Bruffy's beauty from the mid-80s

[Bob_Church 7]

Spurgeon just now emailed this to me. It would be from Ravenswood Wv, mid-80s. Man, we had some serious fun with this thing.

[davidlayne 5]

I remember him bringing it to Xenia.

I recall a story about him (at least I think it was him.) Late 80's and he was running two Beech 18's. As I remember it the two Beech 18's were conducting jump operations or were returning from jump operations.

Bruffy was piloting one Beech and was in orbit while the other landed. However, the first 18 neglected to put it's gear down and made a belly landing.

Bruffy was so enraged at seeing this from his aerial view that he commenced landing to chew out the unfortunate pilot. He was so consumed with uncontrollable anger that he too forgot to put his gear down resulting in two Beech 18's belly landing!

I don't care how many skydives you've got,
until you stepped into complete darkness at
800' wearing 95 lbs of equipment and 42 lbs
of parachute, son you are still a leg!

[Niki1 1]

Like Larry the Cable Guy says, "That's funny. I don't care who you are."

Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done.
Louis D Brandeis

Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

[Bob_Church 7]

davidlayne

I remember him bringing it to Xenia.

I recall a story about him (at least I think it was him.) Late 80's and he was running two Beech 18's. As I remember it the two Beech 18's were conducting jump operations or were returning from jump operations.

Bruffy was piloting one Beech and was in orbit while the other landed. However, the first 18 neglected to put it's gear down and made a belly landing.

Bruffy was so enraged at seeing this from his aerial view that he commenced landing to chew out the unfortunate pilot. He was so consumed with uncontrollable anger that he too forgot to put his gear down resulting in two Beech 18's belly landing!

He had a 411 and a King Air. I forget which was which but on one day a pilot was flying one of them for him and put it into the fence (I'm almost positive this was in Rome Georgia). The next day he was flying jumpers in the other plane and was looking at the crashed one trying to assess the damage and came on in with the gear up. As for a D-18 he had a beauty and crashed it twice, so that may be what you're thinking of. I've got a couple of photos of that I can upload if you'd like.

[dzswoop717 5]

I was at a West Point VA Holloween boogie in the mid eighties. It was the first time I had met John Bruffy. We had planned a big way formation load for early the next day after the big costume partythat evening. I was young and could party with the best of em, but I couldn't keep up with bruffy. The party was over at the whee hours of the morning and bruffy was the last man standing,I use the word standing very loosly. He was trashed. The next morning I get to the dirt dive, completely hung over and I end up in the right seat of Bruffy's Beech 18. We are the right trail plane to one of Fayard's 18's in a 3 or 4 plane formation.. Bruffy couldn't have had more than 2 hours sleep and his eyes were as red as the tomato juice. When he turned to talk to me he, he smelled like a brewery, along with everyone else on the load including myself. Bruffy puts the left wing of his beech 18 five feet from the trailing edge of the lead 18 and keeps it there for the entire climb to altitude. I was petrified. If he felt half as hung over as I did this could end in a very ugly way. He flew with a steady hand and kept us soooo close that when I exited last I was only 30 feet or so away from the guy who was last out of the lead plane. It was one of the scariest, on the edge of my seat, rides to altitude I have ever experienced.

[Bob_Church 7]

There were times I wondered if John was human, or an android sent from the future to replenish a ravaged mankind's supply of beer.
We'd all get seriously drunk on Saturday night, then on Sunday morning on the first load you'd find yourself hoping you'd go in and end the pain. The pain. The pain. But the adrenaline of the jump itself cleared things up pretty well. Except of course that John couldn't jump, he spent the day flying up and down. By the end of the day his face would be bright red and that vein on the side of his forehead would be pumping. And he'd be mean as a snake. But just until a few minutes after the beer light came on, he didn't waste time.

[HPC 7]

Hartzell props - you didn't see those too often on Twin Beeches. Most had twin-bladed Hamilton Standards. The D-18 I used to jump from in IL also had Hartzells.

What's right isn't always popular and what's popular isn't always right.

[davidlayne 5]

Thanks for the clarification. Yes please post the pictures.

I don't care how many skydives you've got,
until you stepped into complete darkness at
800' wearing 95 lbs of equipment and 42 lbs
of parachute, son you are still a leg!

[Bob_Church 7]

The plane had seaplane props. The story is that two guys put some serious money into it then got busted on their first trip from Mexico. John but a nice step on it and a rod down the center of the top so we could do James Bond loads.
Below are its arrival, then over the hill and back.
john2016 is him, seated at last year's reunion. r2016 is the reunion and the last one is from our 2014 reunion. On the upper deck of the porch is, on the left John Vickery then Mike Todd. That photo is by Jerry Waters.
I don't know if there's any limit on photos or not. If so, someone please let me know and I'll erase them.