chuckakers

It seems the guy in your third and last pictures could be this guy/ Sparky http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp55/mjosparky/Skydiving/Tandem1.jpg http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp55/mjosparky/Skydiving/Tandem.jpg Bet the guys at Strong would like to see that shot. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

The correct answer is impossible to say as there are many different ways to pulled it off. I started a Twin Otter DZ (Skydive USA) on $30K. We did it on a shoestring by: leasing a hangar on a municipal airport - $1500 for first month rent and deposit leasing an Otter turn-key (thanks Billy Richards) - $0 up front lease/purchasing student rigs from a DZ that was rotating gear (thanks Skydive Dallas) - $0 down renting 3 tandem rigs until we had enough cash to buy our own using LOTS of volunteer jumper help with facility start-up tasks (thanks Houston jumpers) bartering everything we could think of in jump ticket, tandem, and AFF trade bartering radio air-time for demo jumps into station events giving away tandems to local media to get our name in the news creating a commission program and having fun-jumpers distribute brochures to kick start business having the wife and I do the bulk of student jumps until volume dictated additional hiring securing a team to help make loads go until building a fun-jumper population (thanks Deguello) doing all the cleaning myself - yes, including toilets. and a million other things to get the job done without money in the equation. Be forewarned that the low-cost way of doing things is also the low-profit way. But DAMN did we throw some legendary parties. Guess that's how our little DZ earned its nickname. I still have a headache and some scars. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

I can't speak for their abilities to build camera helmets, but I can for sure they are a very reputable company with excellent customer service. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

I have 6 rides on PD reserves in a variety of deployment configurations. Perfect, on-heading openings every time. They'll keep getting my money. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

I have a better idea. Concentrate on the traffic around you as you fly a predictable pattern. Patterns are only a good idea. Focusing on flying a "perfect pattern" will lead to tunnel vision, and that will lead to trouble. Next, stop listening to anyone who tells you what canopy you *should be* flying. Think about it. The people you are asking for advice have never seen you fly. There's no way they could know what canopy is right for you. Here's some sound advice. Stay conservative. Master each canopy you fly before even considering a change to more performance. Don't start f*cking around with performance turns. Did I say stay conservative? Stay conservative. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

Not too far off, VB. Current prices here range from $22 to $26 or so for a turbine hop. The feds have been threatening to put us on FAR part 135 or another strict chapter for years, and crap like the Lodi deal might just put us there. i dont think the FAA would be so unreasonable to punish the whole industry for ONE black sheep, which is not even a USPA-member!? ^^that's more of a question than a statement actually.. The fact that Lodi isn't a USPA member has nothing to do with it. The feds see all skydiving ops the same way, and don't cut slack just because a DZ is USPA. The Lodi thing is just the tip of the iceberg. There have many many jump plane crashes through the years that have been attributed to maintenance issues. If we don't clean up our airplane act, the FAA WILL come down on us through regulation changes. They've come very close numerous times in the past, so it's only a matter of having that one final incident to make it happen. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

Not too far off, VB. Current prices here range from $22 to $26 or so for a turbine hop. The feds have been threatening to put us on FAR part 135 or another strict chapter for years, and crap like the Lodi deal might just put us there. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

There's no controversy about the FAA violations. The operation has been fined twice for blatant failures to perform mandatory work on aircraft. If I'm getting the story right, one of the fines was for continuing to fly the plane after being spanked and told not to fly it any more until the required work was performed. In my opinion, anyone who jumps at Lodi is supporting behavior that can and eventually will have the FAA come down on the sport in ways that will result in vastly more expensive aircraft maintenance rules (in the US, skydiving currently operates under the very least stringent maintenance requirements) and those dramatic cost increases will by necessity be passed on to us. Imagine what the price of jump tickets doubling will do to your jumping habits. But hey, a USPA Director jumps there so it must be ok, huh? Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

6 years and nearly 600 jumps and you're new to packing. I give up, folks. Yes, been paying packers up until this season. Not surprised that you don't see the irony. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

6 years and nearly 600 jumps and you're new to packing. I give up, folks. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

Find a new instructor, this one isn't giving you good advice. It's more like dangerously bad advice. One thing, before trashing the instructor in all these threads.... People have conversations around the bonfire all the time, discussions about jumping and canopies and flying. As instructors, we have to be open to honestly answering questions, but then listening to what might be the intentions of the newbies and making sure we address THAT as well. Answering questions can be (purposely) misinterpreted as 'advice' and/or 'encouragement' to someone willing to hear what they want to hear. Are they curious? Or are they really just looking for rationalization. (however, for this specific quote - if the instructor actually "ORDERED AN ELLIPTICAL DEMO CANOPY" for this student, then he's really out to lunch and does need to be called out) I agree that beer-thirty conversations can and are sometimes used as justification for poor judgement, but in this case it doesn't appear so. From the OP's post..."the demo canopy was ordered for me by one of the instructors on the DZ that has given me some good canopy coach type advice." Sure would like to know who this craphouse instructor is. Bet Precision wouldn't mind knowing, either. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

It is that kind of backwards thinking that is killing skydivers and will kill you too. 1. You have 100 or so jumps and have divided them across 3 very different canopies. Now you believe it's ok to go to a fully elliptical. This only serves to PROVE that you don't understand what you are doing. 2. You have apparently created a logic AGAINST squares when you say your worst accuracy was on a square. That is so overly simplistic it only goes to demonstrate how little you know and how misguided your logic is. There are so many other factors in your accuracy or lack thereof beyond the canopy you were under that reducing your argument to that is nothing short of very scary. 3. Your instructor will have multiple units of your blood on his hands when you eat it - and you will. There is no such thing as "good canopy coach type advice" that can be given to a newbie with 100 jumps on an elliptical. Giving advice for a 100-jump wonder to jump an elliptical is by definition BAD advice. 4. An instructor even considering a person with your experience - or more accurately LACK of experience - jumping an elliptical is not an instructor. That is called a BAD instructor and he or she should be called out. Please pass that word along and ask if he/she cares to come on this public forum and defend the advice given to you. My guess is the answer will be a deafening silence. It is absolutely mind-blowing to me that the sport continues to scratch its collective head at why we can't solve the canopy incident issue that plagues us on a global basis. Do we really need to look any further than situations like this one for the answer, folks????? I think not. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

More threads with questions like TWS3998's need to go off-topic the way this one has. His question is what was off-topic here. His butt shouldn't have been jumping a fully elliptical in the first place. BTW, I sent him a message asking him to reply to my question about his choice to fly it with so few jumps. Now we'll see if he is skydiver enough to answer. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

Not sure. That shot was taken a long time ago at Skydive Houston in Waller, Texas. I believe the person on the ground was a tandem catcher. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

+1, TK. Staffers aren't there to entertain themselves. Some don't seem to get that. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

My kid Justin Price competes at the national level and has zero metal. He's broken his back twice, but no metal was needed. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

The more important question is why were you jumping a fully elliptical canopy with 100 +/- jumps to begin with? Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

An even bigger head scratcher is why are member of the US team not allowed to display any sponsorship logos when at the Worlds? The answer to that question brings me a point I've been waiting to make. The reason they don't display sponsors at the World meet is that they are not competing as the sponsored teams they were before being selected. They are competing as the US Team. That brings me to my point. My idea to raise sponsorship money for the US Team is simple. Don't re-invent the wheel. Get the same kind of companies that sponsor teams now to sponsor the US Team. If PD, Mirage, Cypress, Tony, and everyone else beats the doors off the hinges to sponsor teams that are trying to become the US Team, I bet they would be equally ready to sponsor the teams that get selected to BE the US Team. After all, who better to benefit from such sponsorships? Let's face it, folks. Coca-cola, Apple, and McDonalds couldn't give a rats butt about micro-sports that get scant media attention. That's not going to change anytime soon. But gear manufacturers have a well-established pattern of sponsorships and do so for a very good reason - putting their gear on champions drives sales. The program would be easy. Accepting a position on the US Team would come with the obligation to accept the sponsorships that are sold to support the team. Once the world meet season is over, the athletes would be welcome to go back to their old sponsors if those sponsorships are still in effect. An exception could be made for competitions that are by their nature gear-specific like swooping. It wouldn't be safe to ask a swoop competitor to switch canopy brands after training on a different one. Beyond those exceptions, competitors would be compelled to jump the sponsor's stuff if it was part of the deal. USPA claims that the motivation is to help the team financially, so sponsorships could be sold that include cash, or also be just gear sponsorships. Cypress $1300, rig $2300, 2 canopies $3000. Go to the world meet, come home, and sell the gear to jumpers for $6600 +/- total. That's plenty of money to get a guy to the world meet with money left over. And how do know it would work? It already does for national level teams and even some that are just trying to be. It's called best practices, USPA. Give it a try sometime. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

This demo team isn't designed to impress skydivers. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

This one is only $12.50 http://www.amazon.com/Bowling-Dummies-Lifestyles-Paperback/dp/0470601590/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318850328&sr=1-3 Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

QuoteThat's pretty lame advice. Quote Whether or not my advice is lame depends on why he's heavy. Besides that, fall rate issues in noobs - fast or slow - are often flying skills issues. The same people who go too fast or too slow early on often don't after some time. Good tunnel training can be a big help. Adding fabric only works to a point. Beyond that a big floppy suit becomes a liability during FS. That's why we quit jumping those big rags and started pouring people into weights instead. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

Given that the entire economy there (likely including the DZ) is supported, no - funded - by the gas you put in your car, I'd say yes. I hear the owner owns two wind tunnels. One for customers and another one at his home. If true, I think that explains it. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

No one ever wants to hear this, but the answer is to lose weight. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

My account agrees with the minutes. The editorial makes no mention of using other highly qualified skydivers. That is the big bone of contention that many demo jumpers have asked me about. There are a lot of demo jumpers here in SoCal. There are several team leaders that arrange demos using the same roster of demo jumpers. These demo jumpers are part of the other highly qualified skydivers that are supposed to be used by the US Demo Team. The concept, as it was explained at the BOD mtg, would work in a similar way, but would NOT encroach on the existing demos that the team leaders anywhere in the US have had for years and years. The concept, as it was explained at the BOD mtg, would be very similar to how the GK demo team works. They have one group out providing publicity for the US Army and another group doing competition jumps. If the plan is implement and only uses US Team members for demos, then it will fail. The Coors/Vision team used to do demos for Coors all over the US. It took time out of their training (back then most every team was a weekend team). If you look at the training schedule of most competitors, doing demos across the nation would interfere with their training and other coaching duties. FYI the US Team is a separate organization than USPA. The BOD is the same for each organization. Yes it will be, if it fails. . "Other highly qualified jumpers"???? So in at least some cases - and possibly many - the "long-overdue recognition" Ed says the "champions" deserve won't be bestowed upon champions at all. Is it even intellectually honest to promote the team to the airshow industry as being made up of the country's US Team (as in made up of US Team members) and "champions" when it's not? That was after all the premise of this team to begin. Of course there's still the problem with USPA endorsing and supporting a demo team that will compete head-to-head with existing USPA dues-paying members for gigs. And while it's just my opinion, I bet the promise not to encroach on other team's gigs will eventually go out the window as well. "Gee Mr. Private Demo Team Captain, your client came to US, saying they were looking for a change. Apparently they want Champions for their demo." Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

Let's see - the idea for the US Team to do demos was conjured up by a USPA Director, endorsed by the USPA BOD, will be funded by a loan from USPA, and the team will be comprised of members of past and present US Teams who are selected by - say it with me, folks - USPA. Team management will no doubt be chosen by USPA as well. So the new team may not actually belong to USPA, but it is certainly an all-USPA effort. An effort by the way that will have the USPA selected US Team compete head to head with USPA dues paying members for paying demos. I still see a conflict. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX