Unstable 8 #1 October 30, 2007 All of you riggers and candidates know his literature all too well, but what about the man himself. Where in the world is Dan Poynter? Where did that wascley Wabbit go? Is he still jumping? I saw a video of him online somewhere giving a seminar on how to Publish a book and compete in a competitive publishing market, and he had his infamous Rigging books with him as a visual aid. Who knows the man?=========Shaun ========== Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Unstable 8 #2 October 30, 2007 P.s. - I'm just asking because his literature has been the staple diet for riggers for many years, and yet I have never met anyone who actually knows him or who jumped with him...=========Shaun ========== Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MakeItHappen 15 #3 October 30, 2007 Quote P.s. - I'm just asking because his literature has been the staple diet for riggers for many years, and yet I have never met anyone who actually knows him or who jumped with him... Dan is alive and well. He travels the world giving talks, mostly about publishing. I have known him since 1983 or 84. Talked to him a couple of weeks ago. Never jumped with him. He stopped jumping before I started. He's on the board of the musuem and very active with PIA. .. Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Unstable 8 #4 October 30, 2007 Is he active in the Rigging Arts? When did the guy stop jumping?=========Shaun ========== Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hackish 8 #5 October 30, 2007 If anyone has an email addy please PM it to me. I found an old one but it bounced. Just wanted to send a few typos I found in his book. -Michael Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ZigZagMarquis 8 #6 October 30, 2007 Quote Dan is alive and well. He travels the world giving talks, mostly about publishing. I do mean this, but I don't mean it to be a slam... has Dan since gotten better at the "Writting a good index" aspect of Publishing (a document)? I mean, the 2 Poynter's manuals are great. Lots and lots of good information in both... but its &&^%#%ing impossible sometimes to find things YOU KNOW are in there... I'VE SEEN IT HERE BEFORE... WHERE THE &^%# WAS IT!!?? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JerryBaumchen 1,047 #7 October 30, 2007 Hi Unstable, I've known him since we first met in about '73, and had a ton of written correspondence with him prior to that ( in the age before computers, if anyone can remember those days ). He broke/seriously injured his neck in a hang-gliding accident a long time ago; that is what took him out of jumping ( to the very best of my knowledge ). For many, many years ( early '60's forward ) he wrote a monthly column in PARACHUTIST called PARACHUTING POYNTERS. These articles were about the only way that rigging knowledge was spread around 'back in the day.' He has done more for this sport than anyone else that I know, JerryBaumchen Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
howardwhite 4 #8 October 30, 2007 I've known Dan since 1966. He forced me to join PCA, taught me how to make neat patches on canopies and travelled with me around the Northeast when I was about to succeed him as USPA regional director. And my picture is in the Parachute Manual, modeling an old rig. As Jerry Baumchen has noted, he was seriously injured in a hang gliding accident and is not jumping. He is, however, very busy traveling around the world and is an active participant in both the Parachute Industry Assn. and the National Skydiving Museum, of which he's a trustee. I've seen him several times this year and will see him next in Raeford in December. I posted what is apparently a bogus email address (from his web site) but will be happy to pm people a good one. Just expect that his responses will be brief and to the point. HW Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MakeItHappen 15 #9 October 31, 2007 Quote Is he active in the Rigging Arts? When did the guy stop jumping? I doubt if Dan does day-to-day rigging anymore, unless you count sewing buttons back on as rigging. He does keep up with the major changes and advances. patents, etc Also at the PIA symposiums, he absorbs a lot of info there. He gives talks and introduces VIPs on occasion. You can almost always find him in the Press room at PIA Symposiums. Most of his parachute efforts nowadays are in the historical preservation side. He worked a lot with the late Jim Bates, recruited Howard White, and even me. As Jerry and Howard mentioned, he stopped jumping after getting seriously hurt. But as I recall the injury was from a parachute tow accident. A truck was towing a ram-air with Dan under it. The parachute dived for the ground and he hammered in. I think they did not have a quick release at the jumper end of the cable. He also did some of the early slope soaring, but I don't think he got hurt doing that. Re: indexing I think the PM1 and PM2 were all done manually - long before you could get the software to make them for you. One of his other books was one of the first ones sent to a printer as a pdf file. Re: his email Send an email to me and I will forward your message. Aerosoftware_AT_makeithappen.com _AT_ = @ Forgot to mention that Dan did a handful of jumps in the mid 1990's at Santa Barbara. I think that was the last time he jumped. .. Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DBCOOPER 1 #10 October 31, 2007 Quote If anyone has an email addy please PM it to me. I found an old one but it bounced. Just wanted to send a few typos I found in his book. -Michael I'm sure he will be anxious to hear from you Replying to: Re: Stall On Jump Run Emergency Procedure? by billvon If the plane is unrecoverable then exiting is a very very good idea. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
benbarclay 0 #11 October 31, 2007 we saw him in South Australia about a month ago, he came to our small club agm, gave a great talk and gave out his books to everyone who attended... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mnealtx 0 #12 October 31, 2007 Quote Quote If anyone has an email addy please PM it to me. I found an old one but it bounced. Just wanted to send a few typos I found in his book. -Michael I'm sure he will be anxious to hear from you Most authors are grateful to readers for pointing out errors in their work so that it can be corrected. The rest are egotists.Mike I love you, Shannon and Jim. POPS 9708 , SCR 14706 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tombuch 0 #13 October 31, 2007 Here is his web site with lots of information about what he's doing, and his other publishing ventures: [url]http://www.parapublishing.com/sites/para/about/about.cfm[url]Tom Buchanan Instructor Emeritus Comm Pilot MSEL,G Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mnealtx 0 #14 October 31, 2007 QuoteHere is his web site with lots of information about what he's doing, and his other publishing ventures: http://www.parapublishing.com/sites/para/about/about.cfm Fixed linkMike I love you, Shannon and Jim. POPS 9708 , SCR 14706 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hackish 8 #15 October 31, 2007 I got a new address and it worked. I guess he's on the road a lot doing his lectures and stuff. I always try to get the errors off to authors. Usually they take them and send a thanks back. I have no idea if the errors get fixed in future printings, but if nobody reports them they're guaranteed not to be fixed. -Michael Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
danchapman 0 #16 March 14, 2010 I first met Dan in 62-63, in NJ. He jumped from time to time with our club in Manville, where I worked doing odd jobs, including packing rigs for free jumps. Dan had real nice gear, Pioneer, with his personalzed insignia on his chest mounted reserve. His personal insignia was an English Pointer- the dog, in full color embroidered patch which was sewn onto the reserve flap that covered the pins. One day he had some distinguished, non-jumping visitors, family as I recall, which he was showing around the center, including the packing shed, where he stored his gear. Shortly before, another jumper, whose name is lost in the mist of history, had taken a pen to Dan's insignia, and made the dog an 'anatomically correct' well endowed male. Well Dan pulls out his rig to show the folks and we all start howling..... Years later I got my riggers license from Dan and Ted Strong at Ted's Squantum, Mass loft. Dan insisted we always use the factory manual when packing different types chute, and we had to follow the recommended steps regardless of what we thought was best. The morning of our 'Practical' Exam (the non written part), he gave me a strange looking rig to pack, along with the instruction manual. The rig was a WWII japanese troop main, and yes, the manual was in Japanese, and no I don't read japanese. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NovaTTT 1 #17 March 14, 2010 Holy Week-Of-Old-Threads-Revival, Batman! Sounds like Poynter got you good, Dan. I'm guessing the Japanese instructions had good photos? Looking back through this thread, I see that common complaint about Dan's books. They're good, sure, the best we have, but they're redundant and filled with errors. In a perfect world PPMI and PPMII would be corrected and edited down to a single tome. In the real world, however, the books are published for a very small niche market and there is simply not enough money to be made to warrant editing out the problems. So we learn to navigate through the books and make the most of it. I agree with HW that Poynter has done more for our sport than nearly anyone else, possibly everyone else. But that doesn't mean he got everything right!!! "Even in a world where perfection is unattainable, there's still a difference between excellence and mediocrity." Gary73 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
robinheid 0 #18 March 14, 2010 Quote Quote Is he active in the Rigging Arts? When did the guy stop jumping? As Jerry and Howard mentioned, he stopped jumping after getting seriously hurt. But as I recall the injury was from a parachute tow accident. A truck was towing a ram-air with Dan under it. The parachute dived for the ground and he hammered in. I think they did not have a quick release at the jumper end of the cable. He also did some of the early slope soaring, but I don't think he got hurt doing that. . Dan quit jumping in May of 1982 (except for the 1990s jumps Jan mentioned) after he was injured in a BOAT-towing-ram-air parachute accident. He hit the beach and broke. This was when Para-Flite was actively promoting a towed ram-air system to train students in canopy control. The problem was if you put too much tension on the tow line, the canopy "locked out" and dove into the ground like a kite without a tail in a high wind. Dan broke his back in several places, plus tore up one or both feet. I remember this well because three weeks after Dan crashed, I suffered almost identical injuries (broken back, broken foot, shattered ankle) doing the same thing (in my case, it was a car towing the canopy). I don't know if Dan had a quick release or not but I didn't, and after we two high-profile jumpers hammered in almost identically, Para-Flite suspended its program, then deep-sixed it. It had tried to fix the lockout problem with a thing called a "tensiometer" that gauged tension and when it got too much, a "watcher" would tell the driver to stop. Unfortunately, the window between "OK" and "critical" was so small that the canopy would go critical and lock out before the watcher could tell the driver to stop. It was a great idea for training students; too bad physics got in the way! Anyway, while I was laying in the hospital, I called Dan (we new each other from USPA stuff), and when he asked how I was, I told him I was laying in a hospital wth a broken back and two broken legs. "I don't think that's very funny," Dan said, annoyed. "Neither do I," I replied. "It hurts like hell." Then we had a good laugh about our mutual injuries, and an interesting conversation about our respective crashes and the efficacy of the Para-Flite system. Dan is truly one of the giants of sport parachuting. I'm glad to hear he made a few more jumps before retiring for good, and it's great to see him still making a big carbon footprint around the world. SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.) "The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
howardwhite 4 #19 March 14, 2010 Well, if you have an iPhone and 99 cents, you can track him around the world here. HW Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
riggerrob 558 #20 March 14, 2010 Try reading the (300 page) "Parachute Rigging Handbook" that Sandy Reid wrote for the FAA, back in 2005. Otherwise try reading the similar (600 page) manual written by Eric Fradet for la Federation Francais du Parachutisme. Both newer volumes are available on-line. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nitrochute 2 #21 March 15, 2010 as i recall, poynter had removed the tensionometer. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pchapman 261 #22 March 15, 2010 Quote It had tried to fix the lockout problem with a thing called a "tensiometer" that gauged tension and when it got too much, a "watcher" would tell the driver to stop. Some people paid for advancing our understanding of how things worked... I think in paragliding these days, it is done with the line on a pulley -- so if the tension jumps the guy in the back of the vehicle can let tension off by paying out the line. Much faster and more contolled than shouting at the driver to let off the gas. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
heavydude 0 #23 March 16, 2010 Thanks for the informative posts on what not to do ! I feel really bad for Dan and the rest of you for the awful injuries. Like the rest of the riggers I have Dans Parachute manuals and also Skydiving books. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ntrprnr 0 #24 March 17, 2010 I've met Dan several times - we have several mutual friends, and we both work in the same industry (non-skydiving.) He's a good guy. Plus, he's like, one the top authorities on sick and old-age cats in the world._______________ "Why'd you track away at 7,000 feet?" "Even in freefall, I have commitment issues." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
councilman24 36 #25 March 17, 2010 Rob, Is Eric's manual available in English? Without trying to use online translation?I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
