SkydiveJack

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content

    1,007

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Feedback

    0%

Posts posted by SkydiveJack

  2. BREAKING NEWS- Hillary Clinton has joined the “Me Too” campaign. Her office just came out with a press release stating that Clinton was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump. She provided documentation proving that Trump screwed her against her wishes on November 8, 2016.

  4. I heard that Bob Sinclair passed away yesterday at a hospital in Lake Wales, Florida. Bob was an early pioneer of “Buddy Jumping” which developed into the AFF we have today. I saw him this summer in Michigan at the Midwest Freefall Reunion. He was one of the early heroes of our sport. RIP Bob!

  6. mjosparky

    ***What everyone else said. These were still out when I started jumping but I never saw one until now.

    Thank you!



    One of the old time jumpers told me this was still out there when you started. B|

    Sparky


    Wow!!! Where did you find a copy of my first jump etching?

    Thanks for posting! ;)

  10. charliemike

    Hey Jack
    Did you see what looks like a bracket riveted over the trim tab on the horiz stab? What do you think that is?



    Pretty clearly it is a lock for the right side elevator trim tab. But I don't have any clear idea why it is there.

  12. 377

    Quote

    I would think just to get close enough to getting hooked up under a cheapo is an accomplishment in itself! Very cool!



    Amazing. I have a hundred cheapo jumps and I can't imagine how you could get a 3 way round CRW formation with those canopies. Can't really call it a stack.

    377


    The funny thing was that it wasn't that hard. The three of us in the triplane photo had somewhere around three or four 2 Way CRW jumps with the cheapos. We got it on the first try. Of course we had a lot of other CRW jumps with squares.

    Like other canopies, the cheapos had forward and downward speed. To close up a large vertical differance the top jumper would pull a riser and dump air to get to the others level. Pulling both toggles closed up small differences. Once you had the right levels you made sure you did the turns very slowely. We docked like a stack and then climbed down the lines to make it into a bi or tri plane.

  13. Pat,

    I will PM you with what I can dig up. The two photos you see are the only two I have from this jump. We did some other stuff like a 4 stack with two cheaops on top & 2 squares on the bottom.

    I will see if I can get you in contact with the photographer and see if he can send you better quality shots. Truffer published the shot looking up at the Tri-plane on the cover of Skydiving shortly after we did this jump.

  14. oldwomanc6

    ***Pat,

    I don't know if anyone did CRW before Bobby & Beanpole.

    But I know it was possible!

    ;)



    :o

    Was that intentional? Looks scary to me!:ph34r:

    Yes Sandy, it was intentional. With full gutter gear. B4 harnesses, 28' rounds and chest mount reserves. We did it around 1979. Here's another shot of the jump.

    And yes, it was scary, in a fun sort of way!
    :o

  16. DarlaJones

    I have looked at quite a few patches on the internet. Dan Poynter, who you may know from his skydiving history book, also suggested missile recovery. Numerous people have looked for patches that matched this. Nothing has really come close. I personally think it is associated with the Corona Project because, that parachute image is seen on planes from El Centro way earlier than 1977. This fulton recovery system/HC-130 sounds close. I'll be looking into this closely.



    The Corona program was a Top Secret satellite reconnaissance activity that returned film capsules from space. I don't think a classified program like that would have people walking around with patches advertising what they were doing.

    The Fulton Recovery System recovered people and small containers from the ground to an aircraft in flight. It did not use parachutes in it's normal mode of operation. Hence I don't think a parachute that carries things from the air to the ground would be prominently featured on any patch those operators had.

    Your drawing shows an entire missile. I assume this is a police drawing from some witness. Normal missiles drop the engines and fuel tanks, i.e. most of their body when their job is done. The FireBee was a small jet aircraft, launched from a mother ship, that stayed together throughout the entire flight envelope and came down horizontally under it's parachute as depicted in your drawing. Although not top secret at the time the FireBee was not widely known to the general public at the time and even fewer people knew about it's recovery method. A two dimensional side view drawing of a FireBee on a patch could look somewhat like a missile to non-aviation savvy witness. I think your best bet is to research the manufacturer and units that operated the FireBee reconnaissance drones.

  17. I think Amazon is in the right ball park.

    For the time frame I am thinking about the FireBee drones that the US used in Vietnam. It could be a patch for the unit that fired them, or since the parachute is prominent, more likely the unit that recovered them.

    FireBee drones flew over North Vietnam taking photos. They then typically flew out to sea where they deployed a parachute and were recovered mid air by helicopters. Here is a 1971 video clip from Edwards AFB in California showing the return after a recovery.

    http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675067713_CH-53-Sea-Stallion_Mid-air-recovery_BQM-34-B-Firebee_helicopter-flies-off

  18. I stumbled across this video that by dumb luck. Hopefully everyone else hasn't seen it and I won't look too stupid for posting it as new! In the first 5 minutes it shows two guys jumping (actually being dropped) from the bomb bay of a Soviet Air Force Il-28. Stalin makes a couple of cameo appearances later so I'm guessing it was early 1950's.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlxzT5GdUrw&feature=player_embedded

    There is no information as to when or how high the jump was made from but you see the jumpers with extreme cold weather clothing and bailout oxygen. Does anyone have any knowledge about this jump. If not, does anyone know any Russian jumpers who they could send the link to for more info?

  19. I just had the British Airways ad pop up again. I can't find anyway to close it without closing out the whole tab.

    I'm sure you are working hard on it. Just wanted to pass this recent sighting on.

    Thanks!

  23. Tommy did have a Cypres on his rig but it was not turned on. He was jumping with a very low experienced jumper down in Panama.

    He is alleged to have quietly joked to another experienced jumper on the climb to altitude that he should have turned it on. The guy he was jumping with flew into him at high speed and knocked him out. Tommy apparently came to and pulled (don’t remember if it was main or reserve) just before impact.

    I personally believe that this accident removed any remaining resistance on the part of all experienced jumpers/old timers about the value of AAD’s on RW jumps. So in his death, Tommy has saved the lives of many, many of our friends.

    And love him or hate him, he was probably the best skydiver of his day.

  24. Quote

    Jim, I like and respect you very much. Why don’t we agree to disagree on this one, even though we seem to agree on parts of it!

    Quote


    Well.....ok, but only because it's YOUR turn to buy! ;)



    You're on! See you next year at the Acey and first round is on me.

    BTW, I just now saw the video Rhonda Lee linked to. The great man seems to have gone down hill a bit.

    I think I need to back off and just try to continue to respect his past while now better understanding the brashness of his recent comments.

  25. Yes Jim, I believe this was a major mark in aviation history.

    +20% greater altitude than Joe Kittinger. An unlike Joe, no drogue chute was used. According to official data and histories, Kittenger didn’t go supersonic. According to initial reports Felix went well beyond Mach 1.

    Felix did what had not been done before, by a major margin.

    If you call his jump a stunt then in essence you are calling every other world record in skydiving a stunt. Just because some wuffo doesn’t have cable TV doesn’t mean it’s not a major mark in aviation history. Just because it was sponsored by Red Bull and not NASA doesn’t mean it was just a stunt.

    We both apparently understand where Yeager is coming from. Big ego, self promoter, arrogant. Heck, we both have antidotes about him being an arrogant money grubbing person. But I don’t like the way he dismissed this great skydiving accomplishment just because it apparently might overshadow his reenactment of his day in the sun 65 years ago.

    The ultimate arrogance is when a great person refuses to acknowledge the greatness in others.

    Jim, I like and respect you very much. Why don’t we agree to disagree on this one, even though we seem to agree on parts of it!


    Quote

    ...who has just made a major mark in aviation history.

    Quote



    Common Jack...a major mark?

    Not to take anything away from Felix, he set records, what he did took skill & balls.

    But Yeager blazed the path to Space, as did Kittinger...

    Their aviation accomplishments are not only not on the same page, they're not even in the same book.

    Again all due respect to Red Bull & Felix, but let's be realistic. It was a publicity 'stunt', a marketing venture.

    They did what in essence had been done before.

    They used basically known equipment and proven procedure.

    Yes they 'may have' gained some additional information that may be of some use to the space program but was that their only intention...?

    Was / Is this information breaking new ground - uncharted territory type thing?? Remains to be seen at this point.

    Did they gather this information by possibly putting a human unnecessarily in harms way...I mean wouldn't a robot in todays technological setting have been able to do the same thing, maybe more?

    It was a stunt...pretty fuckin' amazing and ballsy one, but a stunt non the less.

    Know how ya tell it's not a 'major mark in aviation history'...Coverage, a wuffo without Discovery channel might only hear about it in a 20 second blurb on network news. ;)


    I'm not saying I agree with what Yeager said, just that I understand where he's coming from in some small way.

    I too had a 'scratch my head' moment with Chuck Yeager.
    He once made a few very nice remarks regarding a certain professional parachute team I'm a part of, during a conversation we were having at 'Acey'.

    ...I said can I quote you ~ he replied 'NOT without writing me a check' :D

    I come from a point of experience in which I can tip my hat to BOTH Chuck & Felix.

    That's the thing about 'Heroes', they're all human and have faults, just like the rest of us...if arrogance & self promotion are Yeager's only ones, Hell I'm good with that. ;)