Thanks for stopping by my new web site!
For those who don't know me, my name is Rob Desilets and I live in Austin, TX. I started skydiving at the Massachusetts Sport Parachuste Club in 1992 in Turners Falls, Massachusetts which later moved to Orange (Jumptown).
In 1997 I moved to Austin to escape the long and cold winters - and I have been here ever since. I still can't get used to wearing shorts in January!
As with many people reading this, I love formation skydiving.
I could write an entire essay on what I love about it -- the concepts,
the discipline, the many great folks I meet all over the country, and the list goes on.
In the past year or so I have been trying to make the transition from participant to junior organizer. I have
been learning how the event organizers engineer dives, determine exit order, and what they look for in the video
debriefs. As a starting point, I have helped facilitate a few smaller (20-30 way) events.
As I planned these events I found that email quickly became an inefficient way of communicating when
it came to group discussion and general event planning.
For example, I sent out an email to 30 people to see who would be interested in getting together on a particular weekend.
Most people hit reply all as to whether they can make it (or not). Then you always get a joker who sends a
reply all which sparks another firestorm of email. Before long there are 75 emails in my inbox that I need to
sift through.
So, I had an idea.
 What if I put together a web site that had an online forum which
would facilitate communication between the people I skydive with? What about a calendar that everyone can
access and electronically register for upcoming events (and see who else is signed up)? A gallery
where we could post and comment on event photos as well as download ZIP files with all event photos and videos? A place for organizers to discuss upcoming events? Forums for
teams or big way event participants to chat privately?
That is exactly what I did.
This is not intended to be a replacement to other popular skydiving sites like bigways.com or
dropzone.com.
Its purpose is to facilitate communication between groups of formation skydivers in the planning and discussion of
upcoming local events in Texas and New England.
This is just the initial launch of the site and I am planning to really evolve it as time goes on. It's an
online community and the more people that embrace it the more successful it will become.
Below are some screen shots from the members area of the site (click to see large image).
See you in the sky!
-Rob Desilets
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