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1st8stkOrganizr

World's First 8-Stack - photos

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For a couple of great shots by Andy Keach of the World's First 8-Stack, see Skies Call 2, photos 104 & 105, which was published in 1979.
Tom Courbat
Organized World's 1st 8-Stack - Livermore, CA - Oct 22-23, 1977. Broke neck on 2nd attempt. CCR 9/CCS 35. Started CCR/CCS Program & sold to USPA. SCR 572/SCS 1000

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I don't have that book anymore, (changed countries to often) but I remember it blew us away.
Here's a pic i took at Z-Hills X-mas 79, Combination of Brits, Yanks, and Canucks.
They where trying for 10 to match the current record of the time and I begged on to pictures. Not very good quality but it was a hand held Cannon AT-1 and was my 150th jump (second with a camera)
Watch my video Fat Women
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRWkEky8GoI

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Hi!
I have that book (Skies Call 2). Nice photos!

About record attempts in X-mas 79. Current "official" world record that time was 12-stack, made by Xenia jumpers. Record jump was done in Richmond, IN. Date of the jump was July 6, 1979.

Pasi Pirttikoski
CRW history colletor

ps. there is photo about the first one!!!

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B|
For a couple of great shots by Andy Keach of the World's First 8-Stack, see Skies Call 2, photos 104 & 105, which was published in 1979.



Tom, were you involved in the record attempt at Yolo in August 1980. If I recall we were going for 16 and used a Cessna 421 and a D-18. I got my CCR and CCS on the attempts.

Sparky
My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

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I guess they where disdinguising between a stack and a plane? It's in my log book as a decaplane attempt rather then a stack. Out of the Loadstar on Dec 28 / 79
Only peoples names a rememberfrom that one are Rod Boswell (last seen at the third world cup of CRW in Aussie) and I think Jack Gregory from Florida.
It was signed by a Gary Copeland D223 (could be CSAP or USPa I don't know)
Watch my video Fat Women
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRWkEky8GoI

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[:/]
Hi Sparky,

Great to hear from you. I'm sorry to say I wasn't involved in the record attempts at Yolo in 1980, or at least I don't REMEMBER being involved in them!

The biggest stack I was in was at the 1979 Nationals in Richmond, IN (7/6/79) with a pickup team I put together called Cheap Trick. We built a 15-second eleven stack (legal 10-stack) and were beat out by the Xenia folks who did the world's first 12-stack. In my recollection, there were at least a couple of very skilled women on that team. In fact, I think it may have even been headed up by a woman, but again my memory fails me. Was it Pat someone?

Here's what my logbook says about who was on our 11-stack (top to bottom). Flash, Jerry, Hot Dog, Mark, Lizard, Robin, Finnegan, Gary, Jim, myself and Dago. If anyone knows who any of these folks are (or if you are one of them), give me a shout. I have a grainy picutre of the stack, and some VERY grainy film footage shot by some guy who I think was a sergeant in the Army. I believe this was his first or second time filming. Anybody know who he might have been?
Tom Courbat
Organized World's 1st 8-Stack - Livermore, CA - Oct 22-23, 1977. Broke neck on 2nd attempt. CCR 9/CCS 35. Started CCR/CCS Program & sold to USPA. SCR 572/SCS 1000

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I remember my first 8-stack. Green Beret Parachute Club, Sicily dropzone on Fort Bragg, UH-1 Huey, 1988 maybe? I remember clearly that we did it with eight different kinds of mains. I was jumping a Bogy 175 nine-cell and was next-to-last to dock. There was at least one old Strato Star, a Raider, a Lazer 7, A Fury, a Unit III, and a Raven; not sure about the rest. Jump what you brung was the rule of the day.

Chuck Blue
D-12501

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I remember my first 8-stack. Green Beret Parachute Club, Sicily dropzone on Fort Bragg, UH-1 Huey, 1988 maybe? I remember clearly that we did it with eight different kinds of mains. I was jumping a Bogy 175 nine-cell and was next-to-last to dock. There was at least one old Strato Star, a Raider, a Lazer 7, A Fury, a Unit III, and a Raven; not sure about the rest. Jump what you brung was the rule of the day.


D-12501



My first stack, I think it was 5 or 6, we used a Paradactyl on top, Strato Star, a couple of Units and I closed last with a Strato Cloud. Like you said, "Jump what you brung was the rule of the day". Oh, and we used cell docks.:P

Sparky
My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

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Ok, after a bit of historical (hysterical?) research, here is a listing of early articles and photos of CRW...
*Nov '76 Parachutist Mag. - Day Poynter writes tongue-in-cheek article entitled Canopy Contact Relative Wrok: Revolution or Evolution? Turned out he had incredible insight!
*May & June '77 Parachutists - Roger Hull writes Relative Work in Slow Motion
*July '77 Parachutist - Gary Douris (Instructor/ Examiner at Elsinore) writes Letter to the Editor suggesting "...USPA or the FAA should ban all such activity!"
*Oct-Dec '77 issue of Starcrest has FIRST photos of World's First 8-Stack shot by Wes Green, my best friend and roommate at the time. I wrote article entitled " Canopy RW - West Coast Style" detailing the building of the World's First 8-Stack.
*March '78 Parachutist - Bernie Ward (National Enquirer Staff Writer) pens article "Canopy RW - A New Era". Includes photo of my collapsed chute with me under it, held on to by Norton Thomas, on the second attempt at the world record on day-one - October 22, 1977.
*January (?) '78 - National Enquirer actually publishes article and shows photos of the 8-Stack (they sponsored the weekend)
Apr-Jun '78 - Starcrest Magazine - article I penned about 1978 CRW activities including "women in CRW"
*November '78 Parachutist - Bob Morehead writes "Build Your Own Stack" article. Excellent color photos including "World Record 9-Stack" over Thun Field, WA located in Puyallup, WA.
*Dec '79 Parachutist - Article re take-over of the CRW Awards program from Know-Sense team by U.S.P.A. Included my article "The Story of the Canopy Crests" and photos of the early pioneers in CRW. Also list of early recipients
*Feb '81 Parachutist - Article I wrote entitled "First World Cup of CRW" including the rules we drafted for that first competition at Z-Hills.

Well, that's it for now. The new season of 24 is just starting, and I can't be distracted - even by skydiving stuff!!
Tom Courbat
Organized World's 1st 8-Stack - Livermore, CA - Oct 22-23, 1977. Broke neck on 2nd attempt. CCR 9/CCS 35. Started CCR/CCS Program & sold to USPA. SCR 572/SCS 1000

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Here is a picture of that first stack I mentioned above. Feb. 1979.

Sparky



Great Picture looks like the delta 2 has a slider:)
R.I.P.



Not a Delta, a Paradactyl. We couldn't figure out how to catch another square.

Sparky
My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

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I guess they where disdinguising between a stack and a plane? It's in my log book as a decaplane attempt rather then a stack. Out of the Loadstar on Dec 28 / 79
Only peoples names a rememberfrom that one are Rod Boswell (last seen at the third world cup of CRW in Aussie) and I think Jack Gregory from Florida.
It was signed by a Gary Copeland D223 (could be CSAP or USPa I don't know)




Do you remember if one of those jumpers was Al Miller (Hawkeye) from Simcoe dropzone? I remember him complaining one time that an ad for the Winchester dropzone had a picture of a stack they made in Z-hills, implying it had been done at Winchester.

Hawkeye was almost my 'CReW mentor' back in the day. He gave the first seminar I heard about it.

Later we were grounded together for thirty days for our star, stack, (cutaway), two-way in freefall jump.
If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

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He may have been on it, I don't have a list of the participants anymore (shifted country and lost stuff to many times). He was there at the time cause I remember a group of sitting around and working out the guitar to play fine time to fail me reserve. That'
s still a great somg isn't it?
Watch my video Fat Women
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRWkEky8GoI

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Yea a great tune.

The more I think about it the more certain I am he must have been on it. Al always liked being on the bottom, and I remember he had a black/rainbow strato-star, which could be what is on the bottom of your picture.

If you had a picture from below, he would be in bare feet.

Other possibles are Shady (Larry Schroeder), Tank (Roger Kotanko), Kevin Lindsay (I think he still jumps). Don't know who else.
If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

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Shady and Tank were both there at that time as well.
We had a very good contingent of Ontario jumpers.
Tank went missing for a couple of hours on one of the jumps when he had a mal (slow speed unstearable) and just rode it down till he did an inflight transfer, miles away from the DZ.
We also had Robin Talbot, Nick Fall,Mike Ashley, Guido Robert, and a whole bunch of others there at the same time.
Great trip from what I do rememberB|

Watch my video Fat Women
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRWkEky8GoI

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Hey Chuck,

After reading your post, I just had to dig into my old log books and see what we we're doing CRW wise at Ft. Bragg back in the mid 80's.

I show an 8 stack attempt that built to 7 on 1 Sep 85 out at St. Mere. My logbook says Ft. Bragg record even at 7. Maybe ... maybe not ;)

We finally did an 11 way attempt that built to an 8 stack/plane out at Raeford on 8 Sep 85. Skip Summers with Prizm (4 way CRW team) organized it. Except for Skip, it was all military.

The 8 stack/plane in order was was Bill Jackson, Skip, Ken Carter, Chris Bickerdick (RIP), Mike Valdez, Raff (RIP), Me and Charley Brown.

J.R., Paul Jackson (RIP) and Bill Cole were all lined up close to dock cleanly when we just ran out of altitude to complete it.

I don't know if this was the first 8 stack at Ft. Bragg, but it sure was pretty!

Great Memories!

____________________________________
I'm back in the USA!!

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I guess they where disdinguising between a stack and a plane? It's in my log book as a decaplane attempt rather then a stack. Out of the Loadstar on Dec 28 / 79
Only peoples names a rememberfrom that one are Rod Boswell (last seen at the third world cup of CRW in Aussie) and I think Jack Gregory from Florida.
It was signed by a Gary Copeland D223 (could be CSAP or USPa I don't know)





That would be Gary Copeland cspa D223. Him and i went to Zhills at X mas that year.

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