Curtis Giles: Safety is the Priority!

Skydive Orange (SDO) is the STANDARD for AFF. Safety is the priority! The facilities and staff are professional and always willing to provide those little nuggets of wisdom that’ll help you during your AFF process, as well as throughout your skydiving career. You cannot have a conversation with anyone that has gone through, or are currently going through their AFF at SDO and not mention the well-respected AFF director Steve. Steve is to the point and runs the SDO AFF program like a well-oiled machine. He makes multi-tasking look effortless. I have many memories of Steve, but my fondest moment was my 25^th jump. I landed right next to the cone and there was Steve standing by the white student pickup truck with that emotionless look on his face. I said “See Steve, I may not act like I’m listening to you, but I really do.” He replied with “Yeah, you finally did something right”. Inside joke…Steve gave me my A license stamp on forehead gave me some more words of wisdom, and like clockwork, got back to work and manifested the AFF students on the next load and assigned them to their AFF Instructor or Coach.

The Instructors, Coaches, Riggers, Packers, and Guest Services personnel are second to none. One thing you’ll learn about skydiving is that the weather will dictate skydive operations. There will be days where you will be at the DZ all day and get one jump in if you’re lucky, due to wind, rain, clouds and cloud holds. Instead of just sitting around twiddling your thumbs, you can get with a packer and learn how to pack your chute. You can ask an Instructor or Coach to train you on the next AFF Category or make sure that you’re caught up on your quizzes. Coming from a military Airborne background, I really appreciate how everyone is willing to assist you and make you feel comfortable as you progress through your AFF training.

I can honestly say that I’ve been introduced to some new friends to that I look forward to continuing to kiss the sky with. Henry, Billy, Mario, Matt, Tammer, Adam, Tina, Monica, Nick, Spencer, Cherry, Jon, Luke, Kevin, Whitney, Kelly and “SODU” thank you for being from Day 1 to graduation. I’ve jumped with many SDO AFF Instructors and Coaches, so please forgive me if I miss anyone. See you in the sky and at the bonfire! I’m claiming my bunk!