Great Work If You Can Get It

A good friend of mine landed a pretty sweet gig a few years ago making him one of the few people in the world that I’m jealous of. His name is Nick Halseth and every summer he gets to travel around the world as the team leader for the Lucas Oil skydiving demonstration team. The team performs for all kinds of events; drag races, rodeos, 4th of July events, casino openings, and the like. But the days that really turn his crank are when they get to perform at airshows.

Being part of the airshow as one of the performers gives him a unique perspective on the in’s and out’s of how airshows are run and how the pilots work with other to put on a great show. It also gives Nick some fantastic opportunitys to practice other passion which is photography. Not only does he have unlimited access to the flight line but over the years he’s done such a fantastic job he’s become the go to guy when pilots want great air to air shots of them doing cool stuff in their cool planes. Of course to get air to air shots means you have to be in a airplane as well so Nick get’s to ride in some pretty sweet aircraft. “Hey Nick, could you go up in that B-25 and sit in the tail gunner’s position and take pictures of the Thunderbirds while they fly in formation with a P-51 Mustang and an F4U Corsair please?”

“Well, OK.”

Here’s one the video’s he put together from last year’s airshow circuit.

“Zero”

zero

You’ve all seen these signs at construction sites and the like and you all know I own a skydiving school, which I’m sure most of you think is really just accident factory. Well i’m here to tell you that nothing could be farther from the truth, except when it isn’t. For the most part, skydiving is a “relatively” safe sport. I could quote statistics on how much safer it is than this or that activity (such as driving, or calling your wife fat) but you wouldn’t listen. As far as most of you are concerned, only two things fall from the sky. Bird sh!t and fools. So I’m not going to bother. But I’ll tell you this, in the skydiving community we take our safety VERY seriously! Every year before we start tossing our flabby bodies from reasonably maintained airplanes we all get together for a safety day where we go over emergency procedures, safety issues and the latest and greatest safety devices that those guys with big brains come up with to keep us from hitting the ground with more speed than is generally considered safe. Our safety day was this Saturday my staff and I thought it was a big success. We had a big turn out and even though I was the main speaker it seemed like everyone actually paid attention. We were looking forward to (hoping for) an accident season.

Well that all ended yesterday, the very first day of jumping, when I heard one of my staff say “Remember to take a cell phone with you! Just like Kerry said yesterday!” My first thought was “What!? The only time I mentioned taking a cell phone with you was when……….someone was hurt. Shit. I ran outside the building and saw people running to a still form in the student landing area surrounded by a parachute. Again…shit. I ran out to help and was relieved to see the jumper laying on his side, conscious and talking. “I think I broke my leg.” With the situation changed from life or death to “Bummer dude, you’re going to miss 8 to 10 weeks of the skydiving season”  I started my official accident investigation with the classic “What happened?” Apparently he just made the classic mistake of turning too low in order to face the wind on landing and hit the ground before he completed the turn.  He said “I knew I was too low halfway through the turn.”  Instead of commenting on his mistake or calling him something unflattering I expressed sympathy and hoped he’d be back soon. Not really the time to call him a moron. I think he was doing that enough for both of us.

P.S. one other note, he is a transplant jumper from another state (so I didn’t train him) and he missed my safety day presentation from the day before, (maybe he should’ve taken the time)

PP.S. Got word today, he’s going to be OK. Had surgery to to fix his broken femur (ouch) but will be back in the sky later this summer. Hopefully a bit smarter because if you’re going to be stupid you’d better be tough.

 

More Wingsuit Porn

It’s opening day at Skydive Twin Cities but unfortunately we got snow overnight, ( it’s too cold to jump) and the wind is howling, (so it’s too windy to jump) So instead of posting some sh!t Hot video from our first day of the season I’m posting the latest Sh!t hot wing suiting video from Norway. I especially like when these guys buzz the gondolas on their way down. And you wonder why wingsuit pilots are getting killed in record numbers? OK, maybe you’re not wondering.