keith20mm

I have a Pioneer Parachute coffee mug... ha ha... I nabbed mine in 1989 after D Monich bought the US Forgecraft plant in Ft. Smith, AR. Anyone else have one?

Some of ya'll from north Louisiana, and Auburn Sport Parachute Club, La Tech, Mississippi, and area, might have known Randy Taylor, from Rayville, LA. He passed last year, from Covid pneumonia, I heard. Memorable was his signature red balloon suit. Randy was both a jumper, pilot, and held a BS Aeronautical Engineering degree, from Auburn. Blue Skies, Randy.

Scott Formby, from Bossier City, died suddenly, in the late 80s or early 90s... He was a pal of mine, did an illegal jump into La Tech homecoming the year that LTU SPC was banned because one or more of the following, Ralph H. and Tim G, and or Dudley B. made a jump into the LTU swimming pool (into a "congested area"), and brought down the FAA onto the club. So FAA is not going to approved the homecoming jump, Formby gets some sucker pilot to fly him, I set the green smoke and have the getaway car ready. We got someone into the press box to announce that "In lieu of the presentation by Louisiana Sport Parachute Club, today we have Louisiana Tech Alumni Scott Formby making the jump" Formby did a crash landing into the lower seating, and dislocated his shoulder, but managed to gather his canopy, and run for the north end zone fence hole. Jumped into the car, and away we blazed, got a few blocks away, Formby says "Stop, let me get out a minute", so he jumps out, slams his shoulder against the car's roof edge, to put his shoulder back into socket, and then we hauled ass, again Nobody spoke, and nobody got called into court on this one. So over at the Old Venable Place, near Rayville, is Charlie T's strip, and we had a party over there with a couple of planes, a 180 and a 182. I got my SCR, and later found Formby in the bathroom with a coke needle in his wrist, shooting up... he was out, but survived. A couple of months later, he did pass on... too bad, blue skies, Scott, Shit For Brains.

Aero Country The airport is there, the dz is not. South of 380, west of McKinney,Tx

Deville story Bruce decided t'was time for a twin. He found a C-45 in Antrim, NH, a D-18 airframe in Arkansas, and another D-18 airframe in Jackson, MS. The C-45 had canvas controls, low time engines,all instruments, decent tires. The plane had not been flown in 12 years, but the engines had been run a couple of times every year. It was property of an air-trades tech. school. The one in Jackson had aluminum controls, and the one in Ark had spar kit. One trip to Jackson retrieved the aluminum control surfaces, all... elevator, rudders, flaps, etc, and some miscellaneous pieces. A trip to Antrim, NH in "the van" with a bunch of volunteers, got the C-45 back in operation, after applying the aluminum control surfaces from Jackson. An A&P at the flight/tech school did all the work. On return trip, a stop at a restaurant ended with Dirty Bruce face down in a plate of salad..post celebration gravity overload. When someone lifted his face off the plate, there were many salad pieces sticking to his face, affixed with thousand island dressing. The waitress asked us all to just leave. The nerve of some people. And that was a minor infraction. The celebration continued to New York City. Ascending to top of "emstate pire building" apparently altitude was more than Bruce could take. He puked off the observation deck. Some poor chick hitchhiker got a ride in the van, and, of course the male passengers had much piss to let out, through a rear floor mounted relief tube. The front passenger threw piss out the right front window. The hitchhiker probably thought it was her last day. A ferry pilot flew the C-45 to Monroe. The engines, controls and instruments were removed from the C-45 and taken to Jackson. The D-18 there was reassembled, it having a cargo door. Again, all work was performed by certified A&P. The D-18 was ferried to Monroe. On that maiden flight, the pilot switched to the front tank, unfortunately had not been drained, so the right engine died immediately. A short field landing was done somewhere in east Louisiana or west Mississippi, the prop was reset, water dumped, and trip to Monroe completed uneventfully. There the spar from Arkansas was applied to the D-18, again by certified A&P mechanics... and that is how N123J became a jump plane. Dunno whare it is now located... probably some jungle.

Wrote a story about Scott in the Scary stories from the ole days thread (about the time he backed into the 182 prop) http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1684381#1684381 10-12 years ago, while getting ready for work one morning, Scott began feeling ill, layed down on the couch, and died birds relapse.

Actually name is Hamel's Amusement Part, Shreveport, La, south of I20.

I jumped with Bubba, and Steve Fuller, and a bunch of the LTU peoples. One day, Phil Smith, a fellow from West Monroe, and previously from Rayville, showed up on the Tech Farm with a really fat backpack. He did a hop 'n pop, and it was a big, fat, SLOW Thunderbow. We just gawked, thinking that this was the future. Ram airs had only been around a short while, at least on Tech Farm.. and Starlite and PC were considered state-of-the art. Hoyt Belamy jumped a PC in those days. When I was a kid, I lived across from the elementary school ground. There was a circle drive in front of the school, large enough to fly u-control planes. One day, two guy were out there, and I hear this whee-whow-whee-whow.. so I went running to see them flying their plane. The plane was a large Black Widow. Phil Smith was flying it. On the perimeter of the drive was a bunch of trees, which we now know don't mix with anything that flies, other than birds. Phil's Black Widow got away from him... I think he dropped the handle. The plane headed for the trees, wound down the control lines, and impacted the trunk, shattering the plane into a million bits of balsa. So that was the first time I met Phil. After he graduated high school, he joined the Navy, as I recall. One day I saw him around town, and he told me about the Navy. The next time I saw Phil, he was driving a Red Man pest control truck, and that was his line of work. He married a stunningly beautiful woman, and they raised a son. The next time I saw Phil, he was on the DZ at Tech, maybe a couple of times. He invited some of us to his home in West Monroe to talk parachutes. His wife provided coffee, and some of us chatted. My dad saw him around Monroe, La a few times, and mentioned he had asked about me, I living in Dallas by then. The next time I heard about Phil, my understanding was that he had passed on... I knew not from what, and was never able to verify the info. Anyway, Phil was a really decent parachutist, unlike the most of us... very sober, very careful, unlike .... uh... some of us. Phil, if you're no long around, blue skies to you.

BENZENE!

To this day, I still own Toad's black and white double Ellipse jumpsuit. I think that wonderhog rc may have been thrown by Gary Gray, at the winter Cottonbelt Parachute Council (very small) council meet. Dirty Bruce and about 4-5 of the Ruston, La (north Louisiana) group was there, it was about 30 degrees on the ground, and a 7500 ff just about killed the fingers.. just miserable... one jump is all anyone wanted. I still have my CPC patch. kd

Bunch of us returning from a weekend in Mississippi or somewhere, maybe Alabama. Dirty Bruce's D18 123J. We get near RT's strip, so a bunch of us gear up in the plane and out at about 12k to FF then land on RT's dirt strip. Well, boned. I feel my left leg strap zip out of the buckle (feed thru type), as I'd not gone through the 2nd slot, just through 1st then velcro'd. Everyone is closing on me at about 10k, geeking and smiling, until I see Charlie's eyes are about 6" in diameter, through his Kroops, so I look over my left shoulder to see the trailing leg strap, flapping in the breeze behind me... Then I quickly wonder if I'd done it on both leg straps. So I wave off, back out, throw my pilot chute and instantly cross my heart grabbing both front lift webs, TIGHTLY. Blammo, open. My right leg strap, thankfully, was properly set, but because of the dis-balance in the front webs, my right knee is right in front of my face, my left leg just kinda hanging out there. My pubic hairs, every single one of them, is also being ripped by the good leg strap ring... So I just quietly sat in the uneven rocking chair til I got to about 1k, then unstowed brakes and took it in real, real slow. Got on ground, everyone running over to either slap me, hug me, box my ears, jostle, or shove... all of it. Last time I didn't check my leg strap slip-thrus. hot damn.

Marcus Gagnard (pronounced Ga-yun), did the into the mud streamer thing. He also had another angle on his shoulder day... up at Bastrop one fine Saturday, we jumping... He lands, and as soon as the tension came off his risers, one of the French links, which had the barrel unscrewed for some unknown reason, and the gap open wide, since it had been stretched more open by opening shock, just dropped off his riser. It was just barely hooking the riser, and the rough screw thread end of the link had him hanging by a prayer.

Ha ha.. that's funny. I had one sink into the Red River.. doing a demo for Bell's Amusement Park... Had a green smoke on my right ankle... bad hard opening, broke several suspension lines. The hard opening ripped the smoke velcro off my ankle, and the smoke looked like Wily Coyote spinning into the crevasse. Cut away the spinning, snarled Cobra and popped Preserve III. The Cobra dead centered the Red and sank, I presume, like a rock. I landed on the west bank and walked out to the more clear brushy area. Goodbye to bad trash.. More funny.. I wrote Elek Puskas a nastygram explaining how the canopy lines snapped, the junkheap was cut away, and how it dead centered the Red. BTW, this was my custom Double Rainbow Cobra 10. Elek offered me a NEW COBRA at 1/2 price, but only in blue with white alternating. No thanks, Elek. I did get a custom Cloud Lite, though, in double rainbow, silver top. Last jump for me was Perris about 2 years ago. No DZ anywhere near here, now. Anybody seen Scott (Fornification) (Formic Acid) Formby? Blue Skies. k