In a convoy of 5 cars we headed on up to be let in early to set up. Most of the on the road manufactures have opted to go high tech (like

CYPRES lol) and get the x-gloo tent set up. Which let’s us put together a nice manufactures demo and info village.

At bang on 12:00 the gates are opened and for a solid 30 minutes cars, caravans, motor homes and motor bikes make their way in to stake their slot for the week. It did not take long beforethe first load was in the air! Let the boogie begin.

Dollar Daze is not your typical boogie. Fort Dodge isn’t even a DZ for the other 51 weeks of the year. However, for one week a year 30 members of the Des Moines Skydivers set up shop 100 miles north of their home DZ to host a campground full of their closest friends to skydive, eat, drink, party, tell stories, and just hang out. It’s a great way to spend Labor Day weekend, but it is a lot of work for the small skydiving club.

So, just who are the Couch Freaks and what’s the deal with their Dollar Daze boogie?

The Des Moines Skydivers, AKA the Couch Freaks* were organized as a nonprofit club in 1974 by a group of skydivers who wanted make skydives as inexpensive as possible. They took advice from an established club, the Lincoln Sport Parachute Club, and created their own non-profit club. They jumped from a Cessna 195 that the members maintained and serviced themselves, until they “blew the seals during flight” and made one last impromptu exit.

Needing a plane, a couple of members mortgaged their houses and bought a Cessna 182. Later they purchased a Cessna 206 in the same manner. Anyone with a regular job was welcomed into the club to help make payments. Students and demos became important revenue sources. At the end of each year, they held a Christmas party paid for with money left over after paying all club expenses for the year. The year-end party continued to grow in size until 1980 when they decided to have an official party at the end of the summer and spend the excess revenues on cheap jumps. The first year about 40 skydivers enjoyed dollar jumps ($1 per jump) out of the club’s Cessna 206, and the first “Dollar Daze” was born.

Growth

Initially, the club operated out of a small airport in Dallas Center, Iowa. In just a few years, Dollar Daze, by then well-known for it’s good-time atmosphere, outgrew the club’s expectations. However, Dollar Daze’ notoriety not only began attracting a large number of jumpers, it also got the club evicted. So the club moved to Knoxville, Iowa, and began renting larger aircraft to accommodate the growing number of attendees. The first large aircraft at the boogie was a 14 place Sikorsky helecopter. Within a couple of years, even more capacity was needed and the club began using DC3s.

Growth was good for the boogie, but again it got the club evicted. In 1987, the club moved it’s operations from Knoxville to Winterset, Iowa, its current home. Winterset could not accommodate the boogie, so the club decided to host the boogie elsewhere. After reviewing proposals from several airports, the Couch Freaks selected Ft. Dodge, Iowa, as their home away from home for the boogie.

Airplanes

The search for aircraft to accommodate the needs of the boogie became more of a challenge each year. Working with several aircraft owners, and coordinating which aircraft to start first, and shut down first became a yearly problem. Having more lift capacity than needed is not something a Cessna DZ club is used to! Finally in the mid 90’s, the club began working with Larry Hill of Skydive Arizona to bring in three or four turbine planes every year. Although the club has occasionally brought in an additional aircraft to increase lift capacity, using one vendor for all aircraft has eliminated most of the headaches.

In 1992 the event grew to about 900 jumpers, raising concerns about having enough jump capacity. Unfortunately, it rained the entire weekend and capacity never became an issue-the only real problem was keeping the beer taps flowing.

The number of jumpers has leveled off to between 425 and 525 jumpers per year for the last 10 years. Skydive Arizona’s fleet of one Super Skyvan, two Twin Otters and one King Air have been able to handle the crowds with room to spare.

Dollars and Cents.

To support all of the event costs, jump prices have increased from $ 1 but were still offer the best value for your dollar. In addition to great skydives, attendees are also treated to an unlimited supply of beer, live bands, and a smorgasbord of Iowa food including pork chops, sweet corn, and an all-you-can-eat chili feed.

Airport rent, campground setup, electric hookups, showers, toilets, tents, security, food, beer truck, entertainment, insurance and aircraft ferry fees more than offset the registration fees. Profits, if there are any, come from tandems and a percent of jump ticket fees. If the weather is bad, the more attendees we have, the more money we lose! Careful planning and good weather play crucial roles in determining the financial success of each boogie.
Planning for a boogie

It takes a lot of effort to keep the party going. The 30 club members each have to work a minimum of three, six-hour shifts and additional workers are solicited to assist with filling in the other 60 unfilled shifts for a total of approximately 150, six-hour shifts. With no-shows and additional last minutes needs, most members end up working more or longer shifts than expected. By the end of the boogie, the stress level and burn-out rate are high. Everyone is certain they will never be a volunteer anywhere ever again!

Planning for the boogie starts the first week of October each year. That’s when those members who are back on a speaking terms get together to discuss what went well and what went wrong at the recently concluded boogie. A list of do’s and don’ts is developed-though rarely agreed upon, and a starting point is established for next year’s Dollar Daze committee. The club Treasurer and the Dollar Daze Vice President sift through all of the invoices to be sure all vendors are paid and try to determine if the club had a good or bad financial year. Unlike most businesses, club financials always seem to come last. Although a budget is created early in the process to address upfront expenses like advertising and airport rent, success is not determined until all expenses-planned and unplanned are paid.

Club members vote for the board of directors in December. One of the club’s mottos is “be there or be elected.” The five-member board of directors has new members every year. Sometimes the new members know what they are doing, sometimes they learn the hard way. Regardless of their experience and knowledge, planning for the annual Labor Day boogie begins in earnest in early January.

A lot has to happen behind the scenes to put on a boogie 100 miles away from your home DZ. For starters you have to agree to terms with the airport owner, which in this case is the Fort Dodge Regional Airport Commission. Nothing happens quickly with governmental agencies or volunteer clubs. Rental fees, insurance, security, grounds preparation, cleanup and rehabilitation, hangar rental, and prior access to grounds all have to be negotiated and finalized before planning the next steps. It takes a lot of airport space for 700 people to camp for five days. Once an agreement has been reached, then local support from the community has to be reestablished-again from 100 miles away.

Boogies need planes. How many planes depends on the number of jumpers. However, if you don’t have planes locked in by the beginning of the year, you won’t have them come Labor Day. Attendance and weather guarantees have to be made early. The commitment for the turbine aircraft is usually made at the end of the previous boogie-fingers are crossed hoping the numbers work out.

Fort Dodge (population 25,000) also hosts a large rodeo over Labor Day weekend, so hotel rooms for VIPs, organizers and other guests have to be reserved as much as a year in advance. Room negotiations begin before the end of the previous boogie and continue through the summer.

Since there are no services offered at the club’s home-away-from-home airport, the club has to bring everything in-electricity, toilets, water, food and shelter all have to be negotiated and arranged on an annual basis. Since need is unknown when agreements are reached, best guesses are used. Keeping portable toilets clean and showers hot, have provided some of the biggest headaches over the years. There is no easy way to provide comfortable toilets and good showers on a temporary basis when there is limited running water and no sewer connections on site.

Luckily the club has developed a great relationship with the airport management. The airport manager and her key staff all work overtime to ensure the boogie’s success. Without their knowledge and beyond-the-call-of-duty efforts, Dollar Daze would not have survived for 25 years.

Keeping attendees happy

If you can handle the porta-potties, and sometimes hot, sometimes cool showers, the rest is sweet entertainment. Dollar Daze jumpers average more than 13 jumps each during the boogie. Live bands perform on Saturday and Sunday nights with a DJ providing entertainment on Friday night and sometimes Thursday night. An Iowa chop dinner is always on the menu Saturday night and the local Chili Lovers society provides all you can eat chili on Sunday night. A local vendor sets up shop to sell breakfast and lunch on the grounds.

Jumpers from over 30 states and as many as five countries attend the boogie annually. For the past few years the Couch Freaks hosted the finals of the Northern Plains Skydive League. Big ways, head down, CRW, raft dives, balloon jumps and just about every type of skydive you can imagine (even using your adult imagination) can be experienced at Dollar Daze. Many in-air weddings have been performed over the past 25 years.

When the sun goes down the fun heats up. In honor of our past, polyester costume contests are held every year. The beer truck never shuts down, but the music usually ends by 1 am. Since the first load doesn’t usually take off until 9 am, you can enjoy the evening, get a good night rest and still make the first load without missing breakfast. The grill opens at 7 am.

The boogie has changed in location, appearance and size over the last 25 years, but the good times and friendly atmosphere remain the same. From one Cessna 206, to 4 twin-turbine aircraft; from 40 attendees to over 500 attendees; from 180 jumps to over 6,800 jumps; from 6 ways to 60-ways, the boogie has grown. The polyester parties, live music, friendly laid-back attitude, and the fun remain the same. As one attendee stated last year, “it’s like the Sturgis of skydiving, it may not be the biggest boogie, but it is by far the most fun.”

*The Couch Freaks picked up their name and reputation in the early years of the club. Although the stories vary, there is somewhat of a consensus that they got their name from their propensity to decorate their campsites at the Freak Brother’s boogie with couches, throw rugs, and other tacky TV room furniture. The club owned an old school bus that it would use to get to the boogies. The couches were normally strapped to the top of the bus. Original members got their Couch Freak number by climbing out the window on one side of the bus, sitting on a couch on top of the bus, and then climbing in the other side, all while the bus was moving down the highway.

Second jump, somebody took the Base out and all the wackers flew non contact to each other. Base never build again. What a mess. We never debriefed this shit, but went up again instantaniously. Single talks with Kate and Tom Jenkins had been put those take out people on fire. Not easy because multiple language barriers. Even in Briefing room we set up an russian sector and a polish sector , each with a interpreter simultaniously talking.

Jump 3 was better than, …..

Before the last jump we again did an extensive rehearsal on the ground, we need to be ONE Team, like one big creature , with one breathe, hands to the center, take a deeep breath : redy, set, Go…. Everybody went to their assigned Aircraft surrounded by applause and screeming laud. I shouted over to Tom “See Ya in the air” as we split up the groups.
WE made it on this last chance. 103 persons from 31 different Countries jumped 5.500 meter altitude held the formation for  10,4 sec of size of 103 !!!!(Video)

And it flew so well I had no tension on my grip, it was flat as a pizza, eyes into the center, one TEAM for a short time !

The rest you can figure out for yourself, after landing the 5 days of concentration and tense went into a huge hugging, kissing, high five party. I could not believe that this would be a so emotional moment, but it was. All of us were united, no matter what language, forgotten all arguing before, …this is what we jump for. Being United  as One Strong TEAM .

Thanks to all our organizers , they more had the task to mentaly power us, to make us believe in what we can do, teached us how to stay calm and focus.

Larry Henderson, Kate Cooper, Tom Jenkins, BJ Worth, Claudio Serafini, Marloes Swarthoff.

Hey, thanks also to my personal Doc Conny Van Setten who sorted out the medical treatments from all the pharmacy from IVAN. It was really a pain relieve to have you around.

Widget, Duffy , and all those at Skydive PL. what a wonderful event, let me be part of it again next Year, I’m loving it.

J

I’m jumping Velocity/ PD Reserve /Infinity /CYPRES because its simply the best.

Finally on Monday afternoon, the official training day, the air cleared enough to jump for a few hours before the wind changed again and the smoke came back as thick as ever for the opening ceremony.

Who would have ever predicted the 3 days that followed.  Not 3 smoke free or perfect weather days but enough to get 3 rounds per day for each of the 3 days.  The competition is now complete and we still have 2 days to go before the closing ceremony and medal presentation.

Jay Moledzki is the overall winner and is the World Champion for the second time running.  He has now won 2 consecutive World Championships and 2 World Cups.  The overall standings:

Gold Jay Moledzki, Canada
Silver Nicholas Batsch, USA
Bronze Shannon Pilcher, USA

A special mention must also go to the Russian Alexander Golovkin competing in front of his home crowd.  He not only finished in 6th place, the highest ever by a Russian at the World Championships but also won a Silver medal in the Zone Accuracy competition, Russias first medal.  On the 3rd and final round of Zone Accuracy he scored 100 points and the commentator and crowd went wild.

Here are the results for each event:

Zone Accuracy

Gold Jay Moledzki, Canada
Silver Alexander Golovkin, Russia
Bronze Rob McMillan, Australia

Speed

Gold  Jason Moledzi, Canada
Silver Shannon Pilcher, USA
Bronze Greg Windmiller, USA

Distance

Gold Christian Wagner, Austria
Silver Nicholas Batsch, USA
Bronze Jay Moledzki, Canada

Congratulations to all the winners and also everyone who competed safely and made the event so successful.

Check out pictures of the event here. Photos by Igor Kalinin

Our wednesday started 7:30 with waiting. A Let 410 had left the DZ, so the Captains had to divide the Team 101 in 5 Aircrafts.  New AC slots were assigned. We did start our 4 dives over the day with 5000meter and Oxygen. It worked good , with that more time you could invest into the quality of the jump. 19:30 we still not gotten it yet. But we will work hard on that tomorrow.

Resume’ for today some one sacrificed a molar tooth when he kept hanging onto the floater bar as all others went by. Somebody forced him against the AC shell. Harry was right, the rest of the plane exited too early, he decited to stay……..Bummer

Another highlight was that at the end of the day Prayer (lay down on the grass briefing) Kate told us some guy “Smiley” from Sweden would make an announcement in the 101 center. So we came near and gathered around Mark. He was a bit pale in his face( what I can really understand) his voice was nervous as he talked us about what fun it was to become a skydiver before 7 Years, but more than skydiving changed his life, he met a girl at skydiving and fell in love with her……You know what will follow……YES he asked the girl in the center of the formation, went on his knees and made her a Marriage proposal. WHOW !

Kate Cooper handed Mark over the rings and he put her the ring on. Mostly all of us had wet eyes as this was so emotional. He asked us one wish “let us complete our 101 way tomorrow” Everybody screemed and applaused, they kissed and we went off the green to watch our last video. WE promised to make it . Pledeged. View Lukas Videos here.

see you again tomorrow…..

J.

I’m jumping Velocity/ PD Reserve /Infinity /CYPRES because its simply the best.

After a nice downwind landing, because the arrow is the almighty direction, I surfed my butt protecting the fractured foot, ssssssiiit. Workes fine. Check out nice pics from Norman K.

Debriefing, bad news not so bad news and great news arrive us from Kate: one Let 410 broke again, “uuuuHHH” not so bad news it was the one from the “no need to fuel up Guys” , Great news:  we will get a 3rd Sky Van. Thomas thank you to come over inspite u have birthday vacation, “Happy birthday from all of us !”  13:00 weather hold due to rain, time to blog around an serve you with brand new footage .  16:00 hrs back from jump no two this day 50way we have more video to share. buddy video_wesley2.2

Check also tons of video footage from the ground in the “comments section ” from Lucas !!!!!!!

J.

I’m jumping Velocity/ PD Reserve /Infinity /CYPRES because its simply the best.

10:40 til 12:30 Briefing briefing briefing, “focus, center, stadium” all that basics and more, run your dive exit frame separation. Larry Henderson spoke deeply about importance for seperation sequence and maximum pull atitude of 850meter (2700ft.)

first lift took off at 12:30 with a 60 way . Clouds came in….

We had geared up ready to roll, when we got called back to stand by due to hydraulic problems on one of the 4 Let410. On the other hand crazy fu…. pilots touched their Let wing tips while taxiing !!!! No big damage , but gives you an impression of the first day. 16:00 Now it started to rain, we’re on weather- and hydraulic hold now.

Ahh the leading plane turned from Plane “C” into “Cypres2″.  I like it to have them named, I’m in the Fliteclub Let second right. Pictures will follow as the rain stops…….

J

I’m jumping Velocity/ PD Reserve /Infinity /CYPRES because its simply the best.

OK, shit chat with Kristof from Wings store fo quitw a while. The line as still there.
Met Norman showing him our newest shots for our fashion line, oupps shouldn’tt tell you ’bout this…., anyway he found them fine. Have you read this Jana ?. Line seems to be unchanged. -Got my first beer-. Somebody laughed about my 100 Zlotys from 1986, “what’s wron with that” found the brandnew bill in my drawer at home “this is old currency, worth maybe a cent now” My Euros want work either. Got second that beer spent by Krystof.

Finally after beer no.4 , spent by Norman, about 11pm I got all admin things done received my CYPRES pull up cord, the Record T-shirt and some other free stuff, –Yeah the free stuff Guy thats me in this second. I’m set . Let the fun begin.

Check out for tomorrows News here on CYNN.

http://www.redbullstratos.com/gallery.aspx?movie=2

Here’ some more Bio about Joe Kittinger , notice the ancient gear he’s using. Just paste the above link into your browswer window, it will bring you to our partner Webspace RedBull stratos.com. Present is arriving.

Stay tuned. Dr. J

Congratulations to that awesome score of 24 points in disziplin VRW , yes twenty four pionts in 3D relative work. HHHuuuuh here is the stunning footage, watch it at least twice to get it !

J.