Pumpkin jumps

[steve1 5]

Ever jump out of a plane with a pumkin? Last weekend I traveled to North Dakota to jump with some jumpers there on a farm. First thing I noticed was a number of pumpkins on a table inside the hangar. Not wanting to buy beer I didn't mention to anyone that this was going to be my first pumpkin jump. The plan was for the last guy out to leave with a pumpkin. Then we would fly in and take turns passing the pumpking from jumper to jumper. The last guy with the pumpkin had to try to open with it and then land with it.

Guess who ended up with the pumpkin on the first jump? I tried tracking off with it, and things weren't going well, so I gave it a toss. There's plenty of open space in North Dakota, so things were safe below. We made a couple more jumps until finally one guy came within ten feet of the ground before losing it. I imagine it wouldn't be possible to play this game at most D.Z.'s, but it is a fun change of pace.

On one jump the pumpking was passed several feet between jumpers. It didn't work. Man...can a pumpkin fall fast. I mean there was no catching it. That might have something to do with my never learning the proper way to do head down. I mean what can you expect of an old fart, relative worker. At any rate, if you are looking to broaden your skydiving skills, try a pumpking jump. There's nothing else like it.....Steve1

[NWFlyer 2]

I think AggieDave wins for the best pumpkin jump.

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[ZigZagMarquis 8]

Years ago at Cal City, a bunch of bored skydivers (the most dangerous thing in the world) rigged up one of those 100lb+ pumpkins in an old rig... rapter proceeded to teach first jump course to Mr. Pumpkin... someone video taped it and there used to be a copy floating around the DZ... then Mr. Pumpkin went on his first AFF... Mr. Pumpkin failed his TLO's though, namely, he didn't pull and his instructors had to pull for him... unfortunately, Mr. Pumpkin had a mal and failed to deal with it correctly... in fact... Mr. Pumpkin fell from his harness and wistled in... near-by citizens seening a "large object" reach the air-earth interface without a parachute called 911... authorities arrived to find a bunch of skydivers yuckin' it up around the crater w/ pumpkin guts and seeds scattered everywhere.

... or that's about how I remember the story told.

[Lastchance 0]

Hey there Steve. You should try to make it to LP this yr. for halloween. Lotta fun from what I heard from last year.

I may be getting old but I got to see all the cool bands.

[hobbes4star 0]

thanks man, I just spit mnt dew on my keyboard

if fun were easy it wouldn't be worth having, right?

[NoWorriesNIkky 0]

I don't which story is funnier. But I'm with mountain dew guy...I dang near spit my drink all over the place.

Good Times...Thanks for a good laugh!

Nichole

No Worries, You're Good!

[airtwardo 6]

We use to do a similar thing in the sticks of Illinois 'way back when'...

Only we would use watermelons, and play a little differently.

We use the 'longest' not round melons we could find, the first guy on the step would 'launch' the ole melon with a good spin.

The idea was to catch the thing BEFORE it got to spinning so fast that centrifugal force would 'explode' it mid air...

It was kind of Russian roulette because ya never knew when she'd go...and I'm here to tell ya, not ALL the pink stains on my pioneer double zipper were from 'red' smoke!

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[pchapman 261]

One of manifest's Halloween pumpkins was liberated last year at the DZ. I took it up for a jump and returned it to nature.

The medium sized pumpkin (maybe 8 or 10 inches diameter) fell faster than belly, but slower than sitfly (from my perspective as slower faller.) This pumpkin had already been hollowed out, which didn't change the weight all that much but allowed it to catch air in odd ways if it tumbled. So it tended to float around in one area a bit, then go zinging off in some random direction for a ways.

Aggressively going after it seemed like great practice for catching wayward AFF (or Canadian PFF) students!

[smooth 0]

Don't drop it ! ! ! !

A friend of mine did.
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1321760;search_string=pumpkin;#1321760

[rapter 0]

Quote

... or that's about how I remember the story told.

We did that a couple of times, in 1988 we got winded at the boogie and static-lined Mr. Pumpkin a few times, got bored with all the good canopy rides and soft landings and packed a malfunction using a technic taught to us by Billy Reed that would guarantee for a round to fail, It did. It splattered all over the ground, witnessed by the airport manager. He came out in his little truck with the emergency lights on to find all the jumpers laughing at him.
The 2nd. time was in 1991 or so, The weather was great and the boogie was going well. We took Mr. Pumpkin after his AFF course to do some 8 to 10-way SCR loads. After a couple of good loads, It was sunset it was time to use the packing technics taught to us a couple of years before. Somehow the spot went long and when we got out we were over the main road coming into town, Not a good thing to have a very large pumpkin packed with a malfunction over a busy road. Well we pulled him and we track and opened and watched a streamer go in about 50 feet from the road. Cars pulled over to investigate. the rest is skydiving history.

Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

[airtwardo 6]

I GOTTA party with you guys!

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[vskydiver 0]

Back in 1983 we had a pumpkin bombing contest. Two groups two passes in the Cessna, 200 feet up at 90 mph, with the pumpkins. We parked an old van out in the fields beyond the club house and whoever got the closest to hitting the van won. John and I went first. I made John crawl out there on the step with the pumpkin and no rig on. I wasn't that stupid but I watch him from the open door. He dropped it and it came REALLY close to hitting the van. We figured we had it all sewn up. We landed and walked over to the van and watch as the next group went up. We watched as they dropped the pumpkin from the plane.... We saw the pumpkin getting bigger and bigger and OMG! it's getting BIG! I ran to the other side of the van and leaned up against it and the pumpkin hit square on the other side and the van rocked over on two wheels and I thought it was going to tip over and smash me flat!

Needless to say we lost. I think we had to buy beer but I can't remember. I was just glad I didn't get squashed by the van after the pumpkin hit it.

[JohnMitchell 14]

I've jumped with pumpkins and watermelons, too, out in the desert where Vskydiver and I did the pumpkin bombing. It's a lot of fun passing those big orbs around in freefall, then letting them go in at pull time. Ahhh, bored skydivers in the middle of nowhere with no adult supervision. That's what I call fun.

[peckerhead 0]

Fruit, watermelons, televisions.....

Been there done that.


Unless you are in a very remote area with no humans DON'T DO THIS.

Sending a pumpkin through some ones roof will stick with you for ever.....


Bad ju-ju

Trust me on this one......

[wildfan75 1]

Quote

Back in 1983 we had a pumpkin bombing contest. Two groups two passes in the Cessna, 200 feet up at 90 mph, with the pumpkins. We parked an old van out in the fields beyond the club house and whoever got the closest to hitting the van won.

We'll be doing this again Oct 22-23 at Skydive Wissota. Pumpkin Toss Boogie!!!

[ZigZagMarquis 8]

Quote

I GOTTA party with you guys!

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2363748;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread

[L.O. 0]

I am with Lynn. At skydive Wissota in WI we toss pumpkins in October (this year 22nd-23rd). We put a car out on the runway and through pumpkins at it, on the way up. It's 500ft 90mph. We supply the pumpkins you spot for them.

We also have beer and food come join us and throw a pumpkin. We are trying to get a otter this year, it looks good.

HPDBs, I hate those guys.
AFB, charter member.

[bch7773 0]

I've done both pumpkin-passing jump, and a pumpkin head jump, although I got that idea from seeing aggiedave's photos.

the pumpkin we chose to pass around was pretty heavy, so it fell at headdown speeds. I passed it to someone who dropped it, and we could never catch up to the damned thing. It apparently made one hell of a noise when it landed though.

I'll see if I cant post a picture when i get on my computer

MB 3528, RB 1182

[okalb 78]

At Z-hills we do a pumpkin drop competition every year on Halloween. We all jump with small pumpkins and from under canopy we drop them as close to a target as we can. Closest to the target wins. Usually there are jump tickets for the winner. In order to keep it fair, we make the target pretty far away from the main landing area and in order for your drop to count, you must land in the main LA. That keeps people from flying low and dropping it.

-OK

Time flies like an arrow....fruit flies like a banana

[riggerrob 558]

Yes!
The last time I saw a pumpkin drop was 20+ years ago in Waterville, Nova Scotia.
Just before take-off we told those meat heads to "take the spot long."
Do you think they listened?
The next thing we knew, an angry farmer was complaining about a hole in the roof of his tobacco-drying shed!
That is the fastest way to breed "Farmer McNasty!"

[ZigZagMarquis 8]

We usally still do "Pumpkin Drops"... or pumpkin jumps, if you're the pumpkin... at the annual Cal City Halloween Boogie... C206, 1000' AGL, one pass over the DZ for each person, you spot your own run, toss out a pumpkin at the time of your choosing, he or she who's tossed pumpkin craters the LZ closest to a target placed out there wins.

[NDfallrate 0]

Thanks for coming to play with us. It was fun. Following is a link to the Lost Prairie photos I was telling you about:

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AZNWzNi5btGNQ

[BigSky 2]

Hey steve, we had some fun with pumpkins at the prairie last year. Im not sure if it will go on this year but I hope so. Fred might want to watch out though because Im sure our aims will be much better this year

“Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and their hopes and dreams. If I didn’t drink this beer, th

[jimjumper 25]

The video of this is a riot!! The first drop didn't splat the pumpkin. The second time, as Rapter indicated, the skirt was tied off and he streamered in. Since it was Halloween we had a Nun and a Priest available in costume to admininster Last Rites. The video also shows our local rigger removing the 550 cord from around the skirt on the sly. The video of the pumpkin doing PLF's and looking at the malfunction photos is great. It may get windy at Cal City but it usually wasn't boring!

[bch7773 0]

heres a couple of my shots. this was my 400th jump

MB 3528, RB 1182