Who is....

[howardwhite 3]

.. this well-known skydiver?

And for a lot of extra points, when and where was the picture taken?

HW

[swovelin 11]

Hhmmm... First try, Jeanie McCombs (sp.) at Elsinore?

[JerryBaumchen 1,046]

Bingo, we have a winner.

JerryBaumchen

PS) I was talking to her at Elsinore about two weeks before she went in; ironic.

[howardwhite 3]

Lucky she's not around to see you spell her first name like that.

Not Elsinore.

The caption on the picture refers to her as "U.S. Olympic champion parachutist."

HW

[airtwardo 6]

Quote

Lucky she's not around to see you spell her first name like that.


HW

Lil' " j "

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

[howardwhite 3]

Quote

Lil' " j "

...and two little 'n's ...

HW

[airtwardo 6]

Quote

Quote

Lil' " j "

...and two little 'n's ...

HW

Little maybe...but firm!

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

[jimmytavino 16]

as to the when.....


must be mid to late 1960's...

did she jump style and accuracy???


j

[WGore 0]

Quote

as to the when.....


must be mid to late 1960's...

did she jump style and accuracy???


j

Mid 60s and yes she did.

GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

[jonstark 8]

Quote

did she jump style and accuracy???
j

What else was there? Only the most rebellious would dare touch each other in freefall.

jon

[howardwhite 3]

Quote

What else was there? Only the most rebellious would dare touch each other in freefall.

Well, there was that intermediate step (safe skydiving?) called the baton pass.

For those who think this was taken at Elsinore, here are other pictures from the same magazine article.
I think I recognize the person in the red jumpsuit in the second picture.

HW

[JerryBaumchen 1,046]

Hi howard,

D-95 ??????

JerryBaumchen

[howardwhite 3]

Quote

D-95 ??????

I didn't know him (except by reputation).
I think it's D-529, who almost always wore a red jumpsuit.
The place is Las Vegas (area). The event is ???

HW

[skr 1]

> person in the red jumpsuit

Looks like Vic Deveau to me.

And if it is Las Vegas it would have been
the "Professional Meet" in 1964.

I think it was called "professional" because
there was several thousand dollars prize money.

I also seem to remember Daryl Henry breaking
his neck doing one of those suicidal, downwind
accuracy landings with a Crossbow piggyback.

He came in and kind of laid out flat on his back
reaching for the disk and wasn't used to having
that reserve back there instead of up front where
it belongs.

I also saw Loy Brydon lead one of those no contact
diamond formations down over the crowd to the point
that I could read their name tags before they did that
crossover break and track.

It seems that Lyle or somebody had mentioned opening
altitudes the day before and Loy wanted to make the
point that military teams are not under civilian jurisdiction.

I'm not saying they were low or anything, but the high
man was 27 seconds in the saddle. Low man was was 20.


It's funny, I met Loy many years later at a Pioneers thing
and was stunned that he was just a little guy.

I guess it was the power of his personality, because
I remembered this really rough, gruff Sergeant about
7 1/2 feet tall stalking around, talking to his men, taking
crap from no one, and clearly being someone you did not
want to mess with.


I was just a college kid with less than 200 jumps, and
here were all these people I had been reading about,
Lyle Cameron, Loy Brydon, Daryl Henry, others, and
I was hovering around the edges of conversations,
trying to eavesdrop, and bouncing up and down with
excitement.


Vic was in a reckless, fuckit state of mind because
his girl friend had just been killed, in a car accident
I think, I don't quite remember.


He came over to Los Angeles from there, and we
went down to Oceanside in the middle of the week
and made some jumps.

I will have to blame Vic for never finishing my PhD.

He had a real knack for showing up and derailing
my school efforts by filling my mind with jumps
and jump stories and beer and stuff.

Skr

Edited to add that the guy in white on the left
looks really familiar but I can't pull up his name,
and the guy on the right in white looks kind of like
Roy Johnson.

[howardwhite 3]

Yup. I'm nearly sure it's Vic. The pictures are from a magazine article about the meet which I found in one of the many scrapbooks of the late Dick Barber, an old friend of Vic.
Here's the cover of the magazine. I don't have any photo credit. I wish I knew who took it; it kind of captures some of the spirit of that Las Vegas meet, organized and promoted, if I recall correctly, by Hal Evans.

HW

[JerryBaumchen 1,046]

Hi
Skartch,

A couple of things:

1. The guy on left in white appears to be using an aircraft altimeter of some type. It is a very deep atilimeter.

2. The guy in blue holding the helmet may have a ringsight and camera mounted on it.

3. The instument panels look AeroIndicator panels; they came out in about '63 and by '66 were pretty much no longer available ( primarily because Snyder had brought out his Altimaster II, the very thin one ).

4. The injury to Henry sure worked up the pro/anti piggyback crowd; "Those rigs are dangerous." " No their not, they're the safest etc, etc."

5. No problem with the Army boys taking it down; after all they had two pilot chutes on their mains.

6. Last year I was talking with Jack Ady ( '64 nat'l champ ) and he seemed to think that Brydon's blood was Army green.

I think this is about '64 or earlier. So what say you, howard?

JerryBaumchen

[bozo 0]

Quote

Yup. I'm nearly sure it's Vic. The pictures are from a magazine article about the meet which I found in one of the many scrapbooks of the late Dick Barber, an old friend of Vic.
Here's the cover of the magazine. I don't have any photo credit. I wish I knew who took it; it kind of captures some of the spirit of that Las Vegas meet, organized and promoted, if I recall correctly, by Hal Evans.

I lived in Las Vegas for 50 years. There has never been that much green there.....especially in the 60s before all the golf courses.
I remember the 64 meet. I was a kid and my dad took my brother and I. Just my opinion.....but those pics arent Vegas.

HW

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

[BCA 1]

Do you by any chance remember the jacket that jeannie wore back in the late sixties? The back of it said "jeannie McCombs, a real lady skydiver you crumby bastard" It was so jeannie.

BCA

[howardwhite 3]

Quote

I lived in Las Vegas for 50 years. There has never been that much green there.....especially in the 60s before all the golf courses.
I remember the 64 meet. I was a kid and my dad took my brother and I. Just my opinion.....but those pics arent Vegas.

1. A little more from the article containing the pictures. See references to Las Vegas.
2. It was 1965, not 1964. See poster. I also have a Sky Diver article about the 1965 meet.

HW

[JerryBaumchen 1,046]

Hi howard,

Quote

It was 1965, not 1964.

That is what I was thinking but with this many years gone by could not be sure.

Also ( if memory serves ), Daryl was jumping a Pioneer Para-Twin; because in '65 the only people who could get them were the Army team and the Canadians. They eventually came on the US market in '66; but in Sage Green only, not the variety of colors that Security offered.

It was in the early Spring of '66 I first met Gary Lewis ( '68 US Team member ); he was from Seattle & was going to school in Arizona. Some how ( he never said how ) he had gotten himself an early version of the Para-Twin. It was made of cotton and had a large red EXPERIMENTAL right on the reserve ripcord pin cover flap.

JerryBaumchen

[stratostar 5]

Quote

Pioneer Para-Twin

You should see the mint one I own, yes sage green, sweet rig!

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[scottmyers 0]

Man, that's great photo clips you have there, Howard. It does bring back memories of just reading about those who lived and skydived in the 1960s. THANKS for sharing!

Scott

Gig em, Garland Owls!

[ldk 2]

While I was just entering the sport in 1970, I got to know Jeannie, Gene Clark, Bill Smith, Jerry Myers and others. Realitive work was the big deal at that time. A 10 man at Yolo was my best hookup. In those days anything larger was a Big Deal, a 20 man was rare. I got into an early 40 man attempt and dropped like a rock and didn't get close. Fun times. Knees got me out of the sport.