skyhpp

I've been lucky enough to jump the following military aircraft, courtesy of the South African Defence Force: Piston and Turbine Dakotas

Round about 1980 I met Dave Barr - a skydiver who had lost both legs in a landmine incident, and only started civilian skydiving after losing his legs! He jumped with prosthetics and quite rightly became quite a legend here in South Africa. Initially he used to jump with a super-size main canopy, landing mostly on his butt - later on he downsized and did many stand-up landings. His attitude was inspirational- he was hard as nails, and would not let anything deter him from achieving his ambitions. At a boogie one year one of his legs became detatched in free-fall, eventually landing in a suburb next to the dropzone. Noticing Dave's predicament, the jumpers at the boogie held an impromtu collection, and presented Dave with a sizeable donation towards a new artificial leg. Understandably he was very appreciative and touched by the gesture. Just then, one of the locals walked in with his false leg - they had found it in a garden, and put one and one together and brought it to the DZ. Dave's reaction was classic - he took the money that had been collected for him, put it on the bar counter, and declared "free beer for everyone!" He also used to ride a Harley - one day the bike fell over, trapping one of his legs underneath - Dave was cursing much better, trying to free himself when someone came to help him -the guy nearly fainted when Dave ripped the leg out from underneath the bike and threw it aside! Courage, determination, guts, and attitude - Dave Barr had it all!

1st 10 jumps- 28 ft. Military round (non steerable)- great canopy if you don't know anything else 1st Owned - A very 2nd hand 7 Cell "Viking Superlite" (7 jumps, 2 cut-aways,2 repair jobs one stand-up - retired it after that 2nd Owned - A 7 Cell Pursuit 230 - a Rolls Royce compared to the Viking! (Bought it after only 1 jump!)Prone to the occasional "banger" opening 3rd Owned - A radical downsize to a 9 Cell 190 Predator - all F111 - state of the art! Flat packing was the way to go and round reserves were the norm - the first guy to Pro-pack at our DZ drew a massive crowd - for the pack job and the opening!

I had a similar experience many years ago after opening in a track - 3 broken lines resulted. In a moment of madness, I decided to land the main! Thanks to the best PLF I ever did I "walked" away - I was very lucky! If the main has been opening normally on other jumps, I would guess that the cause of the hard opening is either due to body position (i.e. opening in a track) or a change in packing technique (unlikely if the same packer was involved throughout). Some canopies are prone to hard openings, so body position and packing technique have a huge influence. Talk to the packer, and maybe consider asking someone to jump with you and watch your body position during deployment. Cheers

In the mid 1980's a 100 person demo was organised for an airshow, using a Hercules C 130. Two passes of 50 from 10 000 ft was the plan

On my 1st 15 second delay I opened just above a cloud and then descended into it - thick white mist all round. I was under a round canopy, and remember vividly losing all sensation of movement - I could not tell which way I was drifting, and for all I knew, I could have been going up! It was very, very quiet, and that made it all the more surreal. Since then I have enjoyed a few freefalls through cloud, which are awesome - approaching the cloud at terminal, going into it and then rocketing out the bottom - the only thing that detracts from it is the fact that you cannot tell where other jumpers are, so you have to keep your wits about you.

This was not one of my jumps, but I wish it had been....I was in the stands at the 1995 rugby world cup final at Ellis Park - Johannesburg. The atmosphere in the stadium was electrifying as SA finally won 15-12 in extra time. It was a truly magnificent, nation building occasion, complete with Nelson Mandela arriving in a Springbok rugby jersey - it was awesome! Two minutes after the final whistle with a (very patriotic) crowd celebrating like you could not believe, a skydiver flies into the stadium, and 70 000 people ROAR him in as they see his banner reading..... "Congratulations South Africa" !! The timing was perfect as was the banner - probably the best reaction to a demo I have ever seen! (PS: The skydiver was Ricci Bucceri - just before taking off for the jump, he had to decide which of two banners he was going to put on - one said Congrats to New Zealand and the other to South Africa - with the score still at 12-12 during extra time, he eventually decided to go with the SA banner - luckily it turned out to be the correct decision!)

Back in the bad old days (early 80's) our club had a mandatory cutaway test as part of your student progression - typically it was on your first jump with a square (hop 'n pop) - fly it around a little, then do an intentional cut away and deploy your round reserve. We carried an additional front mount reserve as a backup. It was one of the best experiences I ever had - it was scary, but it really burnt the emergency procedures into your brain, and gave you confidence in your own abilities and in your equipment. Since square reserves have been around this particular test as been removed from the program, because of the potential hazards associated with a 2 reserves out scenario (square & round or square & square) - so before you attempt to go ahead with an intentional chop, ask your CI as to how you should go about it, bearing in mind the potential hazards associated with the second reserve.

I have used Hornet 170's almost exclusively for demos for +/- three years now - and our ground elevation here is 5000 ft AMSL. Great canopy - very solid and reliable, can be swooped very impressively or be brought in nice and slow into a tight landing area. Good flare on landing. I pro-pack them and have 99% smooth, on heading openings - occasional "banger" opening if you're not careful about pulling the slider forward and wrapping the tail tightly. Brilliant all round canopy!

Check this one out......

This is one mean smoke jumper - not only did he light 36 smoke canisters, he probably set himself alight in the process as well! I had a good laugh imagining this guy under his recently opened (and newly dyed) canopy, trying to fly and breathe his way through thick clouds of smoke! Would be great to find out how it all ended. Also - if he did carry it out safely, how were so many canisters attached so that they could burn without burning him? (36 smoke brackets???) I would guess that this was one of those "once is enough" kind of jumps!

Know Thy Gear - +/- 1983 A friend of mine on about 50 jumps (all on rounds) decided it was time to try out a more advanced canopy - the Para Commander - which he had heard a lot about. Got the rig, kitted up, and jumped - we see the PC deploy perfectly - then suddenly he cuts away and deploys his reserve!! When he got back we asked why he had cut away a perfectly good main - his reply was "When it opened all I could see was holes (modifications) everywhere - I figured something had to be wrong, so I chopped!!

IGNORANCE IS BLISS - 1974 All of 18 years old, fresh from school, and lining up for a challenge – to complete the military static line course at 1 Para Batallion, S A

A demo jump to remember.... We get to the airport for a demo only to find that the aircraft's throttle cable had broken - there we were with only 30 min. to jump time and no plane - stress levels were understandably high! We see a 206 land and decide to take a chance - we run up to the pilot, begging him to take us up in his plane (chances of success normally 0.1 %). To our surprise, this really cool looking pilot (shades and all) says "Sure, as long as you don't mind off-loading some cargo..." We couldn't say yes quickly enough, and helped him take the door off, then got completely spooked when we saw the cargo - two COFFINS!! (and they weren't empty!) With as much respect as possible, we took the coffins out and leaned the door gingerly against them (all this out in the grass next to the runway), and got in the plane - we were all scared shitless, sitting where there had been coffins only moments before - we felt really bad "disturbing the dead" in order to do the jump - it all seemed so wrong (just how far are you willing to go for your sport?) Needless to say, there was not one word during take-off - just thousand yard stares... As we got airborne, we REALLY got spooked when the most awful smell filled the plane - we were convinced that it was something left behind by the coffins, or the corpses.......now we were even more quiet - I will never forget the "what the hell are we doing" look on everyone's faces!! During all this, the pilot says not one word - just flies straight on, looking cool in his shades, calmly pocketing the cash for the flight... - this dude could just as well have been Dracula!! Finally got to the DZ and jumped - a split second after opening there was the loudest thunderclap and lightning strike I have ever heard - really close! There could only be one explanation - this was God deciding to smite the heathens that had disturbed the dead - my heart was in my mouth!! To our suprise we all survived the jump and landed safely - and within five minutes rain started pelting down - talk about fine timing!Turned out that the pilot had decided to land at our airport to wait out the storm that was on it's way. We rushed back to the airport to help the pilot re-load his "cargo" and put the door back on, but by the time we got there the coffins and door were gone and so was the plane - suddenly it all seemed like a dream!! Never found out who the pilot was and have never seen him again - crazy! We then discovered the reason for the smell in the plane - the airport was right next to a sewage farm!! In retrospect it is all so funny - while it was happening, it was impossible to maintain our cool skydiver images - of course the pilot had no such problem....

Hi - I bought a 230 sq. ft "Pursuit" in 1983, and also had an incredibly hard opening that resulted in three broken lines. (In defence of the manufacturers, it was a CRW canopy designed to open quickly) In a moment of sheer stupidity, I opted (foolishly) to try land the thing in the peas (where it was nice and soft), but with one side of the canopy semi-collapsing on me, my descent rate was rather fast. I ended up having to land short of the peas on a hard gravel road, and luckily pulled off my best PLF ever - got away with "only" a MASSIVE purple/blue bruise on my left thigh. The people on the ground said the opening sounded like a rifle shot, and when they saw me decide to land the canopy, they called the ambulance! There were several other line break incidents at the club at that time, with many canopies (including mine) having to be re-lined. The incidents were attributed to a bad batch of lines being used by some manufacturers at the time. Never had a problem after the re-line, but I learnt to pay great attention to rolling the nose when packing!