This month’s Skydive Radio got us debating the classic DZ debate: Should dogs be allowed on the drop zone?

Dogs at the drop zone?

• Yes
• No
• Yes, as long as their owners are not like Al Berchtold, who lets his dog shit in the peas without picking it up.
• Yes, in designated areas/times only.

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For reference, the latest Skydive Radio show:

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Kudos to all the drop zones that have donated their planes, time and efforts to Haiti relief work, and to USPA for initiating the effort.

From PR Newswire:

Skydiving centers across the country have found an unusual way to contribute to the Haiti relief effort – by using skydiving aircraft to transport food and medical supplies to the island.

“Jump aircraft are especially well-suited for these missions,” said Ed Scott, executive director of the U.S. Parachute Association (USPA). “Most have large cargo doors and are easily converted to carry cargo. Most can also take off and land on short and sometimes rough landing strips.”

Shortly after the earthquake, USPA e-mailed its affiliated skydiving centers that relief organizations and the U.S. government needed aircraft to bring supplies and personnel from around the U.S. to Florida for staging, as well as directly to Haiti.

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It’s official: Spaceland Force XP has the new world record for the fastest freaking turning around in the sky. Ever. Congratulations Gary Beyer, Christopher Ian Bobo (go Chris!), Eric Boyd, Thomas Hughes and Shannon Pilcher, for your 45-point 4-way at USPA Nationals last fall. This beats the previous record, held jointly by Commie pinkos. Go USA!

Official FAI Record

This feat is just one of the many that helped Thomas Hughes win several medals at Nationals. But, it was ultimately his lack of late-night drunken awareness that helped us liberate his medals and take them on a tour of the countryside. Today seems like a good day for a fond look back at the medals’ glorious road trip from Rosharon, TX to DeLand, FL. They met wonderful people: the gas station attendant in Orange, TX; the Whataburger girl; suspicious Baton Rouge baristas; eager valets in NOLA; crabs on Bourbon Street (hopefully only one kind); strippers and some sort of Russian dude; Mississipians; dogs; and finally, home.

Congrats, boys!

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Some of the younger pups out there might never even have heard of a 10-way speed, but here it is in all it’s glory, as captured by videographer Nik Daniel in Elsinore last Saturday, January 29th, 2010.

It’s a fun event, but can get a little combative, with 10 people squeezing on the proper side of that black line you can see taped on the floor.  Back in the day I did a few 10-way jumps under the “guidance” of the legendary Carl Daugherthy. I’ll admit that I was a little intimidated when during the dirt dive he handed out elbow and knee pads – that came in handy on exit.   I didn’t last but a couple of Saturdays, before I retreated back to the relative safety of newbie freeflying, where a light kick in the head seemed like a piece of cake in comparison.

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Kickstarter can give you...a kickstart. Duh.

We just found out about Kickstarter, a funding site for artists, do-gooders, filmmakers, musicians, writers—anyone who creates stuff that generally requires money. Thinking about a higher-level, long-format skydiving video? Are you a photographer who wants to start exhibiting your aerial shots? A group from the DZ planning to go volunteer in Haiti but need cash to buy supplies? Got a story to write about BASE jumping? Or, do you want to do something completely unrelated to aerial sports? We guess that’s allowed, too.

If you have a project you’ve been itching to make, give it a shot and let us know! We think skydiving, BASE jumping, paragliding, speed riding and anything else that happens in the sky is just ripe for an artistic takeover of the world.

PS – The January/February issue of Blue Skies Mag has a kickass article on making the greatest skydiving video in the history of the universe, by the one and only Melsinore. Combine that with Kickstarter and you could be the next James Cameron.

PPS – Our N3A contest deadline has been extended to February 15 by popular demand, so get going on those pull alarms!

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The band Nada Surf had a video contest: create a video to their new song “Weightless” and winner gets $3,000! Well, here, let the dude tell you himself:

Skydive New England’s Sean Rogan (featured in the November issue of Blue Skies Mag!) won second place for this video that we think you’ll like:

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Crap, who is going to run this town tonight?

It’s a very odd thing to work in the skydiving industry. On one hand, you are a professional who goes to work every day and produces something people purchase with the fruits of their own labor. On the other hand—it’s skydiving, for f’s sake! We’re supposed to be ridiculously irresponsible and leave all our cares and worries to the DZO. Someone else runs this town, not us.

But, here we are, about to professionally communicate with our customers our plan for 2010, issue a Publication Schedule and just generally attempt to run a professional, responsible small business. Basically—we’re going to run this town tonight.

Anyway, enough with my hip hop-fueled analogies, and on to the business at hand. Please hold off on booby-trapping your mailbox because it’s apparent that your mailman has stolen your January issue of Blue Skies Mag. The postal service has nothing to do with the fact that your mailbox is silently crying out to be filled with our assemblage of paper and ink; instead, we planned to do a January/February combined issue that will come out mid-February.

This issue won’t be bigger than any other, but it will have a cool little surprise that we hope you’ll like. We decided to do a combined issue for a few reasons. First, skydiving activity (and, subsequently, advertising) typically is at its lowest in January. There just isn’t a whole lot going on—besides drama, which we’ll have plenty of in the March issue. Second, we are a small business and have been going at it pretty much non-stop since May; we built in a holiday break so we could show our relatives that we do, in fact, still exist.

The next order of business is our print schedule. Some bright mind suggested that your mailboxes would be happier if we spread the joy of skydiving publications throughout the month. Parachutist and other mags come out around the first, so we’ll let you enjoy that, and get our issue to you mid-month.

So, to recap: Jan/Feb issue mid-February, March issue mid-March, and on and on and on. With boobs* and beer, naturally.

*PS—We can’t print pictures you want to see if you don’t send us pictures of things you want to look at! Send them to pierre@blueskiesmag.com.

PPS—Kolla wanted me to say that we also want pictures of hot, shirtless men. We don’t discriminate when it comes to boobs. She has an excellent point. Here is an example of what we would like:

yes, please

And that’s how we run our town.

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