Apr 25, 2010, 11:12 AM
Post #78 of 87
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Re: [stormville73] Lockheed Lodestars as jumpships
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The lodestar from stormville ny was the first airplane i ever experienced a LANDING in..... I had about 150 jumps... I was never in a plane until i started jumping.....and never rode a plane back down... so i had 150 take offs and Zero Landings
while visiting family near Stormville in '73 i headed over there to make some cessna loads...They had a pea gravel target accross the road..... Willy saw a good handful of jumpers were there, that day, and declared... "let's drive over to Poughkeepsie, to the airport, and "get the big plane"... "who want's to go, " ???/ so i and maybe 5 others piled into the back of his pick-up truck,,,with cap,,, and rode the 15 minutes or so, to Dutchess County Airport..... We flew back, with the plane,,,,, a short hop.. No rigs, no seatbelts, no problem!!!
i recall looking out the windows as the trees were flashing by,,, and the runway seemed to be yet Miles,,, ahead of the windshield..... figuring that we'd never even GET close to it... But we did , and all was well.. Stormville Ny was fairly big time for those days.. and did lots of RW jumps........ a few years later... It was no more... and word spead of a NEW place,,, a better place... a place with a gravel runway,, on the OTHER side of the Hudson River... some called it The Ranch, some called it Gardiner,,,,I thought of it as Billy and Kays' place... many called it home....and so THAT story Began !!!
thanks for the pictures. i certainly DO remember that split rail fence up near the airport building, which is shown in the background of your photo.. of the Lodestar with the red car.... The DZ building(s) was further west at That end of the runway.... wow such a long time ago.. yet still vivid in my minds eye...
Jul 8, 2010, 11:00 AM
Post #79 of 87
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Re: [jimmytavino] Lockheed Lodestars as jumpships
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Someone just bought Duncan Baker's Howard 500 in the UK and will be ferrying it to the US. The Howard 500 is a Lodestar on steroids, R 2800 engines, pressurized, and FAST (338 kts)! This particular 500 had been sitting idle in a hanger for a decade, but was made airworthy with no major trouble.
Jul 9, 2010, 12:35 PM
Post #80 of 87
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Re: [Zing] Lockheed Lodestars as jumpships
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Randy DeLuca took this photo at The Gulch in Arizona sometime in (I think) 1974. A few folks managed to get out, including the guy just above the tail, and the rest of the load rode it down to about 7000 feet before the pilot got it back under control. They don't call them Lodestalls for no reason.
The photo tells it all; no gear down. That's 500lbs about 6 feet aft of where it would be when down. Bill Buchmann used the same setting Poppenhager eluded to, about 90 kts with gear down and full flaps.
If the story that got back to us (at Z-Hills) was correct, the pilot of the aircraft in the photo was just out of the Air Force as a test pilot. He got the aircraft under control after lowering the gear on the way down. We heard the recovery was at about 4000 ft.
Jul 10, 2010, 9:23 PM
Post #81 of 87
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Re: [RogerRamjet] Lockheed Lodestars as jumpships
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It seemed like we were in a dive for a really long time, but I think the plane recovered at nearly 12,000. Jumprun was just over 15,000. Randy Kempf and Steve Graas (RIP) were in the cockpit. One of them told us that it took the strength of them both to pull the plane out of the dive.
Jul 12, 2010, 6:13 AM
Post #82 of 87
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Re: [beenthere] Lockheed Lodestars as jumpships
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It seemed like we were in a dive for a really long time, but I think the plane recovered at nearly 12,000. Jumprun was just over 15,000. Randy Kempf and Steve Graas (RIP) were in the cockpit. One of them told us that it took the strength of them both to pull the plane out of the dive.
Thanks for that; it could well be a different stall that my story eludes to.
I was not aware Steve Graas had died, do you know from what?
Do we know each other (you've been in the sport long enough)?
Jul 13, 2010, 4:38 AM
Post #85 of 87
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Re: [beenthere] Lockheed Lodestars as jumpships
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I'm not sure when Steve died, it must have been at least 20 years ago, maybe someone knows.
He did help save many of our lives that day of our loadstall.
I met Steve in Hinkley when Bill Buchmann and I flew the Loadstar up from Z-Hills for the summer of 75. I was building Bill's Eagle rigs for him at the time.
Roger Nelson wrote about Steve and me (among others) in Pat Works' "United We Fall" book. Here is a link to chapter 5 of the book. If you scroll down to "Pre Stars, Hey man, you're late," you can see what Roger had to say: http://users.cis.fiu.edu/~esj/uwf/uwf5.htm
Jul 19, 2010, 6:18 PM
Post #86 of 87
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Re: [RogerRamjet] Lockheed Lodestars as jumpships
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Steve died flying a Lear Jet out of Denver. If I recall correctly it was overgross and lost an engine just after departrure. This had to be in the late 70's.maybe 1980. Steve was a great jumper and pilot.
Jul 20, 2010, 4:35 AM
Post #87 of 87
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Re: [trebilco] Lockheed Lodestars as jumpships
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Steve died flying a Lear Jet out of Denver. If I recall correctly it was overgross and lost an engine just after departrure. This had to be in the late 70's.maybe 1980. Steve was a great jumper and pilot.
Thanks for the update. Sad to have lost yet another friend. Yes, he was a great guy, excellent pilot and skydiver. He was also the first person I ever heard use the term aarrrggg. We had a rig back from Jim Hooper to resize the harness a bit and Bill had just completed cutting all the stitching that holds the container to the harness about the time Steve walked through the front door at Overton's Airport (a small house with an airstrip in the back yard we lived in during the summer of 1975). Just as Steve was saying hi, Bill ripped the container from the harness at which time Steve let out a loud AAARRRGGGG. Bill must has looked like superman or something; it was pretty funny and I still remember the moment like it was yesterday.
