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The summer is on cruise control.
I like to start by saying my amazing staff keeps the place running like a fine tuned machine. No matter what hurdles come up we leap over them and never look back.
Please excuse the dust in the west lawn. I guess SDC scares the sh*! out of a lot of people throughout the summer. The septic was having trouble keeping up. We installed a curtain drain around the perimeter to aid in draining. We will have the dirt pile removed by this coming weekend.
This past Friday was Jump for Aids. Thanks to Stacy for organizing the event and bringing out all the tandems. www.jumpforaids.com for more info.
Saturday started off great with Rhythm, Standard, and the Furies starting off the day bright and early. David and his soldiers were ready for the first tandem class to finish. Herman and Dave were keeping us airborne and the great manifest team kept things under control. About mid afternoon an overcast cloud layer crept in and put us on a weather hold. Even though the tandem masters cranked through 130 tandems we still had 65 more to go. Once the day was called the remaining tandems flooded the office wanting to know how early they could show up Sunday to jump. Looks like we are going to open a little earlier.
Saturday night we made a plan for attacking the morning and all the rain checks that were coming out. Mick, Noah, Will and Dave Schwartz all volunteered to help out and I would cover flying in the morning. Once we had the team assembled we toasted a few rounds then headed to bed.
Just after 7am we took off with the first Otter load. Many of the tandems were in the parking lot waiting for us to open. I never shut down with Rhythm taking advantage of the early start to get more jumps in. By 10am we had completed over 50 tandems without breaking a sweat. Mid-morning, after 12 loads, I handed the plane back over to Dave. The tandem team was making short work of all the tandems and by days end cranked out 194. Not bad for a Sunday.
On the other side of the hanger Todd and Lisa were organizing some groups. Keeping to smaller groups it allowed everyone that was jumping to turn some good jumps. Todd and Lisa will be organizing again Sept. 13-14.
Congratulations to Chuck and Sally who got married in Colorado this past Saturday. Enjoy your new life together.
Coming up September 19-20 Flying Fish will be organizing a New Wave Boogie. They have asked not to charge a registration so they can give back to the sport. The following is a post from them:
Join us for the Fall New Wave Boogie presented by the Flying Fish.
We'll provide RW organizing, Fun Jumps (i.e. Mr. Potato Head Jumps), and there will be Wingsuit Demos provided by Tony Gwinn. Join us for the boogie designed for jumpers with less than 300 jumps! With no registration fee, sign up on Facebook or at www.sdcFlyingFish.com.
Karen Softcheck will also be on hand organizing RW flyers this weekend. Don’t miss Karen’s Debut LO weekend at SDC. Stick around Sunday for Swoop club and get your swoop on.
Here’s a message from Max:
This is just a quick reminder for this coming weekend. The weatherman has been wrong more than he has been right lately so ignore the weather forecast and plan on jumping this weekend. The 8 way team will be practicing but that doesn't mean that there is no other skydiving going on - so if you are not a part of FOC then come jump with us. The last time that the team practiced we still got some really nice jumps in so plan to come out. If you don’t go the airport - you can’t jump. I will be organizing again and would like to get an earlyish start so I will be in the hanger at 8:30 in the morning and would like to be dirt diving by 9 or so. Please e-mail me back and let me know if you will be able to be there so I can get a head count. See you all on Saturday.
SDC will be home to the fastest jump planes in the Midwest! We have just purchased another set of PT6A-34s. This ups the horsepower by 125 horsepower! The motors are basically brand new with only 970 hours since new! These types of engines are almost unheard of in the skydiving industry. In addition to new engines 30 will get a new set of paddle props. Even though there is no such thing as a perfectly good airplane we go the extra mile to prove them wrong. We will be installing the engine after Labor Day.
While we are installing the engine the Skyvan will be flying here September 12-13 at no additional cost. This is the last time a tailgate will be in the Midwest till next summer. Come out and take advantage.
SDC Standard, our VRW team, is hosting a tunnel camp September 14-17. We will be flying in the HUGE paraclete tunnel. If you haven’t been to this tunnel you are missing out. No other tunnel can compare to how massive it is. If you are interested please ask one of the team for more info or email rook@skydivechicago.com.
We could really use everybody’s support fighting this power line issue. Our next step along the way is to over fill the Dayton Township Hall meeting on September 14th at 7pm. It will only take about 15 minutes of your time and it will really help. For more information on the issue visit www.foxriveralliance.org.
It seems like summer, not that it was ever here in full force, is rapidly fading away. We all know what’s coming. See you all this weekend.
Rook
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