CSC eNews Update | 4.26.11 | Chicagoland Skydiving Center (CSC) Blog

CSC eNews Update | 4.26.11

» by Douglas on April 26, 2011 • CSC eNews Updates

We’re not off to the best weather start this season, but it’s given us plenty of time to get settled into our new home. The City of Rochelle continues to welcome us with open arms and we are very excited about our future here. Many of you may have missed the last CSC eNews Update due to some technical problems with our email distribution service. If so, you can check it out here. Speaking of past eNews Updates, did you know that we archive all of them? It’s interesting to go back in time and read about CSC back then.

So, where do we stand regarding our >new facilities? The site plan has been approved by the City of Rochelle and we should start seeing excavation equipment on-site later this week or early next. The photos below show our crews adding gravel to an exisiting pathway so we can place our completely renovated bathroom/shower house on-site. Once things start rolling, it will be a relatively fast process for us to put in the driveway, parking lot, taxiway expansion, loading area, temporary facilities, loading tent, and, of course, the RV park! We were hoping to have everything paved at the same time, but have decided against doing that for fear of damaging the asphalt with the heavy cranes and vehicles that will be driving across them throughout the construction process. Once construction is complete, everything will be paved. It’s going to be an interesting season as we implement all of these changes. Please bear with us – it will be worth it!

Crews came in on Monday and began stripping out the trees along the east end of our landing area to reduce obstacles and turbulence. Also, the asphalt path and elevation change in the landing area will be removed next week. Once the winter wheat is harvested this summer, we will be planting grass, effectively making our landing area much larger.

Follow the construction progress here.

Thanks to everyone who attended USPA Safety Day. We had a great turn-out and we had over 75 people view our live uStream. Special thanks to our presenters for their time and effort.

We’ve had a few busy days in Rochelle, but they’ve been few and far between due to this horrible weather trend. However, the pace is fast here. The long, paved runway allows us to land and stop by the taxiway intersection and then depart from the intersection minimizing any back-taxiing time. Also, with hot fueling permitted on the field, we can carry less jet fuel and refuel more often – keeping things moving faster and more efficient for everyone. With these oil prices, we need to save wherever we can!

As of now, we are flying the PAC full-time (well, actually it’s mainly been sitting in the hangar!). The Super Otter is due back to her new home on May 6. At that point, the PAC will hit the Midwest tour and fly at other DZs until our business picks up enough to warrant both aircraft at CSC. For a detailed schedule for the PAC, click here.

CSC Phone Number Change – please update your cell phones, Rolodexes, Outlooks, Post-It next to the phone, etc to reflect the new local Rochelle CSC phone number. We will be phasing out the old Hinckley numbers. Our new main number is 815.561.3663. Download the CSC vCard.

Attention Tech Geeks:

We’ve posted a page on our website outlining some helpful items for you tech geeks out there. We pride ourselves on delivering as much relevant content to you in a variety of mediums.

We’ve added some new features to our Facebook page – including a “Reservations” tab (courtesy of PROskydiving’s new Facebook app) and the “Deals” tab. On the reservations tab, customers can book directly from CSC’s Facebook page. The deals tab has rotating specials for customers who “check-in” via Facebook Places when they arrive. We’re currently running a deal for $50 off training at Freefall University.

If you aren’t familiar with the “check in” procedures, there are two services we’ll be utilizing this season to reward our loyal customers. We’ve already discussed Facebook Places, and we’ll also be using Foursquare. Foursquare is a location-based tool that customers use to explore their city. If you have questions about how Foursquare works, check out this video. If you have any questions on any of this stuff, please contact sydney@PROskydiving.com