skypuppy

Kittinger's an interesting guy... I've been trying to locate a copy of 'The Long Lonely Leap' for a couple of years without success - not only is it out of print, but it seems people who have a copy want to hold onto it, since I haven't located any on the used book sites either... Kittinger claims to be responsible for the well-known and on-going myth of an alien ufo crash-landing around Roswell, NM,as well... It seems that before his manned expeditions to the outskirts of space, the military was sending up lots of unmanned balloons with advanced (for the time) instrumentation in New Mexico... This was usually at night, due to atmospheric and weather conditions... Hence the unusual number of ufo sightings in the area... While at first they would not be in a hurry to chase down the vehicles at night after their return to earth, preferring to wait till daylight, it seems local farmers started to complain about livestock ingesting pieces of fabric from the shredded balloons with resulting health problems. Thereafter the military started to actively chase the balloons during their nightly missions to get to the landing areas before the material would be totally shredded and ingested by said livestock. This led to the reports of military forces racing through the night to sites of alien crash-landings. Still later, as the deadline for manned missions to the outer reaches of the atmosphere approached, the team started sending mannequins up in the gondolas to get more detailed information on the stresses involved... This is what supposedly led to reports of skinny lifeless bodies of bald and sexless aliens being recovered by military crisis teams and stored in locked hangars on military bases in the dead of night... This information, if it is true, shows that Kittinger had a far greater impact on popular culture through these missions to space than just the jumps themselves, well-known as they may have been to us skydivers... Anyone interested can just do an internet search on Kittinger to find out more... 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

One year down at Z-hills we did a hoop dive on Xmas day that went really well (and we got out low due to clouds too) but we didn't have video... So a couple of days later we got some of the same people together, plus a few extra and tried again with video... Well, this time the jump didn't go so well - we got some people through and formed a no-contact diamond facing the hoop but people started hitting the hoop holders and knocking them around the sky, and every time someone hit them the whole no contact diamond had to move back into position again.... Finally I got to thinking if we're going to build anything we got to start now and as I moved up to tap the point's leg he turned and we built a 6-man... We were too close to the hoop, and as people tracked through they were still diving under or past us... Finally we had a couple more on wrists waiting to break in and I was thinking we must be running out of time... Looking down at my altimeter, it was reading about 2500'... I shook like mad and everyone broke and took off... As I started tracking I looked down and saw the tree at the end of the packing area and I thought to myself 'this is no 2500''... I dumped and my altimeter was saying about 1500 but when I landed it was still reading 700'... One girl opened about 600'... I can still hear Hoop on the loudspeaker "Peter Gannaw, get that group in here!!!' After the de-briefing (yelling) had died down and we were packing up, two guys actually came over and thanked me for keying the break, then picked up their unpacked canopies, got in their car and left... I left the altimeter there to get fixed after that (never got it back)... Now I often wear two - one on the wrist and one on the chest.... 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

Murray - it's funny you should ask... I gotta say, I sort of laugh when I hear people saying 2000' is kinda low... I guess that;s what AFF has done for skydiving.... Lowest pull at terminal - well, it wasn't really intentional, but we did a hookup at 1000' after cutting away from a threestack and I ended up open under the strong lopo at about 300' (thought I was going to die). Lowest exit - about 500' - we planned on getting out at the same altitude as the New River Gorge Bridge, but we forgot the party was about 400' higher than the dropzone... ( thought the ground was going by mighty fast, but then again, I figured it would look low from 900' too) One time I was happy not to open low was the big-way attempts at Burnaby a couple of years ago... On the record jump my bridle wrapped around the hackey and my main took about 1700' to come out... Luckily I was in the middle wave dumping at about 3500' on that one, but I was starting to sweat it... 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

Tried adding my website to my profile and it gets chopped off all the time. Seems like maybe I have two too many characters in it = however I have no idea how to reduce the number of characters. http://hometown.aol.com/pricesmoneypit/myhomepage/profile.html Any chance to make the space bigger to accept two more characters so it would work? 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

A guy I exchanged emails with not too long ago told me he'd made 120 BASE jumps in the last 2 years, with only about 3 being from illegal objects, so if you've got the money and you're willing to travel, it can be done legally... You may not get the whole word, but you can certainly get cliffs and spans... 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

I'd like to know if there's a place you can go to find out who's had their membership suspended, for how long and why.... I didn't think we suspended people for life anymore? 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

QuoteI'm a long way from this in time and space... Why was this man suspended for 30 years? Who died? Well, I'm assuming you read the article on the website I posted.... Bill was actually suspended twice - the first suspension (for his original chuteless jump) was lifted by a vote of the membership 2 1/2 years after it was imposed.... http://hometown.aol.com/pricesmoneypit/myhomepage/extreme.html As for your question - no one died... As far as we can determine no one even got hurt seriously... No one really seems to know the reason for the second suspension... At least no one other then the members of the BoD of CSPA who pretty much refuse to discuss it. Bill has no documentation from CSPA to state why he was suspended, or even that the association was considering his membership (ie he was given no hearing or chance to speak up for himself) and even now it seems the BoD continues to say 'The reasons are all in the file' - but then continue on 'but the file is confidential, so I guess you'll never know.' It has come out that the general membership never did ratify Bill's 2nd suspension, but apparently there was no protection for an individual member's rights in 1973 (pre-1984 when the new Charter for the association came out). Some people also wondered why it took so long for Bill to try to rejoin the organization, but it has come out that this is not the first time, but about the 4th time that Bill has tried to get accepted back into the group... I guess the association figures that if they just ignore him long enough he'll die or go away... I'm attaching a picture of Bill's Descender's Parateam freefalling over the Canadian National Exhibition in the mid-70's, with the newly constructed CN Tower in the background... (pic by Mike Swain see www.endlessfall.net) 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

Okay - you caught me guys! I'm not quite that old... That was a mid-1920's shot of 5 US military jumpers going up (one in the rear cockpit) in a Jenny. From John Weekes book, 'Assault from the Sky'... Attached is a more contemporary shot of me under a sierra in 1980 at around 25 jumps... 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

Do an advanced search on any internet search engine putting in 'extreme sports', Norway, June and it'll spit out the events website... As the website says, 'Watch out for glaciers in the park, and - when jumping - for the ground.' 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

So I guess the Pooster stays in the closet for now, huh D-dog? Skypuppy 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

What I miss about the old days has to do with me - I can't stay up till 3 or 4 at night drinking and expect to be in relatively good shape for jumping the next day... Likewise I can't drive 7 or 9 hours overnight and be ready to hop in the plane and jump all day, only to drive back the next night. And I definitely don't heal as fast - it seemed I'd be off only a few weeks no matter what I did to myself in the good ole days... Now a broken bones seems like a life sentence... And with the things I have to do at home or at work now - I just can't afford to have broken bones.... I think the 'good ole days' to me was all about attitude - I had nothing to lose and I could afford to live my life for jumping.... Now the 'good ole days' are just something to drink a few beers with my buddies and remember.... Skydiving seemed more of a statement back then then just another recreation... I'm attaching a picture of my first jump class from the 'good ole days'.... Skypuppy 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

From the Talk Back forum 'Minor adjustments' needed after parachute failed to open A Chinese man was slightly injured after he jumped from a 180ft cliff to test his homemade parachute. Qin Ning, 33, landed in a pool of water after his parachute failed to open. He told the Beijing Star Daily that some minor adjustments were needed before it could be put on the market. 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

In keeping with the attitudes that representatives of the Canadian Sport Parachute Association has exhibited for 30 years now, the VOTING MEMBER GROUPS (note not the individual general membership) have voted AGAINST LIFTING Bill's now 30 year suspension at this year's AGM (6 for, 15 against, 6 abstaining) ... This becomes even more incredulous to me after recent admissions that the membership was never asked to ratify the second suspension, which seemed to have been imposed for no actual incident, but simply a knee-jerk reaction by the BOD after the membership reversed their first suspension by a motion from the floor at the 1972 AGM... There were even attempts not to allow the motion to end Cole's suspension be heard from the floor at this year's AGM - 30 years later!!! Is this the way a national skydiving association is supposed to operate??? 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

WOW! I'm speechless!! Except to say that if I'm ever lucky enough to run into Bob Sinclair I'll be buying him as much beer as he can drink for as many days as he can keep talking... 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

Yes, included with Bill's scrapbooks and logbooks was a copy of 'The Endless Fall'. In it was the inscription 'You're the only one that rated two chapters, Bill. Mike Swain' I later contacted Mike to tell him how much I enjoyed the book and get him a few addresses from people on the Descenders Parateam that Mike jumped with at the CIAS in the mid-late 70's... I was happy to hear Mike is planning a second book. 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

With all respect to narcimund, who I'm sure was simply trying to come up with an interesting post, while BASE in a day might be an intriguing idea for an experienced BASEr, it's totally inappropriate (in my opinion) for someone without experience to even consider it... Furthermore, I doubt any newcomer could accomplish such a feat without help and it seems to me any mentor who helped such a person would be doing it simply to say 'hey I taught so-and-so to BASE in a day!' I'm not a current BASE jumper and if the most experienced BASE jumper in the world were ever to decide to decide to do such a thing, I'd probably have to defer to his experience, but can you imagine the uproar if anything happened in such an attempt - people are often out for blood after totally innocent accidents occur in jumps that are planned out properly... Not to mention that objects for such an attempt would have to be picked to be real easy, and so much would have to looked after by the mentor (I think it would be just too much overload for the newbie) that the learning on such a feat would probably not be high... That's just my opinion, and if someone does it and gets away with it, good for them... I think it could be done, but I don't really think it could be done safely - you'd be relying on good luck... And sooner or later luck will run out. 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

Art Starnes was one of the few guys with the name and resources to get sponsors for a jump like this at the time I guess... I'm attaching a picture of his outfit from Michael Horan's book, Parachuting Folklore... The book went on to say that ' to counter the effects of the -46 degree F temperature, Starnes wore an 'electrically-heated' suit of coveralls...' I'm imagining that at least one of the cords you can see in the picture, then, is his extension cord... Where he got an extension cord that long (30,000'?) I don't know. Did he plug it into the plane? or into one of the buildings near the landing site? And how did he manage to freefall almost 29,000' without tangling in this long extension cord? ( I guess he could have just used one 15,000' long so that when he reached lower, warmer altitudes it would reach the end and unplug from his suit, leaving him free to fall alone until opening... That would also explain how his chute never tangled with the cord on opening...) With a cord that long it's a good thing the Columbia River Hydro project was already underway to supply the electricity... 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

I was wondering what forum to post this in, but I think I want to hear from people with experience in the 60's and 70's, since the outlook then may have been different from now... This subject has become a bit of a hot topic since it was mentioned that a motion may be made at this year's CSPA AGM to lift the lifetime suspension imposed 30 years ago (1973) on Bill Cole. The BoD recently refused Bill readmission so some members wish to bring a motion from the floor at the AGM... Bill was a colorful guy who did a lot of things in Canada - I am attaching a picture of his jump at the Canadian International Air Show on which he used 25' risers under his PC as a gimmick. Unfortunately it backfired when he got line twists and landed on top of a one story building across the road. To know more about Bill's suspension and the circumstances leading up to it you can copy and paste http://hometown.aol.com/pricesmoneypit/myhomepage/extreme.html Since this seems to be a hot topic among some Canadian jumpers I wondered what people in USPA, BPA, APA or other organizations thought - do you know people that have been suspended from an organization - who, what for, for how long? do they (or did they) have to make a formal application to rejoin, or did the suspension just lapse? Is it right to give out a life time suspension (what are the behavior modification chances of a life time ban, considering the person knows he;s not allowed to rejoin no matter how good he is)??? I have heard Rod Pack was NOT suspended for his chuteless jump in the 60's... I think Jimmy Tyler was kicked out of USPA in the 80's but I don;t know for sure why (was it the chuteless jumps? One at least was done in Mexico)... There were a bunch kicked out for BASE jumping in the 80's weren't there? Who, and what happened to them? I thought this might make for an interesting discussion. Skypuppy 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

I hope this doesn't bore people, but I love parachute history - this is my take on early BASE jumps. Actually some people do say that the first parachute jumps took place before the Montgolfier brothers invented balloons - some sources claim that European Faustus Veranzio made a jump from a tower in or around Venice in 1617 - certainly he included drawings of a rigid-frame parachute in his 1595 book, Machinae Novae, and was the first to write that the weight of the jumper would impact on the size of parachute necessary to land safely... Other people claimed to jump from towers in Europe and certainly live drop tests were made with animals, but as many people here correctly pointed out, the first person to make a verifiable jump was Garnerin in 1797. Throughout the early 1800's more jumps were made from balloons using large rigidly-framed parachutes, sometimes with a basket underneath, or a trapeze bar type seat, but gas for the balloons was expensive or difficult to manufacture, so sometime around the Civil War people began to experiment with hot-air or 'smoke' balloons which could be more economical... Because smaller balloons were easier to heat, the aeronauts did away with baskets under the balloon and began to make parachutes that didn;t have a rigid frame to hold them open - they just hung limp under the balloon until a cutaway from the balloon (which usually had a weight suspended from the top so that it would be pulled upside down when the load was released, empty itself of the hot-air in a thick smudge of black smoke and then come down closer to the crowd, rather then drifting off for miles). A person who did much to develop and popularize the non-rigid parachute in the 1880's, American Thomas Baldwin, is known as the 'Father of the Modern Parachute'. With the advent of the smaller, cheaper and simpler smoke balloons, balloons and parachute drops became much more common, and after a few years lost some of the drawing power (and profit) that they had in the first few decades. Perhaps because of this some experienced parachutist started jumping off things instead of from balloons as a more exciting or marketable stunt. One such was Bobby Leach who jumped the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls in 1907 before thousands of on-lookers. In the 1890's I read somewhere that a jumper in London England was doing regular jumps 'inside a building' from about 80' - I picture him using an already inflated parachute such as the armed forces used for parachute training from their training towers. I think two factors had an impact on the proliferation of BASE jumping in early parachuting of the 1900's - the competition between various inventors and manufacturers of parachutes as they strove to interest the governments in parachutes for their growing air forces, and also the advent of motion pictures... As you pointed out Banic was trying to interest the government in his new parachute when he jumped a building in 1914, before going on to airplane jumps. What better way to demonstrate low-opening possibilities as a life-saving device then by jumping from a man-made or earth-bound object? Even before Banic, Rodman Law demonstrated the Stevens Life-Pack (with a 16-ft round) by jumping off the torch of the Statue of Liberty on Feb 2, 1912. (He was also paid $1500 by the Pathe film company for the stunt). Law's jump was written up in the newspapers at the time along with photos of his jump - I remember Phil Smith included a copy of one article in his BASELINE magazine one month, but I lent my old mags to someone and when he died falling off a building I never got them back... If someone in New York is motivated enough perhaps they could look at the local library and get a copy of the article to post here. Incidently only a couple of days after Law's jump, Franz Reichelt jumped to his death from the Eiffel Tower in his 'wingsuit' type overcoat in an effort to win a reward offered by a Frenchman for a successful life-saving parachute. On Feb 16, 1912, only 14 days after his Statue of Liberty Jump, Law jumped of the Brooklyn Bridge, again for the movies, and later he also did the Banker;s Trust Building in New York, before becoming the first person to jump from a hydroplane on April 13, 1912. He continued to demonstrate Steven's Life Pack until the beginning of the First World War. In England, Calthorpe's Guardian Angel parachute was demonstrated to the admiralty from Tower Bridge in 1917. I am attaching a picture of this jump, note the single parachute attachment point to the jumper... John Tranum was later said to duplicate this jump with an Irvin chute as a test and show jumper for Irvin Parachutes (probably early 1930's). He also did a jump from a bridge in San Bernardino, California. Almost all these jumps were done by laying the parachute out on the rail and then jumping - ripcords had not been invented yet (except in Tranum's case, but they were not used on those jumps anyways). skydivingmovies.com has several clips showing BASE jumps demonstrating various parachutes with live jumpers. There is also one showing Shorty Osborn riding off a 300 foot cliff near San Diego on a motorcycle in the 20's. The parachute fouled on the fender of the bike and Shorty crashed into the powerlines below, suffering grievous injuries and burns, but living to continue in the aviation business as a mechanic and stunt technician... John Tranum later repeated that stunt from a higner cliff in Colorado, and I believe that footage is shown as an add-on on Norm Kent's 'From Wings Came Flight' movie. While many people seem to think that BASE is unique to the late 20th century, early adventurers and parachute manufacturers were doing it long before that in an effort to win lucrative government contracts. Skypuppy 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

One year when we were jumping at the Canadian International Air Show, probably around 1989, they had the Concorde fly by and do a low pass on it's way from the North Pole back to New York!!! Must have been neat for the passengers riding in the seats to watch us as it flew by too! Different looking airplane... Skypuppy 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

When I started all I use to hear was "PASS THE BA-TON, MAN! PASS THE BATON!!!" 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

I'd be both a pretty boring guy, and pretty bored when hanging out at the dz, if I wasn't drinking at least moderately... The problem is being drunk sort of seems to creep up on me... Sometimes I leave or get busy with something else simply to keep from drinking too much to drive home... Unfortunately, for me at least, it's tough to stop after 2 beers... So I go home and have 4 or 5... 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

I thought he had the C-130 back then... 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

According to Peter Hearn's book 'The Sky People', Manning was adept at basic stability, controlled turns, backloops, head down dives and a delta or tracking glide... "While coming out of a head-first dive the high velocity causes a considerable horizontal movement, the body acting as a gliding plane against the air. Manning often thus executed a spiral glide coming out of his high-speed head-first position." wrote Floyd Smith... Like other parachuting 'performers' Manning didn't want to make his techniques public. He was killed in a plane crash into Lake Michigan (he was also an airshow pilot) before the article came out in 1933. 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

Does anyone have access to a copy of the Feb. 1934 issue of Popular Mechanics? It contains an article by Floyd Smith on the state of the art skills of freefall control used by early jumper Spud Manning... This predates the time when Leo Valentin 'rediscovered' the secrets of stable freefall in the 1950's... Skypuppy 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