Transportation is Now available for You
Saturday, Sunday – Morning, 7:30 am Sharp!

Call/Text – 845-674-3698 (Mon – Sun) Van’s cell ASAP
E-MAIL: b.klyn@hotmail.com
Face book: Brooklyn Mark
Be picked up – /SAT/SUN/ morning’s East Side – West Side at 7:30 AM

ANYWHERE! On 42nd Street, between Lexington and 8th Avenues.
“All Trains! Lead to Forty Second Street
You! Tell us Where and We’ll Be There”

BK Express Van Service – From NYC To The Ranch
Be manifested by 9:15 A.M.

Cost: (To) $ 30.00 (N.Y.C. Residential P/U Available – $ 5.00 -
Boro’s If Possible $ 10.00)
(From) $ 25.00 – After Sun Set Load

MUST RSVP by Friday, if possible – Need 2 People to Ride ??

Passenger’s Wanna leave The Ranch early
We’ll take you to the Bus in New Paltz – $ 10.00

Reservations – Pick-up’s – Whatever!
Call/Text 845-674-3698 ASAP
E-MAIL: b.klyn@hotmail.com
Face book: Brooklyn Mark

Support a Starving Skydiver – Trans Service

Rookie Photo-2009

Scott McMurray (1988 – 2011)

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There has been a lot of gossip going on about the situation at Zhills. Dropzone.com and various others are completely misinforming the public and it is time for Freefall Express to finally speak about the situation so that the rumors and slander stop.

First – Yes, we are in the process of trying to open another DZ at Zhills. Here is why.

What we will report are the facts that can be easily proven through records and court proceedings. Most of you know that Freefall Express has been supplying Skydive City with aircraft and employees for many years. Freefall Express implemented a change in the pricing structure to eliminate inefficiencies in loading and flying the aircraft. Instead of abiding by the verbal contract, TK Hayes chose to lease aircraft from various other competitors, including Sky’s the Limit and Deland, eliminating the need for our otters any longer. FFE owns two critical pieces that help run Skydive City: the fuel farm and the hangar. They invested thousands of dollars in this in order for Skydive CIty to comply with the terms for obtaining a lease extension on the land that they are located on, this not only Skydive City and FFE to keep operating, but also the Sunshine Factory, the Hard Dock Cafe, the Sunset Bar and Paragone Rigging. FFE also provided Skydive City with interest-free loans in the startup years to keep them established.

TK Hayes has lost the plot. He has cut the locks off the fuel farm and stole and excess of $27,000.00 from us and then proceeded to commandeer the hangar that was built by FFE, locking up all of FFE’s equipment. In addition, Zhills has been putting jumpers in imminent danger by violating FAA regs.

Our DZO’s have had to repeatedly travel to Zhills to take back what is rightfully theirs and have spent numerous hours in court and thousands in legal fees. In addition, several key personnel who we love very much have lost their jobs. This is a very bad situation and it is poisoning any relationship that The Ranch has with ZHills as well as Deland. Although in the past Ranch Hands have typically visited there for the holidays, this will not be so any longer. People are starting to reschedule vacations and we don’t blame them.The good vibe at Zhills has been lost. Even the Europeans are not going there in the number they used to.

More people are traveling over to Sebastian since it is a much nicer DZ, close to the beach and has numerous hotels (much nicer than the ones at Zhills) and they still have availability with skydiver rates. In addition, there is a lot more to do during non-jumping hours, from proximity to beach, amusements and nightlife. Even though many people are flying into Tampa, for loyalty reasons they have changed course: they are driving over to the East Coast to jump there instead so before you go, you may want to talk to the others since the game plans have changed and a lot of us are doing the East Coast this year.

2. After opening check the canopy for the 4 S’s. Then face into the wind.

3. Locate the airport, then head to the holding area UPWIND of your target
LOSE MOST of your altitude in your holding area!

5.Between 800 and 600 feet above the ground cross the neutral line and start your downwind leg. Once you have crossed the neutral line DO NOT FLY OVER OBSTACLES.
If you crossed the neutral line at 800 feet- fly downwind for 400 feet above the ground, then go into half brakes. Left 90 degree turn. STILL in HALF BRAKES left 90 degree turn to face your target.

6. Once facing your target arms ALL THE WAY UP to full flight.

7. FLY your parachute to the target, input will be needed to maintain the heading.

8. Avoid obstacles and don’t forget to flare!

This week, again, we cry.

Thursday, we tragically lost Burt Edwards to an accident while landing in Eloy. Burt has been jumping at the Ranch for a long time, a belly flier who many of you may remember from 16way last year.

Sunday, we lost Chico (Francisco Leonardi) to a skydiving accident as well. At this point, we have limited information as it happened outside of the country. Many of you remember Chico training with 4-way team Vortex or maybe you remember him from working at the school.
Please, please, please be careful out there.

on the 17th of April at the Ranch.

Billy Richards has agreed to be the Auctioneer for the evening and I am making jello shots to get us all started

A good skydiving event wouldn’t be the same without FREE to drink!

“Live life so completely that when death comes to you like a thief in the night, there will be nothing left for him to steal.”

During the day, get current with Linda Waz and her currency course, it’s free if you don’t need her signature, and only $10 if you do! Or, listen to 20 minute presentations spaced throughout the day.

Start the Skydiving Season off right!

Order of presentations (Times TBA):

Equipment-Pete Clark
Maintenance, packing and the gear check
Since 1999, equipment problems have accounted for 11 percent of fatal skydiving accidents. Knowing your equipment, packing carefully and maintaining your gear regularly can save your life.

Exit Exit Exit- Tim Sapar
In 35mph upper winds, a belly flyer who leaves 10 seconds and gets out after freeflyer will open 100 feet from him, but if the belly flyer goes first and the freeflyer leaves the same time he will open 2200 feet from the freeflyer. Watch the animated freefall drift of skydivers.

Airplanes-Tentatively-William O’Neil
Getting on, getting up and getting out
Not every plane ride makes it to full altitude. What will you do if the engine quits at 1,000 feet? How about 500 feet? Establishing a game plan now with your pilot and fellow jumpers may determine the outcome of an airplane emergency.

The Skydive-Justin Goldberg
Falling, Fleeing and Opening
Each year, many jumpers are injured due to freefall collisions, including 11 fatal accidents since 1999. Planning and preparation for the freefall go a long way toward reducing your chance of a high-speed collision. Know your limits. With proper guidance and coaching, you can gently push those limits, but avoid getting in over your head with large or complicated formations.

Under Canopy-Jerry Hannon
Planning, avoidance and landing
Since 1999, 133 jumpers—47 percent of the total skydiving fatalities—have died as a result of canopy control issues. Learn everything you can to improve your canopy skills and ensure you get down from every skydive safely.

Take a moment to calculate your Canopy Risk- (handout)

A “Judy” refers to the new USPA Chesley H. Judy Safety Award. USPA’s latest recognition for service to the skydiving community came together as the result of an important act of generosity, along with imagination at the right time.

A “Judy” will be voted on with ballots during Safety Day activities to one jumper from each drop zone who in the past year, through example, deed, training or innovation, has promoted safety in the sport. Awardees may include anyone on the drop zone who has made a noteworthy difference to the safety of local jumpers.

After sunset- Dinner will be served- price and menu to be announced

After dinner-Jon- Head of St Francis Hospital’s Trauma Unit

Our own Kenny Griep
Big Jim on field Medical
Raffle winners announced after Seminars are done!

During a CFJ course in showing the new students the gear this error was found.

Do you see what is wrong?

Do you know this could be Fatal?

Please be mindful when doing the maintenance portion of the release system for your A license cards.

SHAME on the person that supervised this, watched this happen and not catch it.

Here’s an image of a properly routed 3-ring release system:

Lindawaz: If anyone witnessed the low pull last weekend here is what happen

Fairly new jumper around 50 jumps

First time on that container. She did numerous practice touches on the ground and laying down with the gear on.

At Pull time she could not extract the handle for the main after several- long tries she stopped and pulled her reserve- it was not a cypress fire. She did it right in that case. She stopped trying to pull the main and went to plan B reserve.

What happened was she never did a Practice throw on the ground. Only touches. The rig had a freefly handle which requires you to “peel” before you can pull.

Lesson learned -new gear do practices touches, but include a few actual throws.

sharkbite: That’s gotta be a super scary feeling – not being able to pull. Yeah there is the reserve, but still . . .

Lindawaz: Yes it is an awful feeling, but that is why you practice your emergency procedures. Always keep them in your head. This way you are on top of the situation rather than back peddling playing catch up.

Lindawaz: Main and Reserve out. Turned into a downplane jumper cutaway the main and landed safely. Jumper said the reserve just exploded out, it was not a cypress/aad fire.

Events leading up to the incident. After they did the three way,( one of our coaches was on the dive) He decided to be funny and try to flip the coach.

which resulted in some rock and roll bash and hit up there. He ended up on his back and was dropping away from the rest like that.- no on your back in his gear would not have caused it.

When he was asked if he did a gear check he replied not really, so his reserve pin may have been not seated all the way.

the freefall antics- cable could have been snagged which took away the slack in the cable and on the main openning the container “stretches” flexes and with out the slack only place to give is the pin end. (if you look at your reserve handle the cable hangs out the bottom a few inches just for this reason)

The reserve was almost at the end of its repack cycle- 4 more days so it was not the pack job. If it was it would have happened a lot sooner.

Gear checks are important- make sure you do them- what really caused it, we will never really know but there were a few things that probably led to it. The good thing is he did the emergency procedure correctly down plane cut away the main and fly the reserve home.

sickbird: So what is your hard deck? What are the implications of your pull altitude and your hard deck?

I found out the stupid way this weekend that I either need to be pulling higher or have a lower hard deck. I had line twists below a perfectly flying canopy. I was altitude aware yet did not resort to my emergency procedures at 2k, my predetermined hard deck. So I feel like an asshole because thats the whole purpose of having a hard deck. Its supposed to be where there is no longer any decision to be made and EP enacted immediately. It took me another 300 feet to kick out of the twists. My ego is happy that I didnt cut away the good canopy. The rest of me is sad that I’m a bad skydiver and I let my instructors down by not sticking to my hard deck and EP. I’ve decided to open higher.

Hopefully I can stop my ego from trying to take credit for the positive outcome and use this as a personal lesson to make smarter decisions in the future. It would also be nice if someone can learn from my mistake and not put themselves into a situation where there is not sufficient altitude between where they are opening and where they have set their hard deck. In my case, 1500 feet is/was not enough.

Please do not take any of this as advice towards choosing your own hard deck or an indication as to where you should be opening your canopy (thats what your instructors are for – had I been more vocal about my own decisions I’m pretty sure they would have foreseen this event and I would have learned this lesson the smart way).

Rudi Ganz: Kudos, Jeff, for starting this thread and being frank about your recent experience. The hard deck is one of several topics I do not think most new skydivers spend enough time discussing or contemplating.

My personal hard deck is 1,500 feet. Here are some of the factors I weighed when arriving at that number:

- Many of my early jumps were static line or similar jumps from as low as 3,000 feet.

- I have made somewhere between 75 and 100 hop and pops from 3,500 feet or lower.

- I have had four cutaways.

- I am comfortable and very current landing off.

- I am an AFF instructor and was trained to stay with students until as low as 2,500 feet.

All of this aside, my lowest cutaway was at 1,800 feet. And on that one I was not under my reserve until just over 800 feet. It is sometimes forgotten that hard decks are as you describe them–no more deciding, go to plan B.

I urge all new skydivers not to underestimate the potential need to land off. And I do not mean at six stripes. If your hard deck is 2,500 feet, the same as the students, and it takes you even a relatively short 500 feet to get under your reserve, are you really that likely to make it back? How good are you at landing down or cross wind? On a hill? The analysis is much like that of downsizing and should not be taken lightly.

I have always felt that among the many pressures we are sometimes subjected to by our fellow skydivers is the one to pull lower. It is ironic since so many of those jumpers are reluctant to make hop and pops from there own deployment altitudes, particularly at dropzones like the Ranch with fast aircraft and full altitude loads.

sickbird: Thanks for your comments. There are a lot of good issues you raise.

To one of your points, on the event above I ended up landing out. Of course it didn’t help that the spot was crap and six other jumpers on the load landed out as well (the larger the group of people you jump with the more likely you are to rely on someone elses spot… not good!). Turns out I was very fortunate that we were so far away from the Ranch; it made it that much easier to identify that there was no chance in making it back and I quickly identified my out. Obstacles included a small landing area bordered by trees, high grass, and unmarked electrical wires bisecting the field. It was my 11th landing of the weekend on that main and I was getting very comfortable with its landing characteristics. Had I chopped I would have definitely lost more altitude and, think about how crazy this is, had to make that same landing under a seven cell parachute which I have never flown of a size I wasn’t even 100% sure of with even less time to identify and mitigate the landing hazards! Not that it would have been impossible but for sure would have increased the probability of an accident (and we all know that accidents become major accidents VERY quickly).

And the hardest part of this whole situation to deal with is that I’m still trying to convince myself of its seriousness. Its so easy to let the calmness of my reaction and the positive outcome diminish the importance of the lessons.

Lindawaz: I am glad it ended well for you Jeff.

The hard deck is just that. You can not let yourself be side tracked into it is “JUST…” The smaller the parachutes the faster they lose altitude. My spectre- a docile canopy- if I bury a toggle after 4 revolutions I can not get my hands in to my handles because of the centrifugal force.I also lose approx 800 feet in that time too. I checked this out when I first got the Parachute. The Spectre is a 7 cell. Point is my docile parachute can do that to me and I am not 1 to 1 on it I under load it.

The other factor of the hard deck is that you nor Rudi did not mention EVERYTHING that can go wrong with the main can go wrong with the reserve. There is no guarantee that one will be perfect when it opens and you need the same amount of time to fix that one as you do the main. Your field had wires in it. Can’t steer with line twists. Calm during emergencies is good, complaisant about breaking your own safety rule- not so much. I know your jump ended well, but face it Jeff You were lucky that time. Don’t be the lucky skydiver in the future be the safe one.

sharkbite: I had pretty bad ones recently – but I was at a great altitude and I had ‘em fixed right quick. I’d be interested to know Sickbird, if you went 300′ below your HD before kicking out – at what altitude did you start? I must admit that I had no concept of altitude when I worked on my line twists. I might have glanced at the altimeter, but I think I took it for granted that I pulled at 5500′, and therefore had more than twice the sufficient space below my feet before I had to think about EP. I regret not tracking how much altitude it cost me to fix the issue. Might have been 100′ – might have been 500′   .

I guess as a student with the first real issue to work out under canapy before I could check my 4 S’s, I wasn’t completely focused. I knew what to do, and did it well and fast, but I missed a very important aspect. ALTITUDE.

Rudi Ganz: I am not trying to be harsh, but rather to refocus something here. You wrote, “My ego is happy that I didnt cut away the good canopy.” You did not save a good canopy–it was unlandable as you passed through your hard deck.

sickbird: When you are right you are right

I realized that I made decisions regarding my hard deck and my pull altitude that gave me no time to deal with a minor malfunction. It was hard to comprehend that I didn’t even leave myself 10 seconds under a (relatively) large 4S’s canopy to kick out of some line twists. Anyway, it makes perfect sense in hindsight but it surely didn’t at the time.

Rudi Ganz: Two last comments, Jeff, then I promise to drop this thread.

1. You did not have a “large 4S’s canopy.” At a minimum it was not Steerable–the lines were twisted. I am also going to guess that the Slider was not down either–line twists are far less likely once the slider is down. That leaves 2 S’s, 3 max.

2. Section 5-1 (E)(4)(a) reads, “You should decide upon and take the appropriate actions by a predetermined altitude…Students and A-license holders: 2,500 feet.”