The DZO (B)Logbook

Hey Everyone,

Well it was a wet weekend, but even with the long weather delay, Big Mike made all thirty jumps to celebrate his birthday!  Also, Lauren got her A-License.  Thanks to everyone who came out to help Mike and stuck out the weather delays!

Gary’s Birthday Boogie is this weekend.  Jeff from Tony Suits will be organizing some flocking dives.  Our own Tom Hayden will be organizing the freeflyers.  We will be using our caravan all weekend as the cost of bringing another aircraft in is very cost prohibitive right now.  Beertruck will be providing a few kegs and we will be getting Sonny’s to bring over the food.  Come on out and help Gary celebrate another year.

We will be open on the Fourth of July for anyone interested in coming out.  There are several demo jumps going on this weekend involving several of our jumpers and aircraft. 

Safety issue of the week.  We had a jump this past weekend where we didn’t do a good job getting the word out on landing direction.  Please listen up in the plane and  let’s all decide on a direction and stick to it.  Thanks.

Everyone have a safe week and we will see you in the air soon.

Blue Skies,

Art

Hey everyone,
 
Well the new plane is up and running and we are definitely making the best of it.  We got 20 loads up last weekend, even in the sweltering heat!  Congrats go out to Yumi, Karen and Scott for getting their A-Licenses!  If you missed it, we also had a little ceremony for Jack Lalond getting his 6,000 jump wings from USPA. 
 
On the 21st, Big Mike is going to be making 30 jumps to celebrate his birthday.  He is also having a couple of kegs at the end of the day to help celebrate the event.  Come on out and cheer him on!
 
We are going to have a boogie on the 28th and 29th for Gary’s 61st birthday.  Jeff from Tony Suits is coming up to lead the wingsuiters.  The Tom Hayden will be organizing the freeflyers.  The Falling Gators are also running a tandem special that weekend.  It should be a fun filled weekend, so come on out and help Gary celebrate another year.
 
Now for the bad news.  The price of Jet fuel (which the caravan burns) went up $1.50 last weekend.  If you don’t know, it takes about 1.3 gallons of fuel per jumper to get to altitude.  This being said, the jump prices are going to have to be raised one dollar starting this weekend to cover this increase.  We also need to be more aware of this when we are boarding the aircraft.  Please help us keep the plane idling down to a minimum.  Even at idle, we are burning almost a gallon a minute.  The prices for tandems and AFF jumps will also rise accordingly.
 
On the safety side.  The heat is on!  Please stay hydrated when you are out at the DZ.  Use sunscreen to protect yourself from the sun.  If you are starting to feel the effects of the heat and sun, take a break and sit down inside the ac and recover.
 
Be safe out there and we will see you in the air!  

Blue Skies,
Art

Hey Everyone,
 
What a GREAT weekend!  We flew 30 loads in the new caravan!  JP got his A-License and the stamp to the forehead.  Jumping started Friday with a splash into Gator’s Landing to celebrate Max’s Birthday!  The Tree People were out in force, making lots of large RW formations.  Dennis Reed’s demo team made a jump at St. John’s Community College in Orange Park to support the high school bands in Clay County Sunday night.  We had 5 people make their first AFF jumps, along with all the tandems and others working towards their A-license.
 
Things on the horizon.  Throughout the summer, we will be open at noon every Friday.  On June 22, Big Mike is celebrating his 30th birthday by making 30 jumps.  Come on out, help support him and celebrate with him afterwards.  We are going to have a boogie the following weekend to celebrate Gary’s Birthday.  Jeff from Tony Suits is coming up to organize some flocking dives.  More to follow…
 
On the safety front.  As many people know, when you are doing a hop-n-pop out of the caravan, the pilot is not leveling the plane off.  This means the tail is lower than normal.  Please stay low and do not launch up when exiting! 
 
Be safe and we will see you in the air!

Blue Skies,
Art

Hey Everyone,
 
We now have a full time Cessna Caravan at the DZ.  
 
We are going to start this weekend on Friday at noon.  Come on out and join the fun.  Max is going to celebrate his birthday by jumping at Gator’s Landing (into the river) at the end of the day. The Tree people are coming from Tallahassee to do some big-ways on Saturday. We are going to be open on Monday to celebrate Memorial Day.
 
Some things happening in the next few months. Big Mike is going to celebrate his birthday June 21st by making 30 jumps that day.  The following weekend is Gary’s Birthday Bash.  We are still trying to secure some other aircraft as Jeff from Tony Suits will be up organizing some large flocks for the birdmen.
 
On the safety side, we had some bad spots this past weekend with quite a few people landing out.  Everyone did a good job of finding an alternate safe landing area.  Remember, when you find yourself off, make you have a route to a safe landing area that includes some outs, in case you don’t reach your first choice.
 
Be safe and have fun! 

Blue Skies,
Art

Hey Everyone,

Well, we had one busy day on Saturday!  Lots of jumping that actually started on Friday.  We ended up making 30 loads for the weekend, the best of the year so far!  Karen finished her AFF on Sunday.  Anyone wanting to see two new skydivers fly the landing pattern that we preach about, should have watched her and Colleen (level 6 AFF student) when they were on the same load together.  Anyone who has lent a hand teaching them deserves a pat on the back.

The good news is…we have a caravan for a long term lease!  Right now it is going through a pre-buy inspection in Atlanta.  If everything is good, we will be seeing our full-time caravan here very shortly!  Along with that comes the fact that we need to keep it flying more than ever as now we tied financially to a large plane.  What does this mean?  The break even point for having it here is an average of 20 loads a week.  In order to make this work, we need to support it!

Tomorrow, we will be flying loads starting at noon.  The Falling Gators are coming out to celebrate the end of the semester.  Everyone is welcome to come out and join them.

Along with that, we are going to start being open every Friday at least through the summer and possibly longer if the interest stays strong.  We have been flying 5- 10 182 loads and several caravan loads the last few weeks on Friday, let’s keep it going!

It has been quite a while since we have had a serious injury at the DZ.  Let’s not let our guard down because of this.  Remember and review your safety procedures on every jump.  Fly predictable and safe patterns when landing.  Watch out for each other out there!

Be safe, see you in the air soon!

Blue Skies,
Art

Hey everyone,

What a weekend we had!  The place was hopping with both tandems and experience jumpers Friday through Sunday.  The caravan flew just about as many loads as it was capable of Saturday, Jim never got out after 10 on Saturday until it shut down at sunset.  We made over 400 jumps this weekend.  JacK Lalonde made his 5000th and got the traditional pie as we were all enjoying the sunset.  Jeremy got his A-license.  Although he came up a little short of his goal, Danny made 18 jumps on his birthday Sunday.  A great weekend was had by all!

This week we are starting on Thursday with practice for the swoop competition this Saturday.  There are lots of competitors coming into town for this, besides some of our own.  Also, we have a company that is going to be broadcasting the event live on the web.  A reporter and photographer from the New York Times are also flying down to cover the event.  This is looking to be a pretty large event, so come on out, jump (we will not be shutting down the DZ for the competition), watch the competition and enjoy some of Marvin’s cooking at the end of the day.

Couple of things going on at the DZ.  We need to not put any trash in the firepits.  This is a violation of a city ordinance and because of some other things going on around the airport, we are under closer supervision.  As you may also notice, the trailers have all been removed.  From now on we can have trailers there for the weekend, but they can only be there for a maximum of three nights.  We are working with the city to extend this, but for now that is the rule.

Thanks to everyone for your continued support!

Blue Skies,

Art

Hey Everyone,

Well, the weather was our second worst enemy this past weekend.  The wind plagued us all weekend, besides being rained out on Saturday.  On top of it all, the mechanics decided to keep the caravan down for the weekend (a situation that will not happen again).  A quick call to Skydive Deland and a huge thank you to Bob Hallett (the DZO) for bringing the PAC up for us on Sunday.  We made 9 full loads in it before it had to return.  Thanks to everyone who came out to brave the elements and jump.

The staff meeting has been rescheduled for this Saturday.  Everyone is invited to attend!  A new student canopy instructional program will be introduced.  Everyone input as always will be warmly welcomed!

This Friday (Feb. 1st), the caravan is going to be used by one of the rig manufacturers for some test jumps (three to four loads).  We will be starting at around 8:30, so come on out and fill the caravan up.

March 8th is the swoop meet.  It looks like this event series is really growing and many of out own are planning on competing.  Come on out and either participate or cheer your favorite swooper on.

Thanks to everyone for another safe weekend!

Blue Skies,

Art

Hey Everyone,

Well, the weather gods were not very kind to us again this past weekend!  Although we had over 40 people brave the elements and register for the boogie!  James, Danny and Sara all got the new A-license stamp to the forehead by completing all of their tests during the downtime.  We did get to jump hard on Sunday though, making lots of caravan and cessna loads throughout the day.  Thanks to the Falling Gators for putting on another Great event!

This Saturday there is going to be a staff meeting after all of the jumping is done.  This is open to everyone.  Please speak up if you have any concerns about how we do things out here.  Jairo is going to be unveiling our new canopy program to help us educate our new jumpers better. 

Remember March 8th is the swoop competition.  This is a very exciting event and I believe many of our own local jumpers will be competing in it.  Come on out, support them and maybe pick up some pointers on canopy piloting.

Also, we are going to make Gary’s Birthday Bash an annual event!  this year it is going to be June 27th through the 29th.  Make plans now to attend, it should be another good time!

Thanks to everyone for another safe weekend at the DZ.  See you in the air soon!

Blue Skies,

Art

Hey everyone,

Well…one of these weekends the weatherman will get the forecast right, what is the saying “even a blind squirrel finds an acorn”.  After promising good weather, Saturday was anything but, although we did get up three caravan loads and lots of low cessna loads, it was never a very nice day.  We did get to welcome our new friends from Tallahassee, the Tree People.  For those who haven’t met them, it seems they are without a turbine aircraft now and will be joining us to jump a couple of weekends a month.  Most of them are big RW fans, so I am sure some of our belly fliers are going to enjoy their presence.  Sunday brought some of the best weather we have seen in a long time once the fog burned off.  The caravan was running up and down with full loads the rest of the day!  Thanks to everyone who came out!

The Collegiate Boogie is right around the corner!  The Falling Gators plans are all coming together to make this a memorable event!  So make plans to be there.  We will start jumping on Friday and on through Monday.  Food and beer are being provided for a small registration fee that all goes to providing for the extra entertainment.  Don’t miss this one!

Remember the Florida Canopy Pilots Assoc. is coming to our DZ on March 8th for a competition.  The meet is open to everyone as there are several classes classes in which you can compete.  So no matter what level you are at, this should be a fun event to test and improve your landing techniques.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed our landing procedures with the visiting jumpers.  They took to our landing pattern real well and had a lot nice things to about how we did things here.

We have put a calendar on the website now!  If you go to the website and click on “Skydive Palatka Calendar” under Art’s blog it will bring up a calendar that is updated everyday.  This way, if we happen to be jumping during the week, it will be posted.  Also any special events, number of tandems/students, etc, will be posted.

Thanks to everyone for another safe weekend, let’s keep it up!  

Blue Skies,

Art

Hey Everyone,

I hope everyone had a happy and safe new year celebration!  This past Saturday brought us our first good weather day in quite a while!  Everyone out took full advantage of it to the tune of 11 caravan loads and just about as many from the 182.  At the end of the day Tammie made her thousandth jump building a big round!  Sunday brought the weather, Monday initially wasn’t much better although the cessna was going up and down full of people doing hop-n-pops both days.  The skies cleared for us in the evening so that several jumpers were able to make their first night jumps, then a full caravan load at midnight to bring in the new year!  Thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate with us.

There is a new building on the DZ.  Doc and Eric have put up the “birdhouse”, further details to follow as this discipline continues to grow at our DZ.

The Collegiate Boogie is planned for for the 18th through the 21st.  This is open to everyone, not just the Falling Gators.  Come on out and enjoy a fun filled weekend of skydiving!

Now for the bad news…..with the increase costs of fuel for the aircraft (almost a $1.50/gal), we are going to have to increase the price of the jumps.  So, the costs of all jumps is going up $1.00 going forward. 

So with that out of the way, let me remind everyone of the perks that are and always have been availiable.  First, if you pre-paid $1000 for your jumps, you will receive $1100 of credit on the books. Only a couple of people have taken advantage of this over the past year, but it is a great perk.  Second, for every tandem anyone brings out, they will receive $10 of credit. Finally, the first cessna 182 load (to 3500) on Saturday or Sunday that leaves the ground before 9:00 AM is free.  This is on a first come, first serve basis.

Thanks to everyone for improving on the climbouts as the green light goes on, it has made a difference!

Blue Skies,

Art