Skydive Houston - Labor Day Contest Results

[Levin 0]

Fastest man Contest:

1st Place: Thomas McDow @ 292mph
2nd Place: John Rich @ 250mph

Tracking Contest: Glen vanHouten

Flower Bomb Drop: Kurt Ginsel

Thanks to everybody for a great weekend!

Levin
vSCS #03

[rgoper 0]

Levin:

thanks for posting! c ya!

--Richard--
"We Will Not Be Shaken By Thugs, And Terroist"

[AggieDave 6]

Did John do that on that old ass rig of his or did he borrow something that is a little more bullet proof?

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[Jumperpaula 0]

Cool. I should really get out to Skydive Houston more often.

Is Thomas still insane?

Jumped with some of those guys at Ballunar and forget how crazy they can be. -Funny, didn't know they used to call SUSA the "Porn Drop Zone" , I got this real feeling of pride when I heard that.

Hope to see ya soon.

[Levin 0]

Quote

Did John do that on that old ass rig of his or did he borrow something that is a little more bullet proof?

i'm really not sure. ramon handled that contest. for those of you that don't know john, he's a style and accuracy dude. i don't think i've ever seen him freefly. ramon gave him some ground coaching and he held first place until the last jump of the contest when thomas got 292.

levin
vSCR#17

[AggieDave 6]

Oh, he's definately not a FF guy, I've tried to talk him into going on FF jumps with me, he always laughs and tells me he did enough of that stuff as a student.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[wmw999 2,134]

He was jumping a Racer with a ripcord. I'm assuming that's the "old ass" rig. Of course, his speed held through the original 3:00PM contest end time...

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[AggieDave 6]

Yeah, that brown Racer that he's had since Christ was a mess cook. Personally, I wouldn't feel real safe doing anything like a speed dive in an old rig like that, BUT I know John and he's a safe jumper who knows his shit, so it was more then likely rock solid.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[TEB6363 0]

Hey, please give us another run-down of the events. E.g. was the fastest ff head down with a pro-track, or did it have to be a belly jump (not likely with those speeds). What was the flour bomb drop??

These sound like interesting boogie events that I want to remember. But I would probably need to know the rules

Once the plane takes off, you're gonna have to land - Might as well jump out!!

[JohnRich 4]

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Did John do that on that old ass rig of his or did he borrow something that is a little more bullet proof?

Hi Dave. This is John, and to answer your question, Yes, I did do it on my "old ass" brown rig. I'll bet you didn't think I was watching this thread. Since my rig has a ripcord for main deployment, it's actually very suitable for high-speed head-down dives. A ripcord creates very little wind drag, and has little chance to sneak out of an elastic pocket like a bottom-of-container throw-out pilot chute. Of course, such an event would be extremely ugly at over 200 mph.

I hit 250 mph in a single attempt, which had me in 1st place until the third and last afternoon of the event. Thomas made five jumps before he beat me, and he earned it. Congratulations to Mr. McDow.

I've actually hit 330 mph before, in a speed dive I made during a series of jumps a couple of years ago, just to see what I could do.

Attached is the Pro-Track chart of that dive.

[JohnRich 4]

Quote

Yeah, that brown Racer that he's had since Christ was a mess cook. Personally, I wouldn't feel real safe doing anything like a speed dive in an old rig like that, BUT I know John and he's a safe jumper who knows his shit, so it was more then likely rock solid.

It only seems like that brown rig has been around forever, because I've had a whole series of them, which have all been ordered to look the same. So to someone who jumped with me 20 years ago, it looks like I've still got the same old rig. I've actually retired a lot of those old brown rigs, and the one I've got now is about five years old.

[JohnRich 4]

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was the fastest ff head down with a pro-track, or did it have to be a belly jump (not likely with those speeds).

The speed dives could be done anyway you wanted. At least one guy was trying feet-first as his technique, and got to about 200 mph. Another was toying with the idea of trying a "cannonball tuck" position. I believe that head-down is the way to go, tweaking your angle of attack, and hand, arm and leg positions, to achieve maximum speed.

Measurements were taken with a Pro-Track, mounted on the ankle, using "True Air Speed". Ramon had five of them which the manufacturer sent him to conduct the contest.