A wonderful facility located at an airport capable of hosting Mullins turbo-beast with a huge landing arena and close enough to a township capable of offering all the amenities. It was impressive hearing the instructor interact by name with eight or more students on my different visits. Tandem Masters offering phenomenal skills with their passengers and canopies. Everything video, with quality vidiots offering impressive swoop landings for the wuffos.
Cushing is also located close to Oklahoma University and Oklahoma State University providing a healthy and renewed supply of student and tandem jumpers.
On three separate visits to Cushing this season I found the following behaviors to be the norm for myself and the other fun jumpers to experience:
…You will wait hours to see if you will even be manifested, other fun jumpers waited much longer, i.e. you will be put on a waiting list for the waiting list.
…Expect be bumped repeatedly upon being manifested (…common across the country perhaps, but hopefully not expected…).
…Do not be surprised when issued a mandatory exit altitude of three thousand feet.
…the teen "in charge" of manifest will suggest you should have gone to another drop zone, naming Skydive Dallas, if you truly expected to make a jump.
…You will be laughed at for hoping to have your fun jumper fee respected.
…You will be disrespected for feeling disapproval of the above actions.
Cushing is an exceptional location for a student skydivers and tandem jumpers.
If you are a fun jumper and don’t wish to dispose of, or don’t have enough opportunity to have your skydiving day disposed of ‘for’ you, as the manifest teen recommends and I now know, another drop zone will be a more satisfactory choice.
I am an aggravated jumper who feels totally cheated by this series of events. While aware my feelings are biased in my own favor, I have chosen to offer this review not only on my behalf but on the behalf of a friend of mine who has seen me jumping for years and has finally saved up enough money to pay for tandem progression and some solid student gear of their own. They offered to me on the drive home after visiting Oklahoma Skydiving Center with me, ‘Cushing’ would not receive a dime of their hard earned money since it was apparent they too would be treated as castoff upon achieving skydiver, experienced, or “FUN” jumper status. This is my friend’s unsolicited point of view.
On Cushing’s behalf, IF there are no students, tandems, nor video jumps available to bump\replace a fun jumper, Cushing will definitely allow fun jumper a slot and at least three thousand feet of altitude. Just what any skydiver worked for and waited for all week long.