Why would anyone jump out of a perfectly good airplane,
For no perfectly good reason
Other than a perfectly good thrill??

BECAUSE THE PILOT TURNED THE GREEN LIGHT ON!!

All right, well all I can say is that if you really have to ask that question than I am truly sorry. There are now words or visions that one can possibly convey that could nor would come anywhere near expressing the sensation of "true, unencumbered flight".

So how did I get started?

I have always been a bit of a thrill seeker. Catching live rattlesnakes, scaling cliff sides in my local mountains, snow skiing (and I hate trails - you'll find me off in the tree line). The 'thrill of the moment'; isn't that what life is all about anyway? We only live once, so we might as well take ALL it has to offer!

The army refused me the time to attend jump school while at Fort Benning, GA and again in Germany. Little did they know, just how enchanted I was with the idea of flying free like a bird.

Many Whuffos (whufo they do 'that' fo?) believe that they will feel their stomachs rush up into their throats, they couldn't be further from the truth. A skydiver once said, after experiencing a hammock for the first time, "Lying in a hammock is the closest one can get to the experience of a skydive, without actually getting out of the plane." So if you've never made a skydive but wonder what it would be like, go lie back in a hammock.

Better yet go visit the United States Parachute Association:

http://www.uspa.org/

Or perhaps you'd prefer to try some "Indoor Skydiving" first simply go:
Flyaway Indoor Skydiving Las Vegas NV.

Time in Sport

Licenses Earned

Awards

Types of Planes Jumped

as of: 04/17/2005
13 Years
Member USPA
----------
# of jumps:
1,101
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Total Fall Time:
18hr 06min

A-(pass)
B-15680
C-22480
D-15746

Gold Wings #5738
Gold FreeFall #3385
Falcon #2306
Double Falcon #1292
Eagle # 1192
Double Eagle #811
Star Crest Recip. #13253
Star Crest Solo #7693
Night Star Crest #2216
SCSA (Hoop a.m.) #324
NSCSA (Hoop p.m.) #112

Various Cessna
DC3s
Twin and Supper Otters
Beech
King Airs
Queen Airs
Portter
Caribou
Sky Van

Please allow me to share some of my photos with you.
I thumb nailed these for page load time, just click and each will open in a separate window:

Photo by: Craig Ratliff


Hoop Dives
Skydive Elsinore, CA

Photo by: Ray Cottingham


RW Formations
Skydive Elsinore, CA

Photo by: Craig Ratliff


Night Hoop Dives 97'
(we missed the award by only 1 second)

Visit my Lake Applet pages

Caution: The following pages contain
JAVA and may not be suitable for
all browsers!!

When I first started there were only about 16,000 licensed skydivers in the USPA, we are now reaching 35,000 and growing daily. Having begun at a small Drop Zone in San Diego, CA, I now call Skydive Elsinore at Elsinore Lake, CA my HOME DZ. I since have been spotted in the skies over:Brown Field, CA; Perris Valley, CA; California City, CA; Taft, CA; Eloy, AZ; Las Vegas, NV; Bolder City, NV; and Ottowa, Ill. I've participated in 20-way teams and 8-way teams and find the large formation jumps to be the most fun.

Recently 9 of my jumping friends and I completed a 'Hoop Jump' dive. Eight divers dive through a hoop and form a 'star' on the other side, holding the 'star' for a minimum of 5 sec. This qualifies us for yet another award and another permanent number in the skydiving records.