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mud huts maybe not, plywood and plastic sheets and no running water, absolutely:
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Aluminum die casting wasn't new, nor hardly cutting edge. Putting a battery in a car or using an electric engine was hardly cutting edge Autonomous driving features are much more software related than car related "endless" torque is a wonderful byproduct of using the electric engine. Noting cutting edge there Highest computing platform...yes exactly what I am talking about. The cars themselves are shit, the technology is cool.
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I grew up in Indianapolis in the 60's and 70's. I remember Dick Simon as an Indy driver. His trucking company was his sponsor, so the skunk logo was pretty prominent. -
Nice to see. I seriously wondered if they would ever get it back in the air. I never got a chance to jump it when it was flying "before"; I sure hope I get at least one jump out of it now it is back.
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Hi Steve, I served with him on the TSO Committee for many years. Jerry Baumchen
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Hi Ken, I think Bill has been a DZO since, at least, the mid-60's. in 1964, Bill and his partner, at the time, Dick Simon ran a dz at Alta, Utah. They hosted the 1964 US Nationals there. I'm not sure when, but Bill did buy the dz at Pope Valley, CA. Dick Simon had left the business by then. Later, Bill moved to Lodi, CA. Some trivia: Dick Simon got into auto racing; he owned a trucking company called Simon Trucking. Their logo was a skunk painted on their trucks; I used to see them a fair amount while going up & down on I-5. Dick Simon raced many times in the Indy 500; he never won but, he was competitive. Thought you might like the trivia on trucking, Jerry Baumchen PS) Dick Simon - Wikipedia
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John Sherman Obituary Published by Legacy Remembers on May 9, 2024. Skydiving Pioneer, Innovator Dies at 85 Skydiving legend John Berry Sherman (born Engle) was born February 1939 in Chicago to John E Engle, GM engineer, toolmaker and turkey farmer and Sara Jo Berry (Sherman), NBC fashion editor and radio personality. He was raised first on his father's turkey farm before moving to live with his maternal grandparents in Monterey, TN and eventually to North Attleboro, MA. He joined the Army in 1957, serving in Germany as one of the Army's first LRRPs (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol) for nuclear target acquisitions. There, he made his first parachute jump in 1958. He attended Tennessee Technical University to study engineering but soon found himself engrossed in the folk music scene of Nashville, leading to a stint as a folk musician. An accomplished guitarist, John made his way out to LA in 1961, rubbing noses with budding folk artists such as David Crosby, Peter Paul & Mary, The Kingston Trio and The Smothers Brothers while living and working at a famous LA nightclub called The Troubadour. He met his first wife back in Nashville where they owned the first folk bar and venue called the Third Floor. He eventually settled down in Michigan, working as an engineer for Chrysler Corporation. He was an early advocate for the turn to front-wheel-drive based architectures including his concept for what would eventually become the K-car-based minivan that Lee Iacocca introduced in 1984, a concept for which he was forever proud. In the late 60's, he was reintroduced to skydiving and became obsessed, often leaving work on a Friday afternoon, driving overnight in his custom Dodge van to a weekend skydiving boogie to jump all weekend and hop back in his van and make it back to the office Monday morning. Tired of jumping old, retired military equipment, as was common in the day and already being an accomplished parachute rigger, he began to experiment with equipment design. John invented the first modern "piggyback" harness/container system to be issued a single-unit certification by the FAA. It was dubbed the SST (Super Swooper Tandem, based on a nickname given to John by legend of the sport Ted Strong), which later became the Racer, revolutionizing the sport. As a leader in the skydiving industry, he introduced new design concepts, such as the pull-out pilotchute, main riser covers, anti-line-strip deployment bags, Teflon cutaway cables, the anti-float bag and container concept, the first truly elliptical main parachute, first tandem system with a 3-point drogue release incorporated into the cutaway handle and countless other safety features that have been emulated by other parachute equipment manufacturers. He was a founding member of the Parachute Industry Association, served as Technical Committee Chairman of the PIA, created the first PIA electronic bulletin board system, including the popular "rec.skydiving" forum on the Internet. John was the first U.S. skydiving competitor to Medal in what was then, all of the disciplines of Speed Style, Accuracy and Relative Work, in National Competition. He was instrumental in introducing Relative Work as part of U.S. National Competition, having written the rules for the original 4-way event. He pioneered Ten-Way Speed Star techniques that are still in practice today, designed the first 3-Dimensional skydives, and was largely responsible for the successful design of the first 200 Way World Record Formation as well as many other monumental skydiving formations. John was meet director for the first Thanksgiving Day "10-Man" Meet in 1969, later the "Turkey Meet". Notably, John has been a teacher and mentor to hundreds of riggers who now serve their skydiving communities around the world. He has trained some of the most successful riggers in the world. Virtually every major U.S. manufacturer has trained under Sherman or has consulted him to improve their products and processes. 1987 he started a new company called Decel and was awarded a grant to redesign the Mid-Air Refueling "Probe and Drogue" system used by the U.S. Marine Corps and Air Force. John received a U.S. Patent, for the design, which was to become the NATO standard. John lived many lives, more than most, and like a cat, survived many deaths including a car crash in 1964 where he died for six minutes, a plane crash, several parachute test-jumping incidents, a heart attack in 1990, a stroke in 2021, but ultimately met his match with a carton of milk (he loved milk) from McDonalds. John is survived by his wife Nancy, sisters Patty, Marty & Judy, daughters Margaret (Chase), Eliza Beth (James), son Johnny and grandchildren Quela & Thomas.
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Assets? Good luck. People who sue DZOs are dreamers. And Bill Dause likely is more of a manager than an owner. I think someone is suing the Boyds as well. They also have no assets.
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Clearly he has been too successful for his own good and is not fully equipped to handle it.
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None in mud huts. There are some close to third world conditions on reserves though.
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Hi folks, A young John Sherman: From The Parachute Manual, Jerry Baumchen
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Huh? You got no poor folks in Canada?
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I don't know if he was a flaming butthole before his purchase of X or if it just amplified it. About four weeks after the purchase and seeing him get a case of twitter thumbs, Dm'd him and suggested he hire an X CEO and go back to saving the planet and exploring new worlds - where he does his best work. Eventually, the noise on X got so bad that I deleted my account. I sometimes wonder if he's on some type of Howard Hughes path. Hopefully not and all he needs is a good vacation. I still admire the man, but wish he would re-focus on the core technologies that will benefit the planet. ~just one man's opinion.
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Bill could have used this time to say that Tandem Jumps are $150 and Standard Jumps are $25 from 13,000. Promote his business so he can make payments on that 40 Million Dollar Lawsuit. https://www.parachutecenter.com/ -
First use of aluminum die casting for a production car Largest battery at the time of new car release Longest range at the time of release First autonomous driving features (level 2) available to the public First production EV that outperformed all other production gas cars in acceleration Highest power computing platform on a car when first released Quite a lot of cutting edge work. We'll see if that continues with Musk's tendency to fire anyone he doesn't like.
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I don't think Tesla has ever really been a car company under Musk. I believe it is much more a software company. There is nothing "cutting edge" about Tesla's on the automotive side.
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He’s prime DZO material, methinks.
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You may be overthinking this. A more likely scenario is that Musk came back after months of being at Twitter/X, talked to Tinucci, told her that he wanted her to fire about half her team, she said no, so he fired her and everyone on the team to make an example of them. That way no one else would ever try to talk back to him. No long term strategy. No tradeoffs between charging and vehicle work. Just him being the most excellent, fast-on-his-feet titan of industry the world has ever seen (in his mind.)
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I always thought why stay? Wendy P.
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It is a wonder that there are any more people living in Cabot Cove with people being killed every week.
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This....unreal level of professional incompetence.
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Where I live if you made those choices for your children you would most likely attract a lot of attention from certain social agencies. Or perhaps you would be Amish. For sure you would be doing a poor job of equipping them for life in the modern world.
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IDK. I'm not an Elon or Tesla fan and I don't follow the gossip about it. I'm just saying what makes sense. But the vehicles you mention would fall right into the "cutting edge" category in my mind.
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I heard that they fired their whole new products and vehicle development team too. So much for cutting edge vehicles. They only want to focus on FSD, AI, robo-taxi, and Tesla-Bot. Am I wrong? Or was that just anti-Tesla FUD.
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That is not quite true. In advanced economies, we CHOOSE to make them expensive. We could also choose to make our offspring live like they do in poorer countries. We could build mud huts for them to live in. Give them only 1 pair of good clothes that they wear to school. The rest of the time they would only be shirtless & barefoot working out in the field to help the family. There is no reason for them to have that expensive IPhone, toys, computers, or a college education. These are all choices we make, not the fact that we live in 'advanced economies'.
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