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steve1

Scary stories from the old days?

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Steve, I showed up in 73, just after the formal jump meet era you referred to. There were quite a few Air Force/Survival school types doing style and accuracy with Stato-clouds.

But I hung with the civilian R/W derelicts; Roy Baldwin, Les Williams, Mike Culler, Emmett (Tim) Florea, Tom Canarozzo, Stevie Morrow, Rick True, Sully and a bunch more. It wasn't long before we were over at Henley Aerodrome in Athol ID, jumping out of Rozzo's Twin Beeches. Deer Park was history as a DZ by 79.

Speaking of BJ at Deer Park, he came thru our DZ in 74, hawking the Bird rig. I was impressed with the thought behind it considering the state of piggy-backs and the requisite last hope ropes. Of course that was when we still considered rounds as the only real choice for R/W. Mike Culler compared a 10 man load with Strato-stars to 10 airplanes in the traffic pattern without power trying to dead stick it in on a 2500' runway.

Gotta agree on what it took to survive back then. The injury/death rate was much higher then. Equipment, training and awareness is better now and the average age is higher.
Ted
D6691 SCR 3975 SCS 2242 NSCR 698
On the road to wrack and ruin…………
but making damn good time.

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But I hung with the civilian R/W derelicts; Roy Baldwin, Les Williams, Mike Culler, Emmett (Tim) Florea, Tom Canarozzo, Stevie Morrow, Rick True, Sully and a bunch more. It wasn't long before we were over at Henley Aerodrome in Athol ID, jumping out of Rozzo's Twin Beeches. Deer Park was history as a DZ by 79.

reply]
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I remember Rozzo, Steve Morrow, and Sully well. I posted an old picture of our RW team back in about 74 (under first collegiate eight-way, under history and trivia). It might be fun for you to look that up. It shows a good picture of Sully and B.J. I think Sully died at Athol, Idaho. That was sure a terrible loss!.....Steve1

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I was just wondering if anyone had a scary jump story from way back when? Steve1




Wow Steve!B|B|B|



This has GOT to be a first!
:)



100,000 plus views ~ No mention of Boobies in the thread title!

:D!;)



Airtwardo, it was your wonderful stories that kept people coming back for more. This is indeed a time to celebrate. Anybody have any beer??

I'm getting so damn old that just another day above ground is a day to celebrate!....Steve1:S

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Hi steve1,

I always thought Sully went in in the Spokane area. As I recall it was with a chest mount reserve & a ripcord cable stop. He had a mal, cutaway and the reserve pilot chute entangled with the dangling ripcord. It caused the round reserve to horseshoe and he never cleared it.

Around very late '60's or '70????

Does that sound about right?

After that ripcord stops were banned at Spokane for all rigs.

Jerry

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I was ASO at the time. Sully went in on a Wednesday evening I think, in Athol, Idaho, at Hackney Field (not Henley Aerodrome). He was wearing a piggyback rig (I don't remember the brand). The apparent cause of his tragic demise appeared to be loss of awareness of altitude. Nothing more complicated than that. It was the fall of 1978. Here is a photo of our 20-way gang taken a week or so prior. http://www.cofc.edu/~wraggj/images/Idaho-XX.jpg

Sully is still missed.

-- Jeff
My Skydiving History

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Jeffy, pretty much agree with your post with this additonal speculation. From what I heard from Ron and John on the dive, the contributing elements were:
1. he had pushed his pilot chute well into the belly mount pouch worried that it would sneak out
2. being late in the year and cold and he was wearing thick gloves making it hard to "dig out" the PC
3. he had a self professed (and we all agreed) reputation for believing he could "fix stuff" beyond the point of common sense (on the ground as well as in the air)
4. put these all together and he pulled the reserve too late.

He was quite the NW icon of the 70's.
Ted
D6691 SCR 3975 SCS 2242 NSCR 698
On the road to wrack and ruin…………
but making damn good time.

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Jerry, I believe the incident you're referring to was 72 or so, right before I got there. The first thing Mike Culler did when I showed up was cut my ripcord stop off. Bob Fitzsimmons was the young up and comer who went in. He was well liked and they named the meet after him for a couple of years.
Ted
D6691 SCR 3975 SCS 2242 NSCR 698
On the road to wrack and ruin…………
but making damn good time.

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After years of consideration I now am certain that having sub-10 second canopy rides is neither safe nor productive.
Having made 10-20 such jumps i can say from experience that such openigs are best made out of sight of the drop zone.
Being massively stupid hurts less if there is no one to see and tell.
Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

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The first thing Mike Culler did when I showed up was cut my ripcord stop off.



I cut mine off at about 1974. I don't know whether it was put on at the factory, or by a previous owner of the rig, but it consisted of a lead fishing sinker crimped around the cable at a point that allowed the pins to clear the cones, but not for the ripcord to come out of the housing.

Until the entanglement issue came up, it probably seemed like a good idea -- especially in the case of my rig, which had a very non-standard and not-replaceable type of ripcord. After hearing about malfunctions involving entanglements of that sort, the potential price of having the rig modified to use a different ripcord seemed pretty cheap (even though I never had to do that). I just made sure that I didn't drop the thing.

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I’ve read some of these stories with keen interest, and now that I’ve finally decided to hang it up, figure it’s time to add a few of my own…or the ones I can remember, as I remember them.
I just found out a few years back that my Mother drank and smoked while carrying me in the womb (early 1950’s), and that helps explain A WHOLE LOT about my personality and its many flaws.
Other than the early to mid 1970s being a time when a teenager/young adult was almost certainly smoking weed and quite also possibly experimenting with some other mind altering substances, the above mentioned pre-birth input into the makeup of my being and psyche usually made me the craziest guy on the block. ANY block I happened to be on!
It was early April of 1975 when one of my best buddies told me he met this guy who opened a DZ near our hometown of Mobile, Alabama, so after hearing all about it, I was all for giving it a try as soon as possible.
As my buddy Glenn and his wife were going to make their first jumps on the same Saturday one my older sisters was getting married, I had to wait until the following weekend for my FJC. If I hadn’t been a part of the wedding party, I may have just blown her wedding off for a chance to make a jump sooner.
As a slightly bent stoner type with a small amount of self awareness, I was trying to be good and told myself I wasn’t going to be high in any form or fashion to participate in the FJC and later in the day when I was to make my first static line jump. I felt skydiving was just way too dangerous to fuck around with like that.
When we arrived early Saturday morning, I was excited to be at the DZ, and quickly knew I would fit in well with this crowd.
The wacky ring leader there, a fellow named John Cutts, had most recently served on the Army parachute team in Germany, and upon getting out of the Army had convinced his family to financially back him in the DZ biz. I’m sure after he explained to them how much money was to be made in the growing skydiving industry, they were all for it.
So he bought a Cessna 180, N3197D, as well as a bunch of military and sport gear that included lots of rags/belly warts, PCs, a Delta II and a Para Plane cloud, which I guess for the time wasn’t too shabby. A few special ‘demo’ rigs with more than one set of shot and a half’s were included as well.
Anyway, the weekend DZ was located in a pasture out in the west end of the county which was normally occupied by cows during the week, and it was necessary to start each day by dragging a weighted piece of chain link fence behind a truck to break up the cow turds, otherwise a PLF would most likely put you in contact with a pie. (that is, IF you made the small DZ surrounded by trees)
The grass ‘runway’ was about 1600 feet long, and had about a 20-30* bend in it around the mid-way point. I’d only been a in a small plane a few times before, and figured “this is how skydiving is done.”
When it was time for the FJC to begin, I was introduced to my instructor, 16 year old Danny Durden, who went on in later years to serve as a Golden Knight, as well as an airline captain. He was pretty squared away compared to most of the people I knew and associated with, so his age didn’t really bother me. The other two guys in the ground school class were friends with the guy who had brought me out, and as I had met them before, it was cool having someone to joke with in an attempt to keep things light.
As the course progressed, I was really enthused because I seemed to grasp all these new concepts quickly, and being in my early 20’s was physically up to any challenge.
When Danny mentioned that we would be finished soon, with the first jump to come shortly after, I was really jacked up…and again proud of myself for being completely straight and sober through the entire process.
As we were being sized for gear, someone pointed out that some dark clouds were building and we were likely in for a spring thunderstorm that are so common along the Gulf Coast that time of year. Having always been a leg (aka ground pounder) up to that point in my life and not paying too much attention to what was going on in the sky above, I figured once it started raining we were done for the day.
As the rain continued to fall, the farmers/property owners invited everyone up to their house a few hundred yards away, where we enjoyed burgers, hot dogs and soft drinks.
Eventually, and I guess I should have seen it coming, someone produced a joint. After another look at the angry, dark clouds producing sheets of rain, and seeing a few bolts of lightning, that was pretty much all it took for me to loosen up, give in, and begin seeking an altered state.
One joint led to two, and then more, so it was little wonder I didn’t notice when the storm began to run out of steam and holes started to appear in the sky….A real Highway to Heaven kind of sky.
Suddenly, John Cutts comes around the corner, and says…”OK, you three new guys, the sky is clearing, and you’re going up in 30 minutes.”
OH SHIT! The hair stood up on the back of my neck. Is he kidding?
OH FUCK! How in the hell will I remember everything I’m supposed to do?
DAMN! I’m a dead man.
So I quickly find Glenn and confided in him my concerns, fueled by my weed paranoia.
“Don’t worry about it man, you’ll be OK. The static line will do the important part.” was his reply. OK, I figured, he should know, because he was WAY more experienced than me, he had 2 jumps!
Within a few minutes, with a little more confirmation that it would really be all right, I decided to go for it. I mean why not, I was often walking around stoned anyway?
Well, so much for my honorable plan.
I feel I’m doing a pretty good job of maintaining my composure as I’m getting geared up, and notice that the further I get into it, the better I feel about it.
By the time we load up the Cessna taildragger, take off, and are in the air for a few minutes and getting ready to let the first student out, I’m feeling 100%, and can’t believe I’m actually getting ready to make a jump after all the childhood dreams that growing up in a post WWII world, and watching episodes of Ripcord had sparked for me.
As the smallest and lightest of the three first jump students, I was last to exit the Cessna. It was pretty weird to see those guys maneuver themselves outside the door, and suddenly they were gone!
When Danny told me to move up and sit next to John who was flying the 180, I can now admit that there was a little minor brain lockage going on, but at least I managed to follow his commands enough to get out the door and poise on the small wooden step. I wasn’t even scared when I pushed off and fell through space for the first time, only to be returned to reality when the military surplus 28 foot 7TU canopy filled with air.
As the plane flew away from me, it suddenly became very quiet. It seemed like I was very still, just hanging there, and I found myself overwhelmed by the ‘man small’ concept I would learn of in later years.
At first, I didn’t look down, only way out to the horizon, and was very surprised at how far I could see from my lofty spot.
Pulling a toggle on a 28 foot rag didn’t really turn you, it only changed the direction you were facing, so once I remembered they were there for me, I used them quite a bit to look out at the Gulf of Mexico, then turn again to look at the land, over towards Mississippi, and so on back and forth. I was truly in awe of the power I suddenly had in my hands…this was great!
After what seemed like a very long time to me, but I’m sure was less than five minutes, I happened to notice that my view wasn’t as good as before, and that the trees were getting larger.
OH SHIT! I’m about 300 feet off the ground! I was diggin’ on the sky view so much I forgot to look down at the ground for the DZ, and the orange arrow spray painted on a 10 foot piece of roofing tin, pointed by a DZ staff member, that was supposed to help me steer my canopy to a landing on the DZ.
DUMBASS! That’ll teach you to skydive high!
As I continued to look down, I didn’t see anything I recognized, so I turned the 28 foot canopy around 180 degrees and was pleasantly surprised to see that I was going to touch down about 20 feet from the target. (thinking, “this skydiving shit ain’t so hard” LOL)
I also noticed the very cute farmer’s daughter I had met earlier was standing nearby calling up to me, encouraging me.
Back then I only weighed about 140-145 pounds, so as I prepared to touch down, I slightly bent my knees, put my feet together, and promptly did a stand up landing. At first the look on everyone’s face was one of shock, so after standing there for several seconds, not knowing what to do next, I fell over and did the best simulated PLF I was able to muster. Then the laughter started, and Lindy, the fine lil’ farmers daughter, came and laid a big, wet one on me.
Yeah, I was hooked and knew I’d be at the DZ quite a lot from then on.
After the other usual first jump revelry and congratulations, it was getting dark and time for my ride to leave, so I made plans to come back the next day and do it all over again.
Being a broke bastard back then, to supplement my buzz that night, I drank quite a bit of cheap wine…
And that reminds me that I have a whole ‘nother story to tell about my second jump Sunday morning when I ‘accidentally’ jumped drunk.
Well, so much for my sky sobriety.

Later perhaps I’ll relay a few other scary jump stories which could include…
Having my harness separate upon opening.
VERY high tree landing.
Stadium demo under a round with 15 jumps.
Teaching the FJC with 30 jumps.
High speed mid-air followed by being unconscious in freefall with no AAD.

And that’s just the first 6 months of my skydiving career.
I’ve got a whole ‘nother 30+ years worth of scary shit to relay.

BASE 359
"Now I've settled down,
in a quiet little town,
and forgot about everything"

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Ok first jump stories............
I had always wanted to jump but after I got home from the military the new wife I had aquired was having none of it.
Took her 9 years to finally divorce me.
The first thing I did was look up Skydiving in the Yellow pages.
Back in those days there werent too many options.
I found a place called Nevada Aerial Circus....called em up....they told me the jump course was 150 bucks...took twelve hours....modern training facility and most of all "modern " gear.

SIGN ME UP !

I showed up the following Wednesday to a house way out in the valley....knocked on the door...a little kid answered...he said the loft was in the back.
I walked around back to this crumbling down detached garage. Inside I found Rick and Karl...my new best friends and JM/Is. Rick I found later had 150 jumps, Karl had around 60. I was in class with a couple other folks, a guy and a girl.
We watched the slide show for an hour....after it ended we just sat there in the dark........waiting.
Finally after ten minutes or so...I got up and walked over to the light switch and turned em on. Rick and Karl had both fallen asleep on the old threadbare couch. The girl woke em up....and Rick announced thats class for tonite, seeya tomorrow same time.

Thursday....was spent hanging from the rafters of the garage doing cutaways and learning EPs.
This was really unique as they turned the lites off, turned on a strobe.....spun the daylights out of me in the harness and screamed.
I guess it worked, i'm still here.

Friday evening was a review of the previous two nites and packing T-10 lessons and drinking beer.
The girl showed up already hammered on something as she passed out fell out of her metal chair and was gently deposited on the couch.

Saturday morning.....man am I ready...and scared to death of these guys. They put me in some old military "state of the art" gear with belly reserve. We walked to the beat to death Cessna and practiced some exits. This was so much like the movie Fandango...and several years prior to its filming, they could have used it for a template.

Jumprun.....Rick screams at me ARE YA READY TO SKYDIVE ?????? I squeak.....hell yeah ! Climb out and hang !. I'm out...he crawls out with me and yells go...i'm gone. I look up and see that ugly/beautiful T-10. I'm wondering what all the patches are. After the uneventful landing I see that the patches are chunks of duct tape covering the holes.
It was , all in all, quite and adventure. I stuck around, did my first demo into a park , under an XL-30 at 14 jumps and by 100 I was the SL/JM...Rick and Karl by this time had gone on to other adventures.


bozo
Pain is fleeting. Glory lasts forever. Chicks dig scars.

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When it was time for me to make my first jump, I went looking for the longest class I could. Somehow, I thought that would make me safer. That took me to the tender clutches of Lewis Melton. He wore a red beret [grin]. We had 6 weeks of classes, 2 hours each Wednesday night. We learned how to pack, and boy oh boy did we learn how to PLF. Proably a solid hour or two just of PLF's. We even learned the history of the Stevens Cutaway System (Perry Stevens invented it :P).

We also learned how to pack, and how to rig the static lines. This was very old-school gear, with standard ripcords for the static lines, with guide rings. I can still remember the discussion about why you wanted the ripcord to to THROUGH the guide ring.

Me, I had the loudest voice and the best arch in the class. Being female and 20 helps on that second one B|. The instructor called me his favorite dingaling.

We all had to provide our own boots and helmets. I used my brother's gold motorcycle helmet. It was too bit for me, but it was free.

Eventually, we all got to jump. My mother came to watch; she figured that if I was going to die she wanted to be there :S. Went out to a local airfield (not a DZ) and in a rented 172 with the door taken out we all went out. The winds were way too high, but either there wasn't any consumption of mind-altering substances going on, or else I wasn't cool enough to be invited to join those guys.

When it was my turn, I remember the whole sit-in-the-door, get-out-on-the-step thing. I remember that the pilot hadn't locked the wheel (no real step, just the little standard 172 step). But I don't remember anything between jumping off and having an open canopy. They tell me I could be heard on the ground. Lewis told me that I arched beautifully. But there's absolutely nothing in between. I did hit my head pretty hard on landing, and got drug. Maybe that's why I kind of liked rounds.

At the end, I was offered the choice between a first jump certificate, and a logbook. I took the logbook.

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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Things have changed a bunch since we went thru the FJC, Wendy...hopefully in most cases the better.
But...I have to say this...the things those guys beat into me I remember clearly.
It was stoneage training but it worked.
I bet I can still do a "LOOK......PULL.....PUNCH ! "


bozo
Pain is fleeting. Glory lasts forever. Chicks dig scars.

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With cutaways, there was
look
uncover
thumbs in rings
cutaway simultaneously
cover exposed hardware with left arm while pulling reserve with right hand
punch
:S

Glad I didn't have to actually do all that

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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With cutaways, there was
look
uncover
thumbs in rings
cutaway simultaneously
cover exposed hardware with left arm while pulling reserve with right hand
punch
:S

Glad I didn't have to actually do all that

Wendy W.



I had 3 of them...jumps 87, 98 and 101. Paraplane Cloud. Low D rings with a chest mounted 24. UGH!

359
"Now I've settled down,
in a quiet little town,
and forgot about everything"

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By virtue of being a full-time self-supporting college student until about 75 jumps, I was out of school and had my very own Starlite piggyback for my first cutaway. I'd even installed R2s to bring it up to the latest in non-Wonderhog gear.

It was my first camera jump. A 2-ripcord rig, of course. I hadn't started trying to convert it to throwout yet. "Camera jump" for me meant a handheld Instamatic.

So there I was, with a nice spinner.

Look
Pull the tabs
put knees together and bring to chest

oops. wrong drill with the reserve on my back, but too late by then. It opened, proving that parachutes are smarter than people sometimes.

Having been trained to throw everything away, and having practiced (we did that in those days) throwing everything away, I not only had both ripcords when I landed, I also had the camera. So much for muscle memory :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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