baronn

Anybody have any knowledge on a Glide Path Raider? Had someone bring me a rig that has 1 in it. 1991 is the date. R-2145. Max wing load is 235 Thanks

Guy brings in a 1991 rig. Both main [Raider by Glide Path and a Raven 2} are the same yr. Vector 2 harness. Has a leg strap deploy. I had a Master change it to BOC and add magnetic riser covers and velcroless toggles. Is AAD ready. All is in near new condition. Gonna pull test the main and reserve. Expect both to pass. Can this go into service?

Another fine example of 1 set of rules for members and another for the BOD. Lots of bad decisions here. Pretty sure if a re-do was available, they wude want it. What is most disappointing is how very different the BOD's reaction is to this incident vs others in the past. They all knew this happened. Well aware it was coming out. When it did, the BOD response is to do an "internal" investigation and just ignore the whole thing. This organization collects over 4 Million a yr from us. Has seperate funds for airport access, Dillingham, Team competitions, Skydive Safety foundation and the US Parachute Team trust fund ( huh?). Has no accountability for the hundreds of thousands it gives to the ISMHOF and what happens to it. Just Ridiculous. If this was a company, the entire BOD wude be fired tomorrow

I continue to appreciate that Paul is the only BOD member that offers his perspective on this matter. Shows Character My biggest issue has been that the BOD decided to donate part of members dues to it. I said so in my 1st post. Still is. Near half century this has been going on is bad. It's just not the worse. When Bill Ottley died, clearly nobody stepped up to finish this project. That happens. Volunteer projects are often plagued like that. So it sat for awhile. Bush jumped, he got nominated and interest was sparked again. So far so good. Why didn't someone suggest to him to help find some space in a national museum? A great opportunity came and went. Nothing can be done about that now. Or is there? More later... As far as quadrupling the amount of funding, how was that achieved? Well, a person was hired and getting paid quite well, pitched the BOD to give away members funds to this. With no input from the members themselves. No fact checking on the BOD's side. Just takes his word that this will get this done. He then used that donation to convince other parachute assoc. from around the world to contribute because the USPA did and they changed the name to International.. Gotta to admit, that was slick. Maybe you can share the number of folks that live outside this country that the "professionals in organization or management of Museums": have to say will visit? "So to me, the situation is like this...I go to work for a business that has been around for 40 years, but never grown. In about 8 years, I quadruple the money in the bank, sign up almost a dozen of the top people in the industry to work for free, develop and catalog an inventory of over 1000 pieces of huge skydiving historical value and warehouse them for free, develop a concept where people and organizations from all over the world are sending money, and finally have some kind of definite goal line, and end result. Should I be supported & rewarded for my last 8 years of huge success and progress? Or should I be penalized for the previous 40 years where not much was done, and I had no control or input?" Is this you or are you talking as the 3rd person? I suspect the latter. Who are these dozen top people in the industry? You must mean the Trustees. The one's I researched that have the full time jobs outside of this business of getting projects of this nature done. Those Dozen? The organizing of the items was very commendable. Sandy Reid was involved in that. Took about a week from what I understand. Don't know if they were paid but, I hope they were. Had to be a lot of work. Still like to know where Bob Sinclairs van is. Saying that hustling money from folks and organizing :over a 1000 items a "Huge success" in 8 yrs, is a stretch. Saying yer being penalized for the fact that not much did happen in the 40 yrs prior is petty. It's an historical fact and my pointing it out doesn't "penalize" anyone. Get over it. "True, the end result is not yet accomplished. Yes, there may be some mistakes and compromises getting from “now to then”. But there is movement, there is forward progress." I suppose the politically correct thing to do wude be to give everyone that shows up, a medal for doing so. Never understood that but, if that's what yer lookin for OK. I still don't see why some simple due diligence can't be implemented. When funding is being saught, the normal route is to develop a plan from start to finish, figure out how much it's gonna cost. how it can continue as an entity and how long it's going to take to implement and THEN get the money. That's normal. Not here. We are gonna go out and raise as much money from whatever sources we can saying whatever needs to be said to do so. Forget that there is STILL no firm plans. Even after we use your 8 yr scenario. Wanna do something that can restore credibility? Start by getting 5 yrs worth of detailed financials from the ISMHOF. Let's see where the funding is actually going. And I'm not talking about a 990 IRS form. Need to see the details of the numbers on there. Tell them to put a REAL plan together. No more of these ridiculous, pie in the sky concepts that have little if any chance to happen.. Of course, you can ignore my advice. Ignore my and other member requests to act like a responsible stewart of other folks funds and continue down the same path. Or... you can be the only Board member that actually looked into this. Choice is yours.....

I also noticed on your profile, it appears that you have been in the sport for 51 yrs. Is that true? If so, you were here before, well, almost all of us. Haven't you wondered what's taking so long? Did you know Ottley? If so, what wude he think of this whole thing? And finally, none of us live forever, wouldn't you like to see this done before you go?

Both Mike Mullins and Paul Gholson stated they wude refund any members portion of their dues the BOD committed to this. I suggested Mike cude pay for the whole donation for less than half the cost of a rebuild on just 1 of the motors on his plane. So far, he has remained silent. Paul made his offer, I posted my PP acct and he put $5.83 in it. A Man of his word. As far as Government waste, do I even need to answer that? Answer this, why did the BOD decide to donate to an organization that has not gotten ANYTHING done in 48 yrs? No oversight. 0 accountability and at best, a questionable business plan? At the same time, choosing to ignore funding athletes for competitions, assisting DZ's to operate at airports. Those 2 things require members separate donations. As far as doing all this effort so I can "run" the museum, what possible benefit is there to that? I've never stated that and won't. I HAVE stated my reasons and if you read all these posts, you'd know what it is. Or you can continue to be an ignorant enabler and allow this to continue for another 48 yrs of failure. Perhaps that's your idea of. "Good things take time....."

Thanks for revealing your narrow minded view. Now do yourself a favor and read my posts. I have offered a possible solution to every one of the issues I have revealed. Will they work? Not sure. Got a better idea? Share it. What we do know is the current path is a failure. Anybody can see that. IF they choose to. Some are simply going to accuse someone who reveals it as just "Bitching and Complaining". As far as the USPA goes, are you endorsing me for a seat?

Guidestar.org lists non profits 990 IRS forms. I've mentioned this before. As far as plans go, I have not seen or heard of any firm plans in place. Lots of talk, no real action. i assume that he is referring to my comment saying that you could get petitions gathered and take them to a meeting. That is what I responded to. Since I didn't refer to that and you don't know what I'm talking about, its safe to say its a mute point. Let's move on. Anyone that wants to look those forms up can go there and see them. They only have 2015-2017 listed last I looked. If you go to page 28 on 2016 & 2017, you'll see what McCormick was paid. Doesn't break down what he was paid for, just a total amount. 169k over 2 yrs ain't too bad for a part time gig. Willing to bet 2018 and 2019 were more. Lets get the breakdown and see. My understanding and I cude be wrong but, everyone was a volunteer except for the usual small admin costs. I haven't found the 990 form for 2018 or 2019 yet, so we don't know what that is. I did find another non profit watchdog that listed costs for 2018 and thats where I got the 37% number from. I'll get that and post. Sure, there are plenty of "non-profits" that keep ridiculous portions of donations. I don't contribute to them and encourage other's not to also. I'd also be willing to bet that if members knew 37% of all the funding the USPA was giving to them (over 52k out of 150k), they mite not be so happy about it. Especially when most is going to 1 person....

Lets cover a couple things. 1st saying that McCormick is a USPA member and therefore represents many, many more is a stretch. Yes he's a member. He's also a Trustee on the ISMHOF. Who was paid over 169k in 2016 and 2017. No conflict there. Please let us know who all these others you mention are. 2nd request. 2nd, No, my comment was not directed at the petition you mentioned. I'm not opposed to doing that. What I find most disturbing about this whole process, was how quickly enuff all the BOD members bought into whatever McCormick said at the summer 2018 meeting and thought giving 25K a yr of members dues was a good idea. No plan presented and a history of failure. Nobody from the ISMHOF showed at the summer of 2019 BOD meeting to even give an update. This last meeting they gave McCormick a whopping 10 min. to make a presentation. He showed a few concepts and some possible sites. Basically nothing. If this was a company and he was getting paid (he is), this performance review wude have ended in termination. We desperately need an adult in the room. Review the financials of the ISMHOF and found out where all the donations being given to them are going. If they are unwilling to do that, then immediately stop funding and ask for a clawback. If they have nothing to hide, this shude not be a problem.

Sounds like yer new to this discussion. May want to read a few pages back and get up to speed. This isn't really a discussion about why we need the museum (we do), it's more about the lack of progress and why it isn't done. A few valid points in your 2c, I'm just not sure what the point is. The cost per member over the 5 yrs is approx $5.83

As far as getting involved to get this project done, thats gonna ride on the ISMHOF. Again, they MITE be influenced but, since I can't even get most of them to return a phone call, I don't think that's gonna be easy. Stop the funding will get their attention. Letting them know we're sick of all the delays and if they can't get this done, let's find someone who can. A real possibility is they may get completely butt hurt over all this and refuse to cooperate at all. They control the purse strings at this point. I do have an alternate plan if that happens. Hope it doesn't. My focus has, is and always will be to get this project finished. A few steps in the rite direction and it shude be possible.

At this stage, I think exposing how the ISMHOF has managed to botch this up and how the USPA BOD continue to support this failed project is paramount. The ISMHOF can make whatever decisions they wish. We CAN expose how the funding being given to them is used. I have spoken with quite a few that have contributed significant money to them. To say the are unhappy is an understatement. Once this happens, then we can get some experienced individuals involved and rite this ship. Continue spreading this message. Let folks know how 37% of their contributions are NOT being used to build anything. 48 yrs and still not done. An excellent opportunity with an ex President completely blown and finally how 1 individual is benefitting financially from contributions. If you wanna go thru the survey thing that's fine. I think just exposing the facts mite be enuff to get members to take action, contact their Reps and say end the funding. That will stop the ridiculous "plan" revealed by McCormick. My suspicion is that "plan" is just another decoy for an excuse to get more funding. The start date will come and go with little to no action by the ISMHOF. They will blame it all on the fact they didn't get enuff funding. Some will buy that, ra ra for more funding, and this process continues. Time to end this insanity

Any help is appreciated. I cannot do this alone. I want to make sure what the final goal of all my actions are. I want to get the Museum done. The fact that so many pioneers and members are now gone before they ever saw it, is sad. The fact that the Honorary Chairman GHWB was the ONLY skydiving President we ever had and he wasn't used to secure a location at the Smithsonian or at his Presidential Library is mind blowing to me. I have contacted both of these (and a few more) and got to both directors. Sadly I was told they weren't interested. Pretty sure an ex President wude have gotten a different answer. Since it was never tried, we won't ever know. To me, that indicates the ISMHOF is not really interested in getting this done. 48 yrs and still waiting. Sad.

Any help is appreciated. I cannot do this alone. I want to make sure what the final goal of all my actions are. I want to get the Museum done. The fact that so many pioneers and members are now gone before they ever saw it, is sad. The fact that the Honorary Chairman GHWB was the ONLY skydiving President we ever had and he wasn't used to secure a location at the Smithsonian or at his Presidential Library is mind blowing to me. I have contacted both of these (and a few more) and got to both directors. Sadly I was told they weren't interested. Pretty sure an ex President wude have gotten a different answer. Since it was never tried, we won't ever know. To me, that indicates the ISMHOF is not really interested in getting this done. 48 yrs and still waiting. Sad.

Again, lets be accurate. I said I haven't met anyone that has said they knew about the vote ahead of time. That shouldn't be taken as they don't exist. Stating that 1 member did (McCormick) also should not be stated as many, many that did know either. "I also assume that he is not the only 1 behind that effort" is just that. An assumption. To also say that some members are for funding the museum and some are not, is also inaccurate. What they have been led to beleive, is by contributing to the Museum, the project will get finished. So far, that has not happened. I also doubt that anyone has been told that a portion of their contribution (up to 37% so far) will not be used to actually construct this but, is used to gather more funding. We also don't have an actual site picked out, an actual building plan, any kind of business plan to keep this operating or any engineering company to help get this built. We only have a group of 14 Trustees that have little to no experience in these projects, have other full time jobs and have been put in charge of this project and in 48 yrs have produced exactly nothing. Those are all historical, verifiable facts.