Rainbow Airport Crash Nov, 1970

[SansSuit 1]

Hiya-

In writing a magazine article, I came across the report of a jump plane crash at Rainbow Airport in 1970. Does anybody here have any more information on this? Obviously, the pilot ran the plane out of fuel. How bad was the plane damaged? How bad was the pilot hurt? Did it fly at Rainbow again? I noticed it was involved in another accident in 1976.

Thanks!

Peace,
-Dawson.
http://www.SansSuit.com
The Society for the Advancement of Naked Skydiving

[jackwallace 3]

If its the one I'm thinking of the pilot (not the owner of the plane) ran out of gas directly over the airport on jump run. We got out, he panicked, tried to land the plane on grass, flipped it. I have pictures if you're interested. It was a Cessna 196

U only make 2 jumps: the first one for some weird reason and the last one that you lived through. The rest are just filler.
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[SansSuit 1]

Thanks. That sounds like it could be. I'd be interested in seeing those pictures. If'n it isn't too much trouble.

Peace,
-Dawson.
http://www.SansSuit.com
The Society for the Advancement of Naked Skydiving

[jackwallace 3]

Here's after the crash and 40 years later.

U only make 2 jumps: the first one for some weird reason and the last one that you lived through. The rest are just filler.
scr 316

[RogerRamjet 0]

Was the plane totaled or were they able to repair it (it doesn't look that bad from that picture)?

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Edited to add: I see someone said the same plane was in another accident later, so I guess it did survive...
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I put students out at Rainbow in summer of 1975. I know Tuna flew jumpers there earlier than that, but maybe not that early. Do you know who the pilot was, DZO?

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

[ss89 0]

C196 N3878V was rebuilt by Frank Youngquist and sold to me Steve Schimming in 1971. Aircraft operated out of Waunakee (Madison), Wi DZ till 1974 at which time I went to work for FAA and gypsied airplane around Minneapolis DZ,s. 1975 acft leased to PI Lakewood Acrft destroyed accident 1976. 1st and numerous 8-Mans made out of aircraft in Waunakee Days. I distinctly recall somebody who looked a lot like Jack Wallace on a few of those lifts. Pic of aircraft under C196 Post in forum

[jackwallace 3]

Before (with the usual suspects) and after the crash pics. We took it to a place down the road that painted school buses. They did it for free from what I remember just cause it was something different to paint.
From what I heard it has been completely restored and lives in florida.

U only make 2 jumps: the first one for some weird reason and the last one that you lived through. The rest are just filler.
scr 316

[RogerRamjet 0]

Quote

Before (with the usual suspects) and after the crash pics. We took it to a place down the road that painted school buses. They did it for free from what I remember just cause it was something different to paint.
From what I heard it has been completely restored and lives in florida.

Looks like Jef Searles on the far right who I believe owned Rainbow for a time (and Z-Hills). Si Fraser took over from him and that's who I worked for when putting students out there.

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

[ss89 0]

N3878V was destroyed in 76' Accident PI Lakewood,NJ . 95N Z-Hills Rainbow Paint Scheme Completely Restored now Red/White living in Lakeland,Fl.

[RogerRamjet 0]

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N3878V was destroyed in 76' Accident PI Lakewood,NJ . 95N Z-Hills Rainbow Paint Scheme Completely Restored now Red/White living in Lakeland,Fl.

I didn't have the two aircraft confused if that's what you mean. N3878V was a 195, while the Z-Hills plane is a 196 (450hp engine conversion). I have a ton of jumps from the Z-Hills 196; fantastic aircraft for it's time.

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

[ss89 0]

RR,
78V was also a C196. 4-5 C195,s were converted in mid 50,s by PFS for high altitude aerial mapping. Flew down to Z-Hills spring of 72, w/ friend made a few jumps out of 10E & C196. As I recall maybe only time there were 3 C196,s on airport. 95N, 78V, and C196 w/tip tanks which I believe is currently owned by guy whose father was the airport mgr then-Porter? Picture of 78V by JW looks suspicously like airplane when I arrived in Z-Hills after taking the paint off leading edges in a TS inbound to the Hills..SS

[jackwallace 3]

The Rainbow plane and the Z hills one had matching paint jobs before the crash. I think the tip tank one did too.
Don't say Wanakee was near Madison. Madison was near Waunakee. Or as the sign said "the only Waunakee in the world"

U only make 2 jumps: the first one for some weird reason and the last one that you lived through. The rest are just filler.
scr 316

[RogerRamjet 0]

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RR,
78V was also a C196. 4-5 C195,s were converted in mid 50,s by PFS for high altitude aerial mapping. Flew down to Z-Hills spring of 72, w/ friend made a few jumps out of 10E & C196. As I recall maybe only time there were 3 C196,s on airport. 95N, 78V, and C196 w/tip tanks which I believe is currently owned by guy whose father was the airport mgr then-Porter? Picture of 78V by JW looks suspicously like airplane when I arrived in Z-Hills after taking the paint off leading edges in a TS inbound to the Hills..SS

Wow, I knew there were a handful of conversions, but wouldn't have bet two of them served at dropzones I've jumped at. Very cool.

I sent a private message to Richard Porter on Facebook pointing him to this thread. If he responds there instead of here, I'll pass along whatever he has to offer. Just saw him ealier this year at the Jane Lamdin memorial jump along with about half the 1975 10 high bunch. See photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/16626901@N00/sets/72157623605573411/

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

[SansSuit 1]

Quote

Before (with the usual suspects) and after the crash pics. We took it to a place down the road that painted school buses. They did it for free from what I remember just cause it was something different to paint.

Way cool! Thanks !

Peace,
-Dawson.
http://www.SansSuit.com
The Society for the Advancement of Naked Skydiving

[LtlRichard 0]

Roger, N4395N was the original 196 used at Z-hills, it was purchased by my Dad in 1968 when he still owned the DZ, he used it to support the US team training that year. There is a picture of it with the US Team on the cover of Parachutist at that time. Dad latter sold it to Jeff Searles along with the DZ, that's when Tuna came to Z-hills and started flying it, in the meanwhile Frank Younquist had 78V and was flying jumpers at Jeff's old DZ in Rainbow, WI. Frank came down with 78V in the late 60's and early 70's and the two airplanes did many formation loads at Z-hills. My aircraft is N4383V it has never seen a jumper and will always stay that way, it is the sister ship to 95N and still has the tip tanks and shortened wings which 95N had in the begining but were latter changed to regular wings. Steve's report on the fate of 78V is accurate and the only surviving 196's of the four that were made is mine and 95N which is owned by a friend of mine who has restored it to like new condition in spite of it's having over 17,000 hours of jump time on it.

[SkydiveJack 1]

Here are a couple of photos of 95N I took at Oshkosh in 2007. It was hard to beleive it was the same aircraft. The owner had done a beautiful job on the restoration!

[RogerRamjet 0]

Quote

Roger, N4395N was the original 196 used at Z-hills, it was purchased by my Dad in 1968 when he still owned the DZ, he used it to support the US team training that year. There is a picture of it with the US Team on the cover of Parachutist at that time. Dad latter sold it to Jeff Searles along with the DZ, that's when Tuna came to Z-hills and started flying it, in the meanwhile Frank Younquist had 78V and was flying jumpers at Jeff's old DZ in Rainbow, WI. Frank came down with 78V in the late 60's and early 70's and the two airplanes did many formation loads at Z-hills. My aircraft is N4383V it has never seen a jumper and will always stay that way, it is the sister ship to 95N and still has the tip tanks and shortened wings which 95N had in the begining but were latter changed to regular wings. Steve's report on the fate of 78V is accurate and the only surviving 196's of the four that were made is mine and 95N which is owned by a friend of mine who has restored it to like new condition in spite of it's having over 17,000 hours of jump time on it.

Thanks for posting Richard; nice to get the scoop from someone who knows! Great seeing you last March for the Jane Lambdin memorial jump, hope to see you again soon.

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

[captain1976 0]

I remember jumping there in 1972 and we used a Cessna 195. The guy running the place I think was Bob Young. Anyone know what became of him?

What was really neat was there were a couple of Shawnee Helicopters based right next to the jump shack (see pix). They were used by some company to put air conditioning units on buildings. Crazy machine, they used 1 big radial engine to run everything.

You live more in the few minutes of skydiving than many people live in their lifetime

[lodestar 0]

I can remember being at Zhills in the spring of '69, and working for Jeff Searles at the DZ there. Although I do remember 95 N, I do have a picture of Frank Youngquist, Jeff and Bonnie in front of a 196 which is likely Frank's and taken on a visit while he was at Zhills. I'll try and find it but think it's been posted on here somewhere. I had disremembered that there were two of the aircraft but the only one I flew was 95N.
Thanks to this posting the story is now refreshed in my mind and I thank you for that.
Flying the 196 was one of the high points in my time at the hills....fantastic aircraft and one helluva jump ship. And, there is nothing quite the same as firing that R985 up first thing in the morning......

[RogerRamjet 0]

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I can remember being at Zhills in the spring of '69, and working for Jeff Searles at the DZ there. Although I do remember 95 N, I do have a picture of Frank Youngquist, Jeff and Bonnie in front of a 196 which is likely Frank's and taken on a visit while he was at Zhills. I'll try and find it but think it's been posted on here somewhere. I had disremembered that there were two of the aircraft but the only one I flew was 95N.
Thanks to this posting the story is now refreshed in my mind and I thank you for that.
Flying the 196 was one of the high points in my time at the hills....fantastic aircraft and one helluva jump ship. And, there is nothing quite the same as firing that R985 up first thing in the morning......

So one day I'm sitting in Jeff Searles office and he is talking with Lou Howell about getting checked out in the 196. Lou already had tail dragger experience I believe in a 180 and might have been flying the L-10E by then also.

Jeff: "Ok, just take it to the back runway and taxi up and down a bit to get the feel of it."
Lou: "What about take off?"
Jeff: "Take off is just a fast taxi."

That was it. About a month later, Lou dropped a load at 12,500 from the 196 and when he began his decent, the oil pressure dropped to nothing. He shut down and performed a perfect dead stick. I suppose that incident completed his final checkout

Other than finding the "training" humerous, I never really thought about it until reading recent incident threads where dead stick jumper pilots (from altitude) crashed short of the airport. Certain pilots just seemed to be more "on top of things" than others and Lou seemed to be one of those guys to me. Always felt comfortable with him at the controls...

Since the pilots contributing to this thread are still with us, I have to assume you guys are part of the "on top of things" group as well!

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

[kkeenan 13]

Quote

What was really neat was there were a couple of Shawnee Helicopters based right next to the jump shack (see pix). They were used by some company to put air conditioning units on buildings. Crazy machine, they used 1 big radial engine to run everything.

Many years ago folks were using an S-58 helo for doing that on a building next to the airport at DeLand. The helo lost power over the building. The only EP was to cutaway the load and autorotate into the parking lot, which they successfully accomplished. The cutaway A/C unit went through the roof of the building and was wiped out. Hell of a day for them.

Kevin K.

[lodestar 0]

The only dead stick I made was with the 182 at the hills, 6472A, as I recall Jeff had wanted to run it a quart low on oil to conserve oil use and I had done that, in the course of the day's jumps I had to frequently check and add oil keeping it a quart low.
At some point, I either got the nose too low or had the aircraft in a slipping spiral with the nose way up in order to get her down expeditiously and during that maneuver, with the aircraft already a quart low and the oil low enough to require another quart on the next fueling the engine seized up and stopped.
Since I was right over the airport, it was just a matter of spiraling down to land, and knowing it was going to have to go to the hangar for Porter to have a look, I just landed on the taxiway to the hangar and pulled it up right in front of the pumps.
After that we no longer ran a quart low on oil. Ouch! I should have been more aware of the low oil and perhaps not have put the aircraft in such an extreme position but hind sight is 20/20 and it was an Expensive lesson. I have to say Jeff was pretty cool about it and didn't kick my ass or even get upset, just matter of not keeping any more engines running a quart low in the future.
I will say though, that Lou deserves a medal for landing the 196 dead stick, that sucker was like a lead brick without power, and would drop like the proverbial lead balloon making it a highly skilled operation to land it where you wanted to land safely and without harm. Good Job Lou!

[captain1976 0]

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What was really neat was there were a couple of Shawnee Helicopters based right next to the jump shack (see pix). They were used by some company to put air conditioning units on buildings. Crazy machine, they used 1 big radial engine to run everything.

Many years ago folks were using an S-58 helo for doing that on a building next to the airport at DeLand. The helo lost power over the building. The only EP was to cutaway the load and autorotate into the parking lot, which they successfully accomplished. The cutaway A/C unit went through the roof of the building and was wiped out. Hell of a day for them.

Kevin K.

Wow, being a helo driver myself he must have been a real sharp pilot. That lighting fast reaction probably save some lives including his. Copters like the S-58 don't fare so well in crashes, they usually blow up.

You live more in the few minutes of skydiving than many people live in their lifetime