HOME

TANDEM

FREE FALL SCHOOL

RESERVATIONS

Waha 2007

April 2008

Aloha,

It has been a long time since the last newsletter.  While I must apologize for not putting some energy above the keyboard, but the holiday season and end of the year celebrations were just flat, as the Caravan engine was out for overhaul.  The Caravan missed the entire first week of the Party in Paradise ’08.  The good news is that the overhauled engine is working fine and the Caravan has returned to the flight line as the dependable work horse it has always been. 

Congratulations to Richard Doppelmayer for making his 10,000^th tandem jump with DZO Frank Hinshaw.  Little did Bill Boyd know all those years ago that in his static line class sat one of Hawaii’s future stars.  Everyone who has had the opportunity to make on of his 10,000 tandem jumps knows what true professional standards Richard has set for himself and treats each passenger to on each jump.

Our efforts to jump at other airports in the State of Hawaii’s Department of Transportation system appear to be ignored.  While it is sad that the airports division is managed by bureaucrats who seem unwilling to do much of anything to serve general aviation, Hana Airport looks like a great place to skydive, and we look forward to opening a skydiving facility on Maui.

Skydive Hawaii has some great staff additions.  Clint Clawson, John “JC Colclasure and Shaylan Allman of pro swooping fame have returned to Hawaii and have again can be found swooping Dillingham Airfield.  Shaylan was kind enough to bring his lady friend, Melissa Nelson of Skydive Chicago fame along to really turn a nice staff addition into a great staff addition.  While there will be many days when the group is performing professional demos, swooping tour and world record events, Skydive Hawaii is proud for them to perform their magic with our students of skydiving.

Skydive staff have begun helping the conservators at Pu’u O Mahuka Heiau.  The heiau is the largest on Oahu and the first place where the white man was observed in Hawaii.  Our efforts to cut and remove brush from this cultural treasure of Hawaii is a way for us to give back to the Hawaiian culture.  The next opportunity to help will be on April 29^th, 6:30am to 8:30am.  Wear hard soled shoes and bring gloves, water, and an attitude ready to rock and roll.

Polo season is right around the corner.  We will again treat the polo match spectators with skydive demonstration between chuckers.  See Clarence Lopez at the drop zone to get a slot for the 2:00pm jumps Sunday afternoons.

The Party in Paradise ’09 will be coordinated by Clint Clawson and Joey Jones.  They did a wonderful job at this year’s event.  Besides Clint’s group, Lemonhead showed up to organize jumps for the first week of the party and Amy Chemlecki added some had down finesse to those who were able to join her.  Thank you to all those who participated in Party in Paradise ’08.

World Peace,

October 2007

Aloha,

Thank you all for such a wonderful summer.  We completed our largest single reservation – 100 tandem skydivers from the Semester at Sea program.  What made this reservation interesting was that they couldn’t get off the ship before 10:00am.  So that was 100 tandem jumps beginning at 11:00am at the drop zone.

Our request to jump at Hana Airport is under review by the FAA.  The local FSDO reached a hasty decision that skydiving was not safe at Hana Airport.  Skydive Hawaii’s offer to meet with the FAA was turned down prior to their findings and report to the State.  Since other skydiving operators have already been given approval to skydive at Hana Airport, the Honolulu FSDO is now needlessly dragging the process out.  U.S. Senator Inouye’s staff will hopefully help the Honolulu FSDO understand that skydiving can continue to be conducted safely under FAR Parts 105 and 91 at Hana Airport.

Polo season finished at the end of September.  All the jumpers who participated in the Sunday skydiving demonstrations put on some real shows for the crowd.  Skydive Hawaii and skydivers all over the world benefit from this great relationship with Mokuleia Polo.  The polo field has been considered an alternate drop zone, and our Sunday demonstration jumps are our way of saying mahalo nui.

Our skydive memorial is looking great.  Despite all the groans and moans when the first tree was trimmed, all the trees are full of new growth and look great.  Grass is actually growing inside the circle, as there is more sunlight to sustain life.  Kytte is hard at work keeping the grass growing and putting in a new stone walkway.  Since the State has never lifted a finger to maintain the memorial, improving the looks of this scared area is our simple way to show our respect for our brothers and sisters.

Party in Paradise is on.  Lemonhead will organize Caravan loads of fun jumpers December 28 to January 6, 2008.  Amy Chemlecki will be showing us all some new ways for fun February 9 to February 18, 2008.  In between these two great organizers, training camps will be held each week for free style, swooping and birdman jumps.  Each week’s participants are limited to only 40.  Limited camping is available off the drop zone, so sign up early.

Since July, the Koi have grown to 10 inches.  The water lilies add some additional beautiful splashes of color to the pond.  Combined with the sound of the waterfalls, the Koi pond has become an area of peace and tranquility.   The Akua and Buddha provide spiritual light, peace and aloha at either end, watch, protect and shield the drop zone.  Many mahalos go to Lyle for his continued hard work in maintaining this special place at Skydive Hawaii.

Peace in our lifetime, 

July 2007

Aloha,

Much of the extreme sports world morns the loss of Hawaii’s own, Jimmy Hall, May 9^th on Canada’s Baffin Island.  This tragedy occurred during a BASE jump from a spot out of the consciousness of most.  Jimmy lived life at a pace, which would leave most people gasping for breath, but at the same time he would be relaxed, calm, and collected.  His accomplishments are too many for this space, and leaving some out would not properly serve his memory.  Please visit JimmyHallTribute.com for more information about Jimmy.

Congratulations again to Mr. Jake Kilfoyle, Instructor here at Skydive Hawaii.  He recently returned to Hawaii after placing 5^th in Freestyle at The Pro Swooping Tour's 2007 Air Festival and Mile Hi Canopy Cup.  Jake placed 16^th overall in the event.  This is the second year Jake has placed in the Pro Swooping Tour and he also placed 8^th at USPA Nationals last year.

Congratulations are also in order for Ms. Yumi Terashima of Aichiken, Japan, who made her 2,000^th jump at Skydive Hawaii.  She was proud of the fact that the majority of her jumps had been made here at Skydive Hawaii.  Yumi-san returned to Japan after the July 4^th holiday.  

The 3^rd Annual Return to Flight event will be hosted at Skydive Hawaii August 18^th.  Come join us in celebrating the Statehood weekend.  Our activities will begin at 13:00.  Seminars about flight as well as health and science will be conducted.  The youngest participants will be building and launching air rockets.  The event is free and open to students, parents, and educators.

The big news has got to be Party in Paradise ’08.  A smaller, but longer Party will be happening.  Beginning at New Year’s and ending mid February the event will have two 9-day RW seminars, and wing suit/sky surfing (in the spirit of Patrick de Guyardon), freestyle, and canopy swooping instruction.  Limited camping will be permitted behind our facilities.  Fair warning is hereby provided to Oahu pigs: Merle Clawson will be in charge of the imu pit.

Our A&P mechanic, Kelly Keeney, who recently attended and passed Pratt & Whitney’s turbine engine line maintenance school, has also now attended the hot section school in Canada.  Kelly got to combine this trip with a family celebration for his father’s big 5-0.  Our congratulations to Jim Keeney on reaching this milestone.  Jim is the owner/operator of JUMPIN' INDIANA located in Everton, IN, and is also a USPA Static Line and Tandem Instructor/Examiner, FAA Rigger, and PRO exhibition jumper.

Ron Artis will be performing every Sunday afternoon 1:00pm to 5:00pm in Haleiwa.  A new bandstand has been built across from McDonald’s near the shrimp trucks.  The Ron Artis family performs to help preserve and promote strong families.  Check out their music videos on YouTube.com and MySpace.com with the keyword “ronartis”.

The Koi pond now has taken shape.  Thanks to Lyle Stewart and Murphy for doing the major lifting for this nice addition.  It was nice to have too many volunteers on our rock runs.  All making this improvement outside of the Outpost, between the Akua Pohaku and Buddha, had good fun and learned a little about Hawaii.  Maki and Paul Smith also added guppies and a couple of lotus plants.

Polo is happening every Sunday afternoon in Mokuleia.  Skydive Hawaii is proud to provide a fun jump between polo games.  The polo field is a wonderful alternative drop zone, so the demo on Sunday afternoon is a labor of love and gives the sense of giving back within our community.

We look forward to having Tom Deacon and Sascha Shindler return to the Skydive Hawaii team this fall.  Both have proven there teaching and skydiving skills while previously working here.  They will both be a nice addition to our instruction staff.

Our world at peace,

April 2007

Aloha,

Congratulations to our new A&P mechanic, Kelly Keeney, who recently attended and passed Pratt & Whitney’s turbine engine line maintenance school.  Since the class was held in Singapore, Kelly got plenty of good culture shock, but no canings were reported.  All is well that ends well, Kelly was happy to get back to Hawaii.

Wednesday evening fun jumps are back.  These extra opportunities for our staff to make fun jumps was a big hit last year.  People could hardly wait for the length of daylight to increase enough.  See Blossom at manifest to get all the scoops for each week.  We are expecting to also add some presentations and organized discussions about skydiving to the Wednesday night line up.

Skydive Hawaii has asked the State for some safety improvements at Dillingham.  After several people got feet caught in the taller grass, we have asked for better and more frequent mowing.  Our concern maintaining low or no fences was address since the State appears to be about to begin the perimeter fence replacement project.  Up wind ironwood trees have grown over the height of the power lines and need to be trimmed again.  The aircraft loading area requires people to walk past spinning propellers and we asked for a simple change.

We had the good fortune of meeting up with Mr. Yuji Masui while he was in Hawaii working on a TV commercial.  It seems that the aircraft he had planned to use was down for heavy maintenance, so Skydive Hawaii offered him the use of our Caravan.  After several poorly executed skydives, Shaun Dunn, Richard Doppelmayer, Lyle Stewart and Jake Kilfoyle rescued the project from the jaws of certain failure.

May 1^st is Lei Day in Hawaii.  To skydivers in Hawaii it also means that Summer trade winds will rule the skies.  Gone are the gentle showers of Winter and say “Ahoha” to those great trade wind landings.  If you’ve been waiting, inspect and repack your gear for your next jump.  The Caravan keeps hopping almost all day long and there are generally empty slots.

Holiday Boogies in Hawaii – Party in Paradise 2008.  Is it true?  We expect to have groups of holiday jumpers from Europe and America camping this Winter from November to March.  Our limited camping space, off State property, should keep the numbers around two dozen at one time, but we would like to have every other load full primarily of sport jumpers.  Get you group together and send us an email to skydivehawaii@hawaii.rr.com

Peace,

January 2007

Aloha,

We hope that everyone enjoyed a wonderful holiday season and is back to your normal freefall weight.  Skydive Hawaii is looking forward to a wonderful 2007.   We extend our wishes for your every success in the new year and for more peace in the world this year.

We have enjoyed having Sascha Schlindler, Tom Deacon, Marc Heise and Tommy Sammis working here this winter.  Tom has been a great asset to the Freefall School student program and we’re going to have to get 2 AFF Jumpmasters to fill his shoes.  Ben Mason has taken advantage of his recent separation from military service to begin jumping as a freefall videographer.

Evan Whitlock and Aaron Comp should be rejoining our staff this spring.  Rick Cain, who has given many years of service in both freefall videography and tandem instruction, will begin working part time this Spring.  Kelly Keeney has joined our mechanic staff, just missing the winter storms that hit the Mid-west US mainland.

We have recently made a change in our aircraft loading procedures.  The aircraft, which has its next group of jumpers, will move into the boarding area.  Aircraft waiting for jumpers will hold short and not make jumpers walk past spinning propellers.

European jumpers have been a nice addition to Skydive Hawaii this winter.  They have done student training and helped to fill loads.  We hope that this group of jumpers is the seeds for even more Europeans to come to Hawaii next winter.

All of our jumps are authorized to land at Dillingham Airfield. The Polo Field has been used as an alternate drop zone for many years.  The cooperation of the owners of the Polo Field is based on the skydivers using care when landing not to scare horses or riders. Passing the Polo Field and opting for a beach landing is not a good idea.  Unless you have made prior arrangements, any landings off the designated landing areas have not approved by the landowner.  Several sport jumpers have been hurt in the last year by trying to make it past the Polo Field.

The Outpost library has begun and started to grow.  Grasshopper has provided several good books on space and the space program.  They also added to our model collection with Spaceship One, Saturn V and STS models.  The COM station in the Outpost is available for most digital communications and the Mars Rover Simulation program.

The Pitts S2-B is back in the air!  Honolulu Soaring has secured a new lease on this wonderful aerobatic aircraft.  After your jump, either the Pitts or an ultra-light flight lesson is a great addition to your Dillingham Airfield itinerary that you won’t soon forget.

Praying for our world at peace,

October 2006

 Aloha,

Congratulations to Tristen Green of Kauai for claiming her spot in the world skydiving spotlight.  She won 2nd place in the National Freestyle Championships held this month in Eloy, Arizona.  Just goes to show what a bit of hard work and determination can do.  You go grrl.

As we enter the final quarter of 2006, our customers have again voted with their wallets and placement of trust, by continuing another year of making Skydive Hawaii the #1 skydiving operation in Hawaii.  We certainly appreciate all our customers and look forward to providing the best that skydiving has to offer.  Everyone is welcome to come out to Dillingham Airfield and check the difference in facilities and service.

The ground shook on Oahu from the earthquake off the big island.  We were jumping the following day, but electricity was hard to find for about 24 hours.  Thanks, but no thanks; you can keep that kind of stuff elsewhere.  

Two “new” Skydive Hawaii t-shirt designs are in the works.  Our printers have the approval on the artwork, so look for the “World’s Most Beautiful Drop Zone” and “Life is Good” designs.  The shirts will be on Navy Blue and Black respectively.  

Our new Tesla GSU is providing exceptionally cool starts on the Caravan.  Cooler starts tend to extend the life of the turbine’s hot section.  Speaking of the Caravan, our customers are really getting into the plane’s new paint job by Ron Artis of Haleiwa.  It provides great photo/video opportunities and the customers add some extra color to their first jump stories. 

We are gearing up for Van's Triple Crown of Surfing.  The tower mural work has begun in our backyard.  It is always exciting to watch a contest such as Van's Triple Crown of Surfing come together.  Skydive Hawaii is glad to be able to make a small contribution to the opening ceremony and Makahiki.  Best wishes to all the contestants for the hap'nin action while out in the food chain.

The Dillingham Airfield community was deeply saddened by an automobile accident near the East Entrance to Dillingham Airfield on October 22, 2006. Around 3:00AM the accident claimed the life of a local boy, Bobby-boi Gouveia.  The hand of Grace has spared two other young men in the automobile.  About 100 feet further West, the vehicle would have struck the ironwood trees.  Early reports reflect that speed and alcohol were factors in the accident.  Our prayers are with all the families and our wishes for a full and speedy recovery to the survivors.

Skydive Hawaii has begun a petition drive regarding the administration of Dillingham Airfield.  Safety concerns regarding the entire skydiving and airport communities have been unresolved for years.  Now that the Army is in a period of negotiations with the State of Hawaii Department of Transportation for a new lease period, we believe that this may be a only opportunity for change for many years to come.  The Army can create opportunities for the realization of additional revenues consistent with keeping Dillingham Airfield daytime operations.  Look for the petition at manifest or in the Outpost.

 Peace,

August 2006

Aloha, 

Spaceport Hawaii, America’s K-12 spaceport was opened during the 2^nd Annual Return to Flight Launch Party was held on August 19, 2006.  The Mars Explorer simulator, a product of Space Explorers Inc., is the highlight of the Outpost.  The Outpost is dedicated to peace and learning.  We would like to thank the students, parents and educators who attended to learn more about flight and exploration.  Clarence Lopez, Troy Takara, TK Hinshaw, Derek Tweedy and Larry Wiss all presented interesting seminars.  Do you know that the Hawaiian term for rocket is Kao lele?

The Caravan is back up!  It’s ready with a new look from local artist Ron Artis.  The new hot section turbine wheel and power section have been reworked by Pratt & Whitney.  The engine sounds and performs like new.

Tommy Sammis has recently returned to Hawaii from Taiwan.  Tommy was the team leader for “Black Risers”, a local 4-way team in the mid-80’s, which also included Skydive Hawaii owner Frank Hinshaw.  He’s getting himself back into shape for freefall videography.  Welcome home and into the Skydive Hawaii staff.

Look out America – Sky Smith, aka GW, aka "Injin Joe", has headed your direction.  We truly enjoyed his company for the past 5 months.  Look for him starting at Beaver Creek, OR and then at your local DZ.  Don’t worry a bit, he has not changed.

A special thank you to the men and women who participated in the Rim Pac exercises.  It was nice to see so many of you enjoying skydiving at the World’s Most Beautiful Drop Zone.  You all are the best.

April 2006

Aloha,

Well the numbers for 2005 are in and Skydive Hawaii completed almost twice as many tandem jumps in 2005 than all the other skydiving companies in Hawaii combined.  We appreciate the trust which our customers find in our friendly, professional staff.  Thank you, and we hope to continue to help people experience the thrilling excitement of tandem skydiving.

Skydive Hawaii morns the loss of both Mr. Max Mueller and Ms. Kaori Takahashi on January 6 of this year.  This was the first student loss suffered by DZO Frank Hinshaw since he began teaching sky diving in 1983.  The Honolulu Medical Examiner has not been able to identify any medial problem that could have caused Max to pass out during the jump.

It has been very wet during the month of March. The drop zone began to flood on the 25^th, but “Wyatt, J9 and Kevin pitched in manning the shovels to dig through the Pacific Ocean’s sand barrier at the end of our drainage canal.  

Congratulations to our attorney, Phil Nerney, who married the lovely Esta Natsue Akaji on January 7, 2006.  To illustrate Phil's love of skydiving, the day before his wedding, and the day of his wedding were both filled with tasks from the Max Mueller incident.

 The King Air, N926S, serial number JJ-449, has left the islands.  After some 13,000 flight hours of providing skydivers a lift to jump altitude, it is now providing parts for other King Air aircraft in Alaska.

Cece has returned from South America trip to jump off of Angel Fall’s in Venezuela.  She joined Tom and Denise Sanders on the base jump trip.  Congratulations to Cece for her 30 years in our sport.

Our family at sea, Merle, Mary and Crystal, have made it to Galle, Sri Lanka.  The fresh water pump broke while in sea lanes and they caught a tow into port.  Next stop: Salalah, Oman.  As Merle said, “By the way, if you haven’t figured out the obvious, the only two things one can count on at sea; the sun will come up, and the sun will go down, everything else is a crap shoot, it can and will change at a moments notice.  But as I always say two are better than one.”

Work has begun on our Dillingham Airfield facility.  A new front entrance and a viewing area for video and DVD will be the main additions on the ground level.  Our plan also includes a formal classroom for our Freefall School program.  Hopefully this phase of construction will be completed by June.

Skydive Hawaii looks forward to the return of Derek Tweedy from Japan this Summer.  While the main focus of Derek’s trip this Summer will be flight lessons, we hope he’ll be in town for our next Launch Party for the Space Shuttle.  

Destination X recently shot a episode for their new TV show on Fox TV.  The rough cut of the show looks like good entertainment.  The series features a group of ladies completing extreme activities.  Best wishes for a great season!

December 2005

Aloha,

Happy New Year - Hauoli Makahiki Hou!  We are very grateful to all our great customers and staff who combined to make 2005 another successful year for Skydive Hawaii.  Aloha nui loa!

For the best present our company could have gotten, Jet "A" returned to Dillingham Airfield!  This eliminates having to fly into Honolulu International Airport once or twice each day for fuel.  Jumpers have had to wait for up to two hours for the plane to return, so this is a welcomed change that is appreciated by our management, pilots, mechanics, jump staff, sport jumpers and students. 

Clint Clawson has suggested that Party in Paradise events start again and Skydive Hawaii is ready!  It looks like the format of the event will change to an invitational event over a weekend, but several times during the year.  The Caravan would primarily be used for the Party during these weekends.  Camping would be located behind the Skydive Hawaii building.  These events are planned to be limited to 30 jumpers a weekend.  We think that it will be great to have Clint involved with the Party in Paradise, so get your free flying gear ready for your invitation for some great jumps!  Clint will be handling all invitations, so see Clint to get the skinny.

The State of Hawaii, Department of Transportation, Highways Division has recently planted a couple of clusters of “short” trees up wind of the drop zone.  Skydive Hawaii has placed both the North Shore Neighborhood Board, and the Highways Division on notice that these trees will create wind turbulence for all the jumpers at Dillingham Airfield.  All jumpers should avoid landing down wind of obstacles such as trees and buildings. 

Bo and Alex have arrived for the Winter from Atmosphair near Jefferson, Wisconsin. They have let us know that their first child is expected this Spring.  Stan and Georgie will be arriving in January 2006 after becoming married recently in England.  Kevin Love has returned for some work this Winter and Aaron Comp 'AC' has recently joined our tandem master staff.  Jake Kilfoyle was featured in a full page article in the "Hawaii Army Weekly" in their December 2, 2005 printing.

Congratulations to Ben Borger!  SPC Benjamin Borger, 1/27 INF, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, started his skydiving career on February 24, 2005 by making first first tandem jump at Skydive Hawaii and then completing Freefall School.  After making 180 jumps Ben applied for the US Army Golden Knights.  In October 2005 he was accepted into the US Army Golden Knights.  Kudos to both Clarence T. Lopez, Jr. and Randy Burke for a very akamai job of instruction and coaching for Ben.  Although this mean we must say aloha to Ben, all the instructors, coaches and staff at Skydive Hawaii wish every continued success to Ben throughout his jumping career.

Hopefully, 2006 will be a year of adding some much needed additional facilities for Skydive Hawaii.  The construction of a hanger for our Caravan is our primary objective.  Adding additional space for video viewing, manifest, and customer comfort will also be on the construction agenda.

Sky Smith, now known as 'Indian Joe' has been sighted riding his Indian motorcycle on the North Shore.  It has been about 5 years since he has been able to dine at Haleiwa Joe's or Jameson's by the Sea.  Welcome back to Hawaii.  Sky has been a valuable part of the Party in Paradise/Skydive Hawaii staff by handling complaints.

August 2005

 Aloha,  

Skydive Hawaii’s congratulations go the Richard Doppelmayer for making his 10,000^th skydive!  This milestone was reached on July 12, 2005 while Richard was jumping tandem.  Jake Kilfoyle took photos of this jump.  Richard’s first jump was on June 20, 1989 at Skydive Hawaii.  Of his 10,000 jumps, 7,700 were tandem jumps, and some 500 were AFF jumps.  Richard says “I couldn’t have done it all without Clint Clawson”.  

Congratulations also go to Blossom in manifest.  She completed her 1,000^th jump on June 16, 2005.  Her first jump was made at Skydive Hawaii on December 26, 1998.  Blossom has informed us of her intent to start making camera jumps.  Blossom, wearing her helmet cam, is on the right of this photo of her 1,000^th jump!

                                                         

Max Mueller has returned to Dillingham Airfield from Germany.  Max will have us all back in line before we all realize what’s happening to us.

The Return to Launch Party for the Space Shuttle Discovery was held on July 16.  All the students, parents and educators enjoyed the Return to Launch Party in attendance.  In addition to learning about the Shuttle from Larry Wiss, air and water bottle rockets were launched by each student.

The State of Hawaii, Department of Transportation, Airports Division has informed us that the proposed taxi way extension will be started in October.  While there was some initial discussion of closing the drop zone for this work, it now appears that the drop zone will remain open during most, if not all, of this project.

Recent Freefall student graduates are:
            James Forwood, July 30, 2005, and
            Steven Ryan, June 4, 2005

Dirk Neugebauer who stayed at Skydive Hawaii in the Winter 94/95; 95/96 and 96/97 has advised us of his 
intentions to bring a small group of Germans to Skydive Hawaii over the Christmas holidays.

We had some jumpers land off field last month.  The landings made the owners of the property upset.  We 
would like to remind all jumpers to avoid landing in the 2 acre lots, which are about 1 mile East of the Polo 
Field.  Using the agricultural field across Farrington Hwy would be more politically correct.

May 2005

Aloha,

We welcome all our new and returning staff at Skydive Hawaii!  Big Jim, a veteran tandem master of several winter seasons, has returned after his South African experience.  Jon, Rocky and Peter have blown in from Colorado, making a nice addition to our tandem, packing and video staff respectively.  Lyle is pleasing all his tandem customers with his Southern charm.  Dan Lane will round out our new staff when he arrives in June from Maine.

Congratulation to Capt. Will Boyd who learned to skydive here at Skydive Hawaii!  Capt. Boyd and his partner, Capt. Anthony Barbina won the 2005 Best Sappers competition held at Fort Leonard Wood, MO.  The event, held April 26-28, is modeled after the Best Ranger Competition, and featured 22 teams consisting of two men each.  Teams took a modified physical fitness test, identified threat mines, constructed a poncho raft and swam across a pond, navigated by day and night, assembled and fired numerous weapons, tied knots, assembled various breaching charges, took a demolitions test, threw hand grenades, ran nine miles and road marched – a lot.  The team placed first in the Poncho Raft and Swim Time, as well as the 20 Km Road March Time segments of the competition.  Capt. Boyd returned from service in Afghanistan this year and is also learning to become a pilot.

Jon Devore and Mike Swanson were brought over to Hawaii by Keiko Iijima for some head down practice the first week of April.  In two days this group made 15 jumps out of the Caravan.  Here's a candid shot after the last jump:

Click to enlarge

We have noticed an increase in Freefall students in the past few months.  Many of the new faces are military back from Iraq and Afghanistan.  We welcome them both to our skydiving family and back from successful completion of their duties to our country.  T.K. Hinshaw, son of owner Frank Hinshaw, has recently completed Freefall School.

Several meetings with the State regarding procedures for skydivers to use the East end drop zone facility have produced mixed results.  The glider operators are concerned that they would not be able to gain enough altitude if the 26 threshold was moved 1,000 feet West.  Skydive Hawaii has requested that the West end drop zone remain open for skydiving use at appropriate times.  Making all or most of our jumps at the East end drop zone would be a big benefit to those of use who sky dive.

Late afternoon jumping on Tuesdays and Thursdays have been a hit within the skydiving community.  Wind Tunnel Wednesdays have recently been started.  Watch the web cam for activity updates on these days.  We have had as many as 24 jumpers shown up for these after work activities.

Two ‘new’ busses have been added to the Skydive Hawaii fleet.  Our customers have raved about both of the 2004 Ford 14 passenger vans.  Our transportation is now quieter and cooler for all of our tandem customers who use this service.  The plan is to have the vans in traditional Skydive Hawaii colors in short order.

Check out Blossom's MP3 debut: Swooping!  A link to the video is at the bottom of the web cam page.  The web cam page also now features a small weather station at Skydive Hawaii.  Dillingham Airfield wind conditions can now be monitored on line.  A big mahalo goes out to Stan for getting the weather station installed and hooked up to our web site.

March 2005

Aloha,

On Sunday February 6, 2005, Petty Officer Second Class Jeremy M. Barrett of Winfield, Iowa, died after his main parachute failed.  The Navy says the 24-year-old was a hull technician and a diver assigned to the Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit One at Pearl Harbor. 

Jeremy was on the first load of the day on Skydive Hawaii’s Cessna Caravan.  He packed his own main parachute and was using his own equipment.  Skydive Hawaii regrets the loss to our skydiving community and extends our condolences to all those who morn with us.  A memorial service for Jeremy was held on February 12, 2005.

This tragedy is the second at Skydive Hawaii, the first being in 1991.  Around 30,000 people jump out of Skydive Hawaii aircraft every year.

A new ruling from the IRS is preventing the delivery of Jet A to Dillingham Airfield.  A considerable tax would have to paid by all the users of Jet A at Honolulu International Airport if Jet A were trucked off to consumers at Dillingham Airfield.  As a result our aircraft must refuel in Honolulu, which is a good 1½-hour round trip and an equal delay to Caravan operations.  Skydive Hawaii intends to operate their Cessna 206 when the Caravan is refueling.

The FAA has recently authorized the installation of our Caravan bench seats.  The addition of the bench seats greatly improves an already wonderful jump plane.  In addition to great views out of the Caravan, the seat installation makes the exit process easier.

OCTOBER 2004

Aloha,

The long awaited Cessna Caravan is now in daily operations at Skydive Hawaii.  All the jumpers are raving about the quite ride to altitude and the tandem customers have appreciated the large door and roomy cabin.  The Caravan has the 675 hp turbine engine (yes, that's the more powerful one) which was basically a zero time engine when the aircraft was purchased.  The Caravan has been modified with interior, exterior grip bars, cargo pod removal and a cameraman's step.

The Discovery Channel's American Hot Rod TV show came out to Skydive Hawaii.  Shop Manager, Duane Mayer and Mike both took the tandem plunge.  Both tandem jumpers had previously warmed up in the wind tunnel at Paris Valley DZ, but they had to admit that experiencing a tandem skydive was the "real deal".

The State of Hawaii, Department of Transportation, Airports Division has cut and removed all the remaining tall trees up wind of the Dillingham Airfield drop zone.  The removal of these ironwood, false hale koa trees and hau bushes have greatly improved landing conditions for both student and experienced jumpers.  The safety improvement to our drop zone is hard to imagine by those who have jumped at Dillingham before this work.  Watching landings now, it is hard to believe the number of good jumpers injured over the years.

Max Mueller has already returned from Germany to Skydive Hawaii (he says that he may never leave this time since the Caravan has arrived).  We're also expecting Bo, Alex and Stan to return in the next few weeks.