dmathews1960

If anyone following this thread knows where I can find a Paradactyl, I would be TRULY appreciative! Been looking for about a year now and still no luck!

Hey riggers - especially old guys like me! I have a very nice Delta II Parawing that I want to put into a modern, airworthy, piggyback harness/container system. I'm only guessing that I should look for something that would hold a modern 280 sq ft main. As modern canopies might pack smaller, is this big enough? Since I'll probably be finding one online, I would like to have the container size nailed down before purchasing something. Can anyone confirm that 280 is correct, or what the correct size should be? I'm setting it up with a BOC. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Yup. I have heard lots of stories of people stalling the single-keel dactyls and dropping about 1500 feet before recovering. And I have heard lots of stories of streamers using the Delta II OSI system, although I have concluded that at least some (maybe most) of these were due to packing error since the system was so unfamiliar to folks. And I have corresponded to people who have jumped single-keel dactyls, double-keel dactyls, and delta II's and the consensus seems to be that the double-keel was the most forgiving. I am working with a guy to purchase his Delta II, and I plan on jumping it sooner than later. But my greatest desire is to have (and jump) a double-keel dactyl. Since I'm AFF Program Director at Skydive Tecumseh, i think it would be cool for students to see a vintage canopy flying and know that students used to use them. Last week or so I posted in the Skydiving History and Trivia forum, and then in the Gear and rigging forum (since I figured there may be some old riggers in that group). I also posted on FaceBook in the Oldschool Skydiving group. In that group I got quite a bit of discussion and potentially found a Delta II, but still haven't located the twin-dactyl that anyone is willing to part with. If you hear anything, I would greatly appreciate the leads.... Thanks in advance. David Mathews [email protected] 269.470.9969

Thank you so much. I would really appreciate any help finding one!

Thank you so much for trying! I have a couple of leads I'm still working.

Thank you so much. Now that I'm no longer in the running for National Director, I don't have to worry about people thinking I don't have any common sense :)

Hi folks. I posted this in the history forum a few days ago but haven't made any progress, so I'm posting it here. My guess is some of you experienced old school riggers might be able to provide me with a lead. Thanks in advance. Hey Everyone: Like a lot of you, I grew up on rounds, made some Para-Commander jumps, and then bought a Strat-o-Cloud. I always thought, though, that the Delta II and the Paradactyl were the most beautiful canopies in the sky. I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Anyway, I've talked to some really helpful folks, and have convinced myself that my first choice is a double-keel Paradactyl, and my second choice is a Delta II. I am NOT obsessed with the idea of jumping a completely vintage container and setup. But I am somewhat obsessed by jumping one of these canopies, so my plan is to find one, get it inspected, and put it on three-rings in a modern container with a modern ram air reserve. I'm asking for help locating either a double-keel paradactyl or a Delta II. Any help or leads you might be able to give me are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. Now, the "why the hell do you want to do that?" comments can begin. :)

Absolutely beautiful! Do you still have the white one? Do you have any advice for me in trying to locate one (at this point I would be happy to get a single keel one)

Someone told me they had a Delta II. I got it a couple of weekends ago to look at, and it turned out to be a PZ-81, so I returned it. Last weekend I acquired a Para-Commander Mark 1 that looks and feels brand new in a shortbow-crossbow container. I also got a crossbow 26- steerable conical reserve that also looks brand new in a standard belly mount setup. I have no interest in getting these back in the air, but couldn't pass them up because of the quality. I am mentioning this to everyone who has vintage gear interests in the hopes that someone will be interested in these. I think finding a double-keel dactyl or a Delta II is simply going to require talking to lots of folks before finding someone that has theirs (or their Dad's) in the closet. I'll keep you posted if I find anything.

Thank you so much for your willingness to help!

Hey Everyone: Like a lot of you, I grew up on rounds, made some Para-Commander jumps, and then bought a Strat-o-Cloud. I always thought, though, that the Delta II and the Paradactyl were the most beautiful canopies in the sky. I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Anyway, I've talked to some really helpful folks, and have convinced myself that my first choice is a double-keel Paradactyl, and my second choice is a Delta II. I am NOT obsessed with the idea of jumping a completely vintage container and setup. But I am somewhat obsessed by jumping one of these canopies, so my plan is to find one, get it inspected, and put it on three-rings in a modern container with a modern ram air reserve. I'm asking for help locating either a double-keel paradactyl or a Delta II. Any help or leads you might be able to give me are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. Now, the "why the hell do you want to do that?" comments can begin. :)

Thanks. I've linked up with Craig Bulman and Andrew Hilton from the UK. They have been TREMENDOUSLY helpful.

Is anyone still on this thread who can talk to me about the Delta II?

Hey Everybody: Voting in the USPA National Director Special Election ends Friday June 30th. A couple of days ago, on another internet group, someone challenged me regarding my opinion on Collegiate Nationals. I am posting BOTH his comment, and my response below, so you can see where I'm coming from. Once again, if you agree with the things I'm saying, I would REALLY appreciate your vote. Thank you. Here's his comment: we had a record attendance of 92 competitors at Collegiates last year. What's your reasoning for why this is "completely unacceptable"? How many attendees would you find to be acceptable? What ideas do you have to increase participation? Rookiefest may be an unfair comparisons as it's open to anyone with 200 or fewer jumps and less than 18 months in the sport -- there may be thousands of such people. Collegiates is open to college students who have the time & resources to also be skydivers. My Response: Thanks for your comment. I think the first step to improving any situation is coming to some shared agreement that we can/should do something different. Here is my reasoning: There are over 3,000 colleges and universities in the US. Nearly 4,000 if you count branch campuses. By headcount, there are somewhere around 16 million college students nationally. According to the listing in Parachutist, there are 5 College clubs. Clearly the Parachutist list isn't complete, as the service academies aren't listed - which may or may not operate as a club. But you get the picture. My strategy for increasing participation at Collegiate Nationals would be: 1. first to increase the number of active college clubs. I would favor USPA convening a task force including members who have collegiate experience themselves along with Group Member DZ's that are interested in hosting a club. (Forming a club isn't really that hard, I was able to work with students and Michigan State University staff to recreate their club this year). So the first step would be engaging members toward this worthy goal. I would favor USPA making it a high-level, visible priority. 2. I would also ask USPA to create metrics as to the number of Colleges represented each of the last ten years (I would have said five were it not for Covid), and the number of participants. Using this benchmark data, I would ask the task force to set a goal - I honestly don't know what that would be, but how about a Big Goal of ultimately having say 50 Colleges represented at Nationals, or 100? I don't think this is unrealistic, because the system is already set up to allow single skydivers from a College to compete. (I completely agree with you that Rookiefest isn't a good comparison - it was just my attempt to say that if you put effort into new skydivers, good things can happen) 3. I would use Parachutist magazine to highlight this activity, generate interest, etc. The recent USPA webinar was a good start, but as you might guess, had very low participation. The most recent member survey of USPA members shows that if we want to communicate with current members, the print version of Parachutist is the way to go. **Postscript: When I wrote the above answer in the other forum, it was mostly from memory. Further checking confirms about twelve million of these undergraduate students are full-time, plus there's another 3 million graduate students (I don't know how many are full-time) But in any case, there's more than 13 million college students in the pool from which to draw (since the competition rules require full-time enrollment the previous semester). So yes, I think we really can (and should) do better than 95 participants from just a handful of institutions. Clearly, though, this just my opinion.

@sfzombie13 Excellent idea. But I have one caveat. I want a MAJOR revision of each first. After that, I would anticipate minor, incremental changes that should be easily tracked as you suggest.

@BMAC615 Clearly, the third party liability insurance is a value to every dues paying member. Although we can all argue about whether we should be forced to purchase insurance (we are with auto liability insurance), it is a benefit to not only skydivers but to the dropzones we need to know that if someone damages another's property, it won't mean the DZ is sued. I believe the efforts on behalf of Safety, including the annual summary of fatalities and the new analysis of non-fatal injuries, Safety Day, and ongoing Safety messaging is also a benefit to members. I don't know what percentage of the 42,000 members have instructional ratings, but clearly for those who do (like myself) it is a benefit to have a nationally recognized group administer those ratings courses and keep the ratings records. A much smaller number of people probably compete. But clearly the competition oversight and organization is a benefit to those who do - both nationally and internationally. BTW, I think that competitions could become more common if done virtually like the recent "Cloud Games" sponsored by Skydive Chicago. This would be a natural thing for USPA to do. I think that if the SIM was a readable, engaging publication, it could serve, and engage, members better. I think if the membership regularly interacted with the Governing Board as I have suggested by holding AT LEAST one day of each BOD meeting at a busy dropzone (preferably at a large boogie), in an environment where many of the membership would be heard from, and many of the membership would interact directly with Board members, there would be greater "buy-in" by members. This is doubly true if the things members were saying were then acted on by the Board. I think that if not only candidate bios, but also statements of what candidates think the USPA is doing well and what they think the USPA should change or improve were made widely available to membership before voting, and if the USPA created an online candidate forum for every election that focused on real issues rather than just name recognition, there would be more of a feeling among membership that their vote counted, and that they really were having a say in the organization. These are all, however, just my opinions.

@BMAC615 Thanks for asking. Let me start first with my opinion (so you can decide if you think what I'm saying has any merit.) It is my opinion that the majority of fun jumpers would NOT belong to USPA if given a choice. They join, and pay, because they have to in order to be able to jump. I don't think that I always had this opinion, but now after 2 months of campaigning and talking to LOTS of folks, this is what I believe. I think that the 6% voter turnout in the last USPA general election bears this out. Either folks think that their vote doesn't count, or they think that it wont matter who is elected because they feel that nothing will change. So, one metric for membership engagement is voter turnout. In order to increase this, I would change the 250 word "bio/candidate statement" to a three part question that would be asked of all candidates, and printed one month in advance in Parchutist magazaine. It would be a) Bio; b) What in your opinion is USPA doing well?; c) What in your opinion should USPA change and do differently. It is my opinion that if the membership was given that information in advance of the election, and if the USPA would also have an online candidate forum, that there would be lots of productive, not-always-comfortable, conversations and we could re-engage some members. An additional strategy for engaging the membership would be to resolve to hold at least one day of every USPA Board meeting at an active DZ. In other words, have the Board meet where members are. In my opinion, it would be best to do this for one dat at SDC Summerfest or some other big event with hundreds or thousands of skydivers in attendance. The Board members are high-quality folks, and it would do the Association good if we structured events such as this to encourage en-masse Board/skydiver interactions. Finally, the Governance Manual calls for an annual membership meeting. As far as I can tell, there has never been a membership meeting that met the substantial requirements for a quorum. Hence, the membership isn't engaging as the Governance Manual envisioned. I would work to solve this. Maybe a virtual meeting? Maybe lower the quorum required? Maybe a big bi-annual boogie/meeting? I don't know what the answer is. I am only saying that in my opinion the Association would be stronger if more members were engaged, and I think that if we can agree on that, we can put our heads together and make this happen. And by the way, I would encourage DZ's to "adopt" a college team. My goal would be to at least double the number of registered collegiate teams, and at least double the number of participants at Collegiate Nationals. This would engage a substantial number of fun-jumpers in making this happen, and would be very positive for the sport. These are just a few ideas.......I have more.

Wendy: I'm glad you two voted. Over and over again, national research shows even non-voters say that voting is easy. Difficulty in the process is not the major reason people don't vote https://www.npr.org/2020/12/16/947182471/why-people-dont-vote. (I am not saying that there are not barriers to voting in national elections) Over and over again, researchers find that people don't vote because they don't feel their vote will make a difference and that they don't feel that things will change regardless of who is elected. I believe that these same factors come into play and can explain why so many USPA members don't vote in elections. The process is easy, but still in the last general election there was about a 6% voter turnout. As I've written on other forums (and maybe here....I've lost track), I think the membership would be better served if the USPA would print candidate bio's and candidate platforms in Parachutist the month before the election. Something as simple as the existing bio format and two questions: What do you think USPA is doing well?, and What do you think USPA should change or do differently? would go a long way in helping people to see that different candidates have different visions, and the outcome of the election might actually matter. I cannot promise that I will actually be able to accomplish anything if elected. What I can promise is that, if elected, I will work tirelessly to make this happen, and to make the other changes I've outlined in this thread. David Mathews

Half way down…Half way back We are about half-way through the June Special Election for the USPA National Director vacancy. Based on recent history, more than 90% of USPA members HAVE NOT yet voted, and WILL NOT vote in this election, leaving the decision up to a very small group of voters. I understand why most people don’t vote in these elections. Most fun jumpers just want to jump, hang out with their friends, and not be bothered by political BS. Besides, in the absence of information, it’s easy to believe that it really won’t make a difference who is elected. Most fun jumpers have just resigned themselves to the need to pay for a membership in order to jump, but don’t expect much more than that. I love skydiving, I love the skydiving community, and I like the USPA. The USPA is a great resource for safety information and promoting safe skydiving and is a very good organization for producing and certifying instructors. We have a great collection of outstanding skydivers on the current Board of Directors, and on the USPA staff. But, in my opinion, there are some serious issues that need to be addressed to make the organization serve the members as well as it could. Based on the feedback that I have received since announcing my candidacy in mid-April, LOTS of people agree with most of these proposed changes. However, not everyone does…. I have also received some serious pushback. It is my belief that if I am not elected, the changes that I have proposed will not take place. If you have not yet voted, or if you are aware that your friends have not voted, I ask you to look at the issues that I have raised and see if you agree with me. You may even want to watch the Casual Chat interview that Brian Germain did with me (link provided in this thread) where I flesh out these issues, or check out the document that I put on my website: Mathewsadventureservices.com. If you support these changes, I am asking that you PLEASE VOTE. Thanks for your time.

Half way down…Half way back We are about half-way through the June Special Election for the USPA National Director vacancy. Based on recent history, more than 90% of USPA members HAVE NOT yet voted, and WILL NOT vote in this election, leaving the decision up to a very small group of voters. I understand why most people don’t vote in these elections. Most fun jumpers just want to jump, hang out with their friends, and not be bothered by political BS. Besides, in the absence of information, it’s easy to believe that it really won’t make a difference who is elected. Most fun jumpers have just resigned themselves to the need to pay for a membership in order to jump, but don’t expect much more than that. I love skydiving, I love the skydiving community, and I like the USPA. The USPA is a great resource for safety information and promoting safe skydiving and is a very good organization for producing and certifying instructors. We have a great collection of outstanding skydivers on the current Board of Directors, and on the USPA staff. But, in my opinion, there are some serious issues that need to be addressed to make the organization serve the members as well as it could. Based on the feedback that I have received since announcing my candidacy in mid-April, LOTS of people agree with most of these proposed changes. However, not everyone does…. I have also received some serious pushback. It is my belief that if I am not elected, the changes that I have proposed will not take place. If you have not yet voted, or if you are aware that your friends have not voted, I ask you to look at the issues that I have raised and see if you agree with me. You may even want to watch the Casual Chat interview that Brian Germain did with me (link provided in this thread) where I flesh out these issues, or check out the document that I put on my website: Mathewsadventureservices.com. If you support these changes, I am asking that you PLEASE VOTE. Thanks for your time.

Louis: Thank you for your comments, and your willingness to share my info. I hope to meet you in the future.

Hi Everyone: If you haven't seen it, Brian Germain interviewed me on his Casual Chat Program regarding this election. I have included the link, and hope you will take the time to watch it. Thank you very much.https://youtu.be/1czOaqShKZQ

Louis: One of my favorite quotes in life is: “It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.” ― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince I am quite aware of the previous attempts you have mentioned. I have 18 years experience working FOR an elected board. I know how to get things done. Regarding the meeting locations, the Board cannot leave this up to the administration. The Board needs to do a formal resolution, and perhaps a change to the Governance manual, that dictates that at least one day of multi-day board meetings will take place at an operating drop zone. Period. Nothing short of this is going to work. There will always be "oh, it's too late now" or " but we meet with PIA" or some other reason put forth. I believe that this is so important that it must be formalized by Board action. Next, somewhere in one of these threads I acknowledged that the recent rewrite to Section 4 of the SIM is a TREMENDOUS improvement over previous editions. It still falls short of the standard that I have come to expect from instructional material because it has stayed committed to the one bite-size idea to a letter-number-letter-indexing system. I have published textbooks, and scholarly papers, and many other documents. I have done research on how people learn mathematical concepts. In short, connections are as important as facts. This bite-size information piece ignores the important logical connectors. Besides that, some of the documents are just incomprehensible because of too many rewrites, or possibly (and I hope its not the case) that someone wants to obscure the truth. Take for example the IRM statement on converting a foreign rating to a USPA AFF rating. I have a Ph.D. and I cannot determine what it is saying. I will try to fix this, and I will try to engage others in this change. I am being supported by three other members of the Board of Directors. I think I can build a coalition of the willing. But I might fail. Especially because this election is only for a partial term. To be successful, I will have to build consensus, and get reelected. And I will have to build this consensus while pointing out problems. You are correct in identifying that this is a difficult task. I have talked to many, many members as part of my campaign. I can honestly say that I believe at least HALF of the 42 thousand USPA members would not pay the dues to belong if they didn't have to in order to jump. This is a real problem. We have to honestly address member engagement (much beyond the cursory overview that exists in this month's Parachutist) if we are going to improve. Although it's hard, I'm going to try. I hope you will be with me. Thanks David

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