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dubbayab

Average age of DZ.Com posters

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My hubby turns 62 today-his first tandem was in Oct and the second was last month. But he's in great shape for an "old guy"! (Guess he'd have to be to marry someone 17 years younger than he is.)
For my part, I know nothing with any certainty,
But the sight of the stars makes me dream.
-Vincent Van Gogh

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Wendy,,when was your 1st jump? Mine was 8/10/77



June 1975. Don't remember the day, and the logbook is long gone.
But the USPA membership does say I'm in my 30th year. Shit I'm old. How'd that happen, anyway? :o

Wendy W.
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)

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Man if I had to make 200 round jumps I would have quit the sport.



Perhaps if your choices were the Para-Plane and the original Para-Foil with their dubious reefing systems, you might feel different. With the Para-Plane at least, you had to pack it for either Sub-Terminal or Terminal. Take it sub-terminal when packed for terminal and it bag locked. Take it terminal when packed for sub-terminal and it broke bones.

Rounds were not as bad as current jumpers seem to think and no one hooked them in to their death...

Wendy, I made my first jump on July 1, 1973. The state of Florida lowered the legal age from 21 to 18 on that day (screwing my parents out of controlling my wish to jump). I was 20 and my parents weren't too excited about skydiving....

-----------------------
Roger "Ramjet" Clark
FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

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Me too, Tonto:


I started on round parachutes.
Before the Fax machine.
Before CD's
Before Tandems - when the only way to learn was Static line.
When we stayed away from people with AAD's
Flew in Cessna's without doors - even in Winter.
The only turbines we jumped were C-130's
Spotted ourselves - as there was no GPS.
When 7 cells were "radical" and reserves had 5 cells - or were round.
When we needed to do water jumps for the licence - not just a briefing.


I didn't even know AAD's existed. Did they in 1981? I never heard of them until 4 months ago.

To add to your list:

Altimeters were on your chest strap
Pilot chutes were on your belly band or leg strap
Jumping PC's was required between rounds and squares
Wore no goggles
Wore cheap plastic hockey helmet
Constantly played hacky sack while waiting for the load in the 182 with no door
If you dropped the hacky or pointed with your finger, you got kicked in the butt
Everyone packed their own chutes
Leg straps were much easier to put on
Dogs were not allowed on the DZ
Packed on the grass and used tent stake to hold the rig
Smoking was not allowed near packing
Beer had to wait until the plane was tied down
"D" licensees were few and far between

This was 1981. I'm 46 now.

jt
*

Let's all do this safe enough that we can still do this in our 90's.

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Wendy,,when was your 1st jump? Mine was 8/10/77



June 1975. Don't remember the day, and the logbook is long gone.
But the USPA membership does say I'm in my 30th year. Shit I'm old. How'd that happen, anyway? :o

Wendy W.



I started in July of 1976, and I was 30 years old then.:P

Old Skydivers

Sparky
My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

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To add to your list:

Altimeters were on your chest strap
Ditto
Pilot chutes were on your belly band or leg strap
Ditto - and twisting them killed. I lost a friend that way.
Jumping PC's was required between rounds and squares
Nope. As long as we had 50 jumps on a round - we were good to go. My 1st square jump was on a Viking Super lite..
Wore no goggles
Ditto
Wore cheap plastic hockey helmet
Ditto
Constantly played hacky sack while waiting for the load in the 182 with no door
Ditto!
If you dropped the hacky or pointed with your finger, you got kicked in the butt
Ditto! Touching it without saying "Hack in" resulted in ass kicking too - and it was known as "The game played with a ball that does not bounce by people who might."
Everyone packed their own chutes
Ditto
Leg straps were much easier to put on
Ditto
Dogs were not allowed on the DZ
Ditto - and still arnt here
Packed on the grass and used tent stake to hold the rig
We "stood tension" for each other?
Smoking was not allowed near packing
Ditto - and still isn't here
Beer had to wait until the plane was tied down
Ditto
"D" licensees were few and far between
Still are here. I'm D515 - and they may just be getting up to 900 now..

I don't miss those days too much. Skydiving has grown incredibly. I think between when I started in 1985 on rounds, and was jumping a Jonathan 120 eliptical 7 years later was the most rapid change. Crossbraces are not new. those of us who can remember the Excalibur know that. Wingsuits are as old as the hills. The new generation of designers have just learned to keep the designs safe. The people using them can easily make them dangerous again if they choose to. What I like about today is the pace people learn at. I have former students with a thousand dives who can whip me in 4 way. Whether they can catch a wild AFF, do CRW, a demo into a 60 000 seat stadium, etc, I don't know - but they certainly look like they can.

For me - the good old days are right now. The sun is up, it's summer, I'm packed, and tomorrow I head for the DZ, the same way I have for 20 years. Filled with eager anticipation for what the day will reveal.

t
It's the year of the Pig.

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Man if I had to make 200 round jumps I would have quit the sport.



Ah, but we were tougher, grasshopper :D

Actually, as is mentioned later, you just had to consider the options, and rounds weren't bad at all. The option of not skydiving was just as daunting to some of us then as it is now.

Wendy W.
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)

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I am from the same generation as Tonto.
My first jump was in 1977.
When I bought my first square (Strato Star) with only 50 jumps, that was considered radical.
Glad that I survived those days, but prefer to focus on the here and now.
In 2004 I taught myself how to sew, film and edit Handi-Mount and earned a Canadian Rigger Instructor Rating.
In 2005 I look forward to earning my Rigger B rating and becoming a Birdman Instructor.
Reminiscing is pleasant, but real skydivers keep their eyes on the future.

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I'm OLD!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I started before Tonto

Wendy W.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


So did I.




I started before all of ya.. so there neener neener


But I did not jump for a while.. but I was still in the air..

And I am older than a BUNCH of rock I have walked on.;)

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I didn't even know AAD's existed. Did they in 1981? I never heard of them until 4 months ago.



Sure, they were around before I started. We used to call them AOD's, and they were calibrated/set before each jump. Some models had to be turned off after opening, or they would fire at the preset altitude.

May 18th, 1972. Like, day before yesterday, dude, as long as I don't look in the mirror.

50 and a half ;)

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He's still YOUNGER than me. :P

I didn't start jumping until I was 36 though. [:/]
Something that I think was mentioned elsewhere, that I now regret. :( Although maybe relative "maturity" :);) is what has kept me alive? ...Especially during those early "bulletproof" indestructable stages :)
That, and the combo of relative available equipment. If I had done anything even near what I did about 9 years ago now, under what I'd probably of been jumping, instead of the "radical" PD I even had as it was ...I probably would not even be around right now. ...And I had thought (at the time) that having to learn via 5 vertabrae compression fractures & some serious time-out/"bump" in my progression road, really sucked! B|[:/]
coitus non circum - Moab Stone

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I'm OLD!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I started before Tonto

Wendy W.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


So did I.




I started before all of ya.. so there neener neener


But I did not jump for a while.. but I was still in the air..

And I am older than a BUNCH of rock I have walked on.;)



SCR 3120 by any chance?

-----------------------
Roger "Ramjet" Clark
FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

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SCR 3120 by any chance?



Nope 5000 sumpin



Ahh, sorry. You had been jumping long enough and there are only two people with the first name Jeanne from that far back in the database.

I am working on consolidating all the SCR, SCS, NSCR, etc. data into one database for Web publication for Bill. I don't have the data from the 5000's yet, but I will soon. Several people are working on getting everthing that is on paper into spreadsheets for me which I will import into the database. Soon, there will be one place to find all the awards from the beginning to current :)

-----------------------
Roger "Ramjet" Clark
FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

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SCR 3120 by any chance?



Nope 5000 sumpin



Ahh, sorry. You had been jumping long enough and there are only two people with the first name Jeanne from that far back in the database.

I am working on consolidating all the SCR, SCS, NSCR, etc. data into one database for Web publication for Bill. I don't have the data from the 5000's yet, but I will soon. Several people are working on getting everthing that is on paper into spreadsheets for me which I will import into the database. Soon, there will be one place to find all the awards from the beginning to current :)


There was Jeannie McCombs, SCR 77.

Sparky
My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

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SCR 3120 by any chance?



Nope 5000 sumpin



Ahh, sorry. You had been jumping long enough and there are only two people with the first name Jeanne from that far back in the database.

I am working on consolidating all the SCR, SCS, NSCR, etc. data into one database for Web publication for Bill. I don't have the data from the 5000's yet, but I will soon. Several people are working on getting everthing that is on paper into spreadsheets for me which I will import into the database. Soon, there will be one place to find all the awards from the beginning to current :)


There was Jeannie McCombs, SCR 77.

Sparky



I have it as:

77 McCOOMBS JEANNIE TAFT CA 4/13/1968

I knew that wasn't Amazon though since the SCR was earned before Amazon started jumping.

-----------------------
Roger "Ramjet" Clark
FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

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:)
.started jumping when I was 19....B|

made over a thousand jumps on round mains.....
..never got scared til I tried a 5 cell strato star...
( did that ONE time ,, and one time only )
then eased into a heavy weight cloud... jumped that for a while..then a strato cloud,,, then an RW Challenger 240,, ( 1,100 jumps 0 mals ) . now I have a PD Spectre 210...;) ( so far... 450 jumps on that...0 mals )

So this year will be 33 years of jumping,,,
( sept 16 1972 )...... I'll only be 52 ( in june )
33/52...... means I have been jumping for more than 63 % of my entire life.....:o:)
..."start early...never stop "

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