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McGonigal

Z-Hills turkey meet 1975

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It was a great system for students. Reliable openings and as long as the spot was good, not too much they could do to hurt themselves. Bury a toggle and you're just turning when you hit at pretty much the same rate as going forward...



My experience is a little different although I don't have nearly as much data to go on... Whenever we tried to put a student, whose size dictated a 28' but who we figured was less than robust in build, out on a T-10 they inevitably got broken. Damn if it wasn't the strangest thing. Iddy biddy girls landing like powder puffs ended up with broken/twisted ankles or sprained knees. Oh well... I sure felt good about being an early tandem master to make amends for busting up so many static line students. My karma needed the boost. Remember how your hands got tough as nails from packing and closing all those containers?!

jon

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Roger, getting back to that BIG Diamond at Z-Hills you were on, as usual, you were right about the 4 little diamonds tracking away at the end out of the big diamond. ( I said the big diamond tracked away and was wrong) Non the less, it was really cool for back then! By the way, did you ever meet Owen Quinn(he jumped off the world trade center) He was at that meet in 75 with a team called "The Spaced Rangers" from stormville New York?

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Roger, getting back to that BIG Diamond at Z-Hills you were on, as usual, you were right about the 4 little diamonds tracking away at the end out of the big diamond. ( I said the big diamond tracked away and was wrong) Non the less, it was really cool for back then! By the way, did you ever meet Owen Quinn(he jumped off the world trade center) He was at that meet in 75 with a team called "The Spaced Rangers" from stormville New York?



Ok, now I guess I'll have to scan my shot of that very diamond and post it to my pictures on here. I have shots of the 16 man diamond and 16 man snowflake competition jumps from that year (taken by the late Carl Beonish). I'll try to scan both tomorrow and get them posted... that should bring back some memories for you :)
On the diamond tracking thing. I don't think we could have tracked the full diamond anyway since not everyone was pointing the same way. On the first 16 man diamond ever, we were all pointed the same way since no one knew any better at the time...

Owen Quinn, the name sounds familiar, but too long ago to be sure. I met a number of Stormville jumpers that came down Z-Hills way though.

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

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> Owen Quinn

I remember him as a Seattle jumper.

A plane load of Seattle jumpers came down to
the Gulch one time and he was one of them.

The first thing that struck me as I walked
toward the plane was this group of pale faced
guys sort of hiding in the shade under the wing
peering cautiously out at the blazing Arizona
sunshine :-) :-)

The next thing that registered was a tall guy
emerging from the door with some gear bags.

He had this wild, spring loaded hair that looked
like he'd stuck his finger in a wall socket, and
a great big smile.

I talked to him that weekend and a few other
times when we happened to be at the same
place.

He was a really interesting guy, and one of the
central inspirations in the Seattle scene at the
time.

I wish I could have known him better before he
got killed.

Skr

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> I don't think that's the same Owen Quinn.....but I could be wrong.

I think you are right.

I never knew the Quinn I'm thinking of well enough
to know his first name, everybody just called him
"Quinn".

I never met the east coast version, but the name
was really familiar and the Seattle Quinn came to
mind because he made such an impression on me.

It's a good thing we're not all having old age moments
at the same time or we'd be in trouble :-) :-)

Skr

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I never knew the Quinn I'm thinking of well enough
to know his first name, everybody just called him
"Quinn".

I never met the east coast version, but the name
was really familiar and the Seattle Quinn came to
mind because he made such an impression on me.

It's a good thing we're not all having old age moments
at the same time or we'd be in trouble :-) :-)

Skr



Hey Skratch,

I'm sure you're thinking of "The Mighty Quinn"

"When Quinn the Eskimo gets here, everybody gonna jump for Joy"

So I guess that leaves the question, do you know Joy? B|

BASE359
"Now I've settled down,
in a quiet little town,
and forgot about everything"

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> I'm sure you're thinking of "The Mighty Quinn"

Right now I'm just trying to not think.

> So I guess that leaves the question, do you know Joy?

And that's just the kind of question I'm trying to not think about :-) :-)

Skr

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Roger, getting back to that BIG Diamond at Z-Hills you were on, as usual, you were right about the 4 little diamonds tracking away at the end out of the big diamond. ( I said the big diamond tracked away and was wrong) Non the less, it was really cool for back then! By the way, did you ever meet Owen Quinn(he jumped off the world trade center) He was at that meet in 75 with a team called "The Spaced Rangers" from stormville New York?



Ok, now I guess I'll have to scan my shot of that very diamond and post it to my pictures on here. I have shots of the 16 man diamond and 16 man snowflake competition jumps from that year (taken by the late Carl Beonish). I'll try to scan both tomorrow and get them posted... that should bring back some memories for you :)
On the diamond tracking thing. I don't think we could have tracked the full diamond anyway since not everyone was pointing the same way. On the first 16 man diamond ever, we were all pointed the same way since no one knew any better at the time...

reply]

I scanned the 16 Diamond and 16 Snowflake shots tonight and uploaded them to DZ.com. When they approve them, I'll post links to them. They were shot by the legendary Carl Boenish (RIP).

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

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Ok, dz.com has still not approved my shots (or whatever they do), so I uploaded them to my Flickr account. Here they are:

Diamond:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3186/2887911050_2625b48daf_b.jpg

Snowflake:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3115/2887910396_39bf5aa1f3_b.jpg

I believe there were three jumps in the competition, these two and a round. We won all three rounds :)


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

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Nice pictures Roger!! I never thought back then when I saw that wild formation that I would be talking on a computer 32 years later to one of the guys that was in it!!



Yeah, the magic of the internet (and these forums). I have "hooked up" with so many friends from back then myself.

Several of the members of that team were on the first ever 16 man diamond in 1974 in Deland. If you look through this forum, you can find my write up about it. That jump in 74 is part of why I made that team for 75. Same slot too, 16th (I'm in the bright yellow and black (Clawson) jumpsuit.

Carl Daugherty was also on that team and is still jumping! He is participating in the POPS record attempts next week in Perris, CA. Last I spoke with him, he had nearly 17,000 jumps!

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

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Carl Daugherty was also on that team and is still jumping! He is participating in the POPS record attempts next week in Perris, CA. Last I spoke with him, he had nearly 17,000 jumps!



Carl is at Deland and does "sequential bigway" organizing once a month. There is nothing I would love better than to have some of you old farts that are still jumping to come down and participate.

Hell, even if you're not jumping, come down to visit. I would love to meet you guys.

PS: Bring your knowledge, advice and stories.
:)
My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

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Carl Daugherty was also on that team and is still jumping! He is participating in the POPS record attempts next week in Perris, CA. Last I spoke with him, he had nearly 17,000 jumps!



Carl is at Deland and does "sequential bigway" organizing once a month. There is nothing I would love better than to have some of you old farts that are still jumping to come down and participate.

Hell, even if you're not jumping, come down to visit. I would love to meet you guys.

PS: Bring your knowledge, advice and stories.
:)


"Once a month" is a little vague... could you be a bit more specific (like the first weekend of the month, or whatever)?

For me, it would be come up to Deland as I'm in the West Palm Beach area.

I have a lot of jumps at Deland and fond memories of those I jumped with there and of course the best DC-3 that was around in those days "Mr. Douglas."

I'd love to meet you and any other DZ commers that hang there as well!

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

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Watch your women around Carl



If you are foolish enough to bring your woman, you may as well bring your video camera too...give yourself something to do while you're watching.
:D:D
My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

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I took my "woman" with me for one of my visits to the Keys Boogie at Marathon Key (the last two years they held them). She met Carl among others; he's not her type... besides, with Scotty Carbone there I had two reputations to watch out for ;)

I will be bringing some camera items for sure (one of my hobbies).

Now if one of you could just tell me the furthest landing area from the handkerchief pilots so I can land whatever monster they put me under without being taken out... Really, the jump, EPs, landing, etc.; none of that scares me as much as what I've already seen in terms of disparate canopy speeds in the landing area. When I was active, all I worried about was getting a good canopy over my head and landing in a clear spot. All the squares of the time, Strato Star, 7 cell foil, etc. had roughly the same forward and decent speeds. I saw so many hot rod pilots swoop right down the middle of the landing area at the Keys Boogie and right through the middle of normally landing canopies that it scared me just watching...


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

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Hey Roger...just pull a little high...the hot rods will be on the ground in less than 2 minutes, leaving the whole DZ to you.

BASE359



I expect on a re-cert AFF jump after a 28 year layoff that the deployment altitude would be 5 grand or so though I didn't ask Carl about that when last we spoke. Anyway, point taken :)

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

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Recert!?!? There ain't no recert. Just get out and pull your string when it's time. There's your recert.

jon



Yeah... in the "old days" I would have just gone up high and made a 10 second delay and then rode the canopy for a while. These days, most dropzones really won't allow such things and after this long of a layoff, a rig and canopy I've never jumped, and only a couple of jumps on 3-ring equipped rigs, I think a re-cert is just fine. Carl is going to provide the training for free, Bob the rental rig for free... I'll cover the jump tickets for Carl and me and possibly a photographer. I'll also be bringing up a Tandem student.

Anyway, I have no doubt's about myself and if I can handle it or not, but I'm also older and wiser than I once was and it seems prudent to brush up on EPs and have someone like Carl in the air with me for the first time back. He expects there will be no issues either and said we would probably go back up for some RW with some of his buddies after the AFF. I would also like to get a jump in with Bill Booth who I worked for building the first 100+ Wonderhogs but never got to jump with (he was not jumping during that period). He has said he is up for it as well.

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

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Well Roger, your very lucky that you have friends that will get you "back up" and running again in skydiving because this sport is real expensive now. I live near Cross Keys and considered starting again but they want you to start out like anybody else and also take the entire course! They dont really do AFF and Ill be damed if Im going to strap myself to somebody and jump tandam. Anyway good luck and I know youll be back in the saddle in no time.

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I live near Cross Keys and considered starting again but they want you to start out like anybody else and also take the entire course! They dont really do AFF and Ill be damed if Im going to strap myself to somebody and jump tandam.



It's really not as gay as it seems. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Anyhow, there are lots of other DZs in that area that would get you recurrent with a modified (i.e., tailored-for-you) AFF refresher & jump, without the tandem. It's how a lot of us got recurrent after long layoffs.

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Thanks for the tip Sienfield! Ill check other DZs for what you said but Id really like to jump at Crosskeys because its so close to me and convient and the people are nice there. I guess Id better get my American Express card out if I want to start jumping again!! (what ever happened to 4 dollars to 7200') and a hop&pop for 3 bucks??

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