Category: Skydiving

Some days being a DZO (drop zone owner) can be the best job in the world and some days it can be a never ending series of frustrations.  Saturday and Sunday will go down in the latter category.  The promise of a really profitable Saturday was blown away, literally, by strong ground winds, shutting down operations and causing the Twin Otter to abort 2 landing attempts due to the strong cross winds.  At $15.00 a minute watching the pilot struggle to get the plane down is particularly painful.  The weather was better on Sunday but my luck was not.  The 8 way competition/camp I was running produced lackluster results and was capped off with an inexperienced jumper deploying his parachute underneath the formation causing a potentially disastrous situation.  I thought my day was getting better when another jumper showed up with a fully automatic 9mm handgun and a backpack full of loaded 30 round magazines.   I had a few minutes to kill so we ran over to the range, yes we have a shooting range at my airport, to shred some targets but just before we started shooting I was called back to video a tandem who changed his mind at the last minute.  I ran back to the building scrambled to get everything needed to film a tandem and jumped on the Otter, only to discover that the battery on my still camera was dead shortly after takeoff.  My day just got better and better after that.  A student I was radioing down didn’t listen to my directions and hit one of my instructors car on landing putting a big dent in the door but thankfully not injuring him.  The instructor threw a small fit, jumped into his dented ride and stormed off tearing up some grass and generally making an ass of himself.  Then to cap off a truly wonderful day my aircraft loader/fueler came up and informed me that one of the fuel caps on the Otter was missing.  That was just great.  We’d lost that same fuel cap just last month and had to ask the owner to send us a new one and now it was also missing.  Those caps are expensive and I was sure the owner was going to make me pay for it this time, I wasn’t looking forward to making that call.  Apparently the loader hadn’t put the cap on correctly after fueling the plane and it fell off in flight landing who knows where.  For rest of the day we had to fly the Otter with a bunch of duct tape covering the fuel tank opening, that was classy.  The day finally ended and whilst trying to forget it over a few adult beverages with some of the staff and regular jumpers I got a text from one of my Jump masters who lives about three miles south of the airport and is also one of my Otter pilots.  The text read “Here is what I found on my wood pile when I got home tonight.  I didn’t move it.”

    Here was the picture he sent. 

Yep, the missing fuel cap, what are the odds?  Finally,  a little luck.

These pilots take wingsuit flying to a whole new level.  The footage of them flying between small gaps in the trees is nothing short of amazing.  I can’t wait for the next day with big cumulus clouds to practice on.

Except for the Otter going down with a bad starter/generator on the busiest and nicest day of the summer so far, GRRRRR! I had a great weekend.  What made it great was getting my daughter her last two student jumps and taking her on a four way jump with two of my friends.  She is such a natural in the air that she was done with her training in just three jumps where it normally takes at least seven.  Ok I admit that I had her on my own special training program but she earned her solo status by being simply great in the air.  That girl can really move.

Navy: Skydivers lucky to have not landed in highly restricted areas on Kings Bay

The Navy get’s it’s panties in a bunch just because two jumpers land on it’s softball field because of a bad spot.  If they can’t handle a couple of guys dressed in neon pink flying a bright red parachute in the middle of the afternoon they might need to review their security procedures.

I already posted one of the great shots of my son Connor’s first tandem skydive with me but I couldn’t resist letting you all see this snapshot of us just leaving the plane.  Connor wanted to do back flips on exit but as you can see his form needs just a little bit of work.

Jumping out of planes is serious business.

Getting ready for another demonstration jump into a “Tee it up for the Troops” event.  I’ve been bringing in the American flag for a number of these golf events this summer because it’s the least I can do to help support our veterans and their families.  Seeing the flag brought in under canopy really makes the event special but nothing beats the time that a Bald Eagle flew with me for a few minutes while I towed the flag over the spectators.  When I landed everyone was amazed that I was able to train an eagle to fly with me like that.  As tempting as it was to take credit for it I admitted to everyone that it was just a coincidence.  The veterans thought that made it even more amazing.  If you’d like to help support the cause go to    teeitupforthetroops.org  for more information.