MIDDLETOWN — When Marc Tripari opened Skydive Newport 15 years ago this month, he was living out of an old light blue Honda Accord parked in the main lot of the Newport State Airport.
Tripari was the company’s only employee at that time and remembers eating cans of tuna fish for dinner and showering at the Newport Athletic Club in Middletown to clean up.
Today, Tripari is at the helm of a successful local business, one that has 10 employees and three airplanes. It set a new company record a couple of Saturdays ago when it completed close to 100 tandem jumps in one day.
“We figured it out recently, and if you add up the number of jumps we’ve done from 2 miles up over the years, you could go around the world twice,” Tripari said. “It’s been an amazing ride.”
With 15 years of experience as a skydiving instructor already under his belt, Tripari decided in July 1999 to take the jump and set up shop at what now is known as the Col. Robert F. Wood Airpark.
Although there had been a skydive company at the island’s airport a few years before, Tripari said he felt he was sitting on a gold mine, given the attractiveness of Newport as an international tourist destination.
He bought his first plane sight unseen, and his high-limit credit cards got quite a workout as he set up the business from scratch.
“Our clients have been great here over the years,” Tripari said. “It feels good. No one else built this business.”
Today, Skydive Newport works like a well-oiled machine, with everyone having a job and knowing it inside and out, Tripari said. Each customer has to sign a liability waiver, go through a 10-minute training course and then get ready to board a plane on his or her way up for a tandem jump.
Although the plane climbs to 10,000 feet, Tripari said where skydivers jump — known as “The Spot” among skydive veterans — varies day to day, depending mostly on weather and wind conditions.
Throughout the trip up and as divers are on their way down, the pilot is in constant communication with air traffic control at T.F. Green Airport in Warwick as well as the local network to make sure everyone is aware there are jumpers in the air, Tripari said.
On days like the one a couple of weekends ago, Skydive Newport will run two planes on a cycle, with instructors packing chutes almost as soon as another team lands, Tripari said. It takes a trained instructor about 10 or 15 minutes to pack a parachute.
The charge for a tandem jump is $230, up from $200 in 1999.
Despite the popularity of skydiving and the company’s successful track record, Tripari said one thing he still hears from people is how unsafe the sport is.
And while Tripari said there’s certainly a risk from jumping out of a plane traveling at 90 mph, 2 miles above the ground, the same could be said with many activities.
“Statistically, it’s safer to do this than drive your car here and back home,” Tripari said. “There’s risk in everything you do, but we always hear about it when the reality is something much, much different.”
Tripari said the other misconception about skydiving is how rough a ride it is.
“People will say, ‘I’m not going on that roller coaster ride,’” Tripari said. “It’s nothing like a roller coaster ride and it’s actually calm and pleasant, especially the view.”
As for what became of the old Accord, Tripari said he rigged it up with a crash-test dummy bolted to the hood and drove it around downtown Newport to generate a buzz about his business before selling it years ago.
And his new ride? A Ferrari that’s the same shade of light blue.
Story and Photos: http://www.newportri.com
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