• Content

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Feedback


Everything posted by tsisson

  1. I would opt for Arizona over Chicago during Memorial Day. Having lived in Chicago for a decade...my home DZ was Skydive Chicago...love my roots, but it will rain. Let me be clear...it will rain all weekend. It rains every Memorial Day in Chicago, that is just the way it is. Ask anyone from the midwest if the weather is at all expected to be favorable for Memorial Day...they will tell you...it will rain. Expect to hear Tom Skilling on WGN Weather talk about the "cut off low pressure system" that is "parked over the Tri-State Region" bringing rain and heavy overcast for the entire Memorial day week. It will start raining on Weds before Memorial Day...and the rain will end the Weds after Memorial Day. Then it will be sunny on Thursday and Friday the week after the holiday, only to start raining again Saturday morning the following week...it will drive you to drink. I almost blew my head off living there... Now on the other hand...in Arizona...I can predict with 100% accuracy, that we will have bright sun and favorable conditions.
  2. When driving my big diesel F250...when I signal my intent to change lanes, and the drivers behind and beside decide to speed up to prevent my lane change...I assure you, I AM coming over...
  3. When was the last time you looked at a SIM? Check it out. I have the current SIM...but don't see what that has to do with my choice of major in college.
  4. Yes, time between groups...absolutely. I am agreeing with this completely...it's when we start expecting people to apply math equations in the door while a plane load of people are shouting Go, Go, Go is when things unravel...I just like to keep it simple, and count out a good delay. And yes, much longer when ground speed is slow...
  5. Remy, I guess what I'm saying...is I see and have experienced issues with people in our and other DZ's that get overloaded with too much created complexity while "in the moment"...and this isn't just isolated to skydiving. I think sometimes we try to over analyze things and create a workflow that essentially overwhelms people when things start happening fast. I think posting simple and easy to apply guidelines in aircraft is a great thing...but when we armchair this stuff with physics equations, it makes my eyes cross. I don't know how to work a slide rule, hence my dropping my major as a mechanical engineer one semester into college...
  6. Ok...here goes. I find that many jumpers, experienced or otherwise...have a hard time grasping simple concepts like not crossing the wind line in the LZ. Are we expecting this same population of jumpers to apply calculations and physics equations in the door of an airplane, with a bunch of impatient knuckleheads pressuring them to Go Go Go 2 seconds after the group ahead? I'm sticking with BG's concept of using your eyes, brain, and experience to create the right separation between groups. I'll skip the scientific calculator and computer based drift models.
  7. Or in the desert, where we have the brown bowl. :)
  8. "At two grand, the last thing you need is pretty gear". Racer, sort of like Porsche...there is no substitute...
  9. Drop to I-8 and you avoid Phoenix all together...
  10. There is a reason MotoGP bikes don't have speedos...
  11. I can't wait to see how this distracting little piece of gadgetry adds even more element of chaos and lack of awareness in the landing pattern. But I didn't see you because I was too busy monitoring my "heads up" display. But my altimeter said I was at 700 feet, my audible said 600, and my Johhny spaceman recon heads up unit said 500... I'm going to continue to trust my eyeballs thanks very much...
  12. Sounds like a simple "Get that fucking cigarette away from this gear" is in order.
  13. I'm not aware of any others, but I have a friend who just joined the Monastery there I believe...entered last week or so. Leo Guardado is his name. Please tell him hello for me if he is there... Tim Sisson
  14. I hope I never have a cutaway on a naked skydive, forcing an off airport landing in town - and getting hung up on the town square clock tower.
  15. "There's something on the wing!" Complacency is our gremlin...
  16. Style points folks...it's all about style points. Safety third...
  17. I'm don't claim to be the most experienced jumper in the world...but in the 18 years I have been jumping, I have heard this same line every year. 4 friends do not jump anymore. 1 dead, 1 in wheelchair, 1 permanently limps after a 3 month stay in a rehab clinic, and one seems fine but physically cannot jump from chronic pain associated from 2 femur breaks on the same jump. All of them hooked in on little canopies that they had no business jumping, all under 500 jumps experience. All of them chattering about how they had special skills and were the exception, and were "ready". These are just the close friends that have said the same things at about the same experience level as you...and do not include the ones I've seen hit the ground but didn't know. We'd like you to stick around and become an old and wise presence on your DZ...my advice, let the dead and injured's final lessons sink in, and SLOW DOWN!
  18. Many dollars and lots of emotion...sort of like dogs, some consider them like family...I think the reactions of some land owners finding their land and welfare of livestock at risk are well within the bounds of justified outrage. If I were a farmer or landowner affected negatively by jumpers landing on my property, and learned that I was being branded as irrational...I'd go fully "irrational". I'm not trying to fuel a crazy debate here...I just don't understand how we as a skydiving community can justify repeated encroachment on private property and putting livestock at risk for the sake of weekend fun and recreation. If I were a DZ owner, I'd reach out to all my neighbors and establish all non-negotiable landing areas, and do everything possible to mitigate the possibility of landing there. The last thing we need is a Hatfield vs. McCoy situation between DZ owner and neighboring farmers. "Screw with my horses and I'll screw with your dropzone business license". Stop landing on the farmer's property. If you don't think you can avoid landing there, don't jump. Find a new dropzone.
  19. Absolutely agree with your assessment of an event in the air affecting opening alti and the "need" to land safely. Growing up in a family of farmers however...I can tell you none of them would take kindly to a recreational business operation routinely putting their livestock at risk due to repeated emergencies requiring off airport landings. When I was younger in our sport, I used to feel more of a right to land wherever I needed to...but now as I've gotten older, I've grown to appreciate and give more respect to farmers and business owners that surround our drop zones. I will land in an electrified tree in the median of a 4 lane interstate surrounded by power lines before I will land on a farmers property having livestock.
  20. If jumpers landed on my property repeatedly, spooked my horses/livestock...and let's say a cow or horse got injured...I'd go ballistic. You are screwing with someone's castle...stop landing there. There is no emergency unless you are under a reserve...only a screw up with your spotting, canopy flight pattern/canopy control, or both. My argument if I were the farmer would be...these guys are not competent enough to land in there landing area, they should not be jumping as they are harming my livestock.