fixing the problem! Make sure you document everything but don't be surprised if you still get blamed!

Don't have too much on the Lodestar. It was only at the DZ for a month or 2 and I was still on student status when it was around and didn't get to jump it. They were lucky if it flew 2-3 loads on a weekend day. It usually took every jumper on the DZ to get enough people to get a load up and with the experienced guys busy with students it didn't fly much. The day it blew a jug was interesting. A woman was touring around the country trying to get sponsorship to re-create Amelia Earharts last flight and her and a news crew showed up to take photo's and video with the Lodestar as a backdrop. I guess a Lodestar looks a lot like an Electra . After a while of this, the news crew wanted to film some jumpers going out but didn't want to wear bailout rigs because of all their camera gear. Hey, what could go wrong on 1 load, right? At about 11 grand, the left engine blows a jug, the jumpers leave, and the Lodestar lands over at Monmouth Airport which had a much longer runway with a pretty shaky news crew! The Lodestar was sitting there when about a month later the Lodestar up in Washington State stalled and crashed killing 9 jumpers and the 2 pilots. Nobody wanted to jump them after that and it sat at Monmouth till I left to go to the Phillipines for another tour. The Lakewood veterans all had small oil spots on their rigs and jumpsuits from the exit with the left engine blowing oil.

This picture was taken early '84, I think. I am on the right with the R-3's and hockey helmet. I don't remember the name of the guy far left, the guy in the blue and white is Dick Pooley, and Ranger Rod is next to him. The Cessna behind us was one of the jump planes there. God, was I having fun!

I started jumping there in '83. They had bellied in a Beech 18 at the golf course nearby the year before. They still had the wreckage under a tarp by the training mock-up. In the 2 years i jumped there they had 2 different 182's, that were the workhorse planes, a Cherokee 6 that was a real dog, and a Lodestar till it blew a jug and ended up parked at Monmouth Airport. There may have been a jump or 2 from the ultralights next door too but I don't recall any in specific.

His name was Lubo Bednar (sp!). Happened in late '83 while I was a student there. I watched him streamer in while packing my PC for the first time unsupervised. Bob Young (DZO partners with Charlie Cantalupe and Joey D'Afflisio) was first to him and expected to find him dead but he survived with, I think, some back and hip injuries plus a broken leg.

I think that some of the problem is that there are no requirements to be an S&TA. It's difficult to listen to an S&TA that doesn't have the experience or background to dispense advice and much less when given a safety position where they are enforcing rules they don't understand the underlying reasons for. It used to be S&TA's had to be at least an I. Right now you just need to be a USPA member and be a buddy of the DZO and their Regional Director. I see USPA pushing more safety enforcment onto S&TA's and since they are appointed by Directors I also see a direct legal and liability path to USPA. I think eventually USPA will no longer be able to disavow their liability in the area of instruction and safety, especially tandems, and will be forced to decide whether it's a member organization or a DZO/Manufactuer group.

That's why I only hinted at the ADA thingy.

Eventually there will be enough of these "larger than life" types to get obesity classified as a disability. Then they'll be able to sue anybody that refuses service under the ADA laws. It's coming. Ask anybody that's been sued over some of the ridiculous access laws already in place.

Had a change in plans. We live on 20 acres as do most of our neighbors. About 10:00 we heard a helicopter and sure enough they were circling our neighbors place. About 12 cops (7 cars!) showed up and they spent 2 hours clearing the property looking for someone. Assume they were looking for the residents since this has happened twice before. Then they must have been told they had the person because they all jumped into their cars and left in a hurry. Guess we'll do naps today instead!

A couple of jumps tomorrow, then on Sunday, installing a new air filter and oil bath plus a fuel shut-off valve on my '48 Ford tractor.

I've jumped with a couple of people you might consider famous, but the best was jumping with Art Thompson. He was the technical director for the Sage Cheshire team that created the high altitude system for Felix Baumgartners jump. He did a tandem with me and gave me a challenge coin from the project in appreciation!

I went to the one in my town for some .357 rounds. When I asked the salesman he said "Your in luck! Got 1 box left." It was tough making him understand that he was probably going to have that box of .357 AutoMag ammo on the shelf for a while...

I am not interested in bothering to search for it, but a while back I thought a Mod posted in Bonfire that they were setting it up in its own forum. I like the seperate forum idea myself.

A truck being smuggled back is a bit unusual, but I know of more than a couple of harleys that made the trip. Disassembled, crated, banded, in a secure magazine. When I PCS'd from the PI I legally brought back a 1970 Pinto that had been hand painted with OD and yellow paint to look like a bomb body modified to a sea mine!