SkydiveJack

Well the FAA just revoked Luke and Andy's pilot licenses. It's ironic that as a member of the USPA Board of Directors Luke sits on the Executive Committee that handles business like waiver requests and disciplinary matters between Board meetings. He also sits on the Safety & Training Committee. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/faa-suspends-licenses-two-pilots-involved-failed-red-bull-stunt-rcna28506

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.

Carl Beck, who jumped in Normandy on D-Day ended up in Zephyrhills. He continued jumping until he passed away peacefully a while back, maybe 20 years ago. He was a hell of a person.

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!

The Denver Dopers over the Seattle Sensimilla's by three joints.

One of the old time jumpers told me this was still out there when you started. Sparky Wow!!! Where did you find a copy of my first jump etching? Thanks for posting!

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

I get the feeling that he is actually OFF his meds.

How sad. I knew her when she first started jumping. Truely a wonderful person. Blue Skies Eli!

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.

Mike Eakins and Dave Singer.

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.

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.

Was that intentional? Looks scary to me! 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!

Pat, I don't know if anyone did CRW before Bobby & Beanpole. But I know it was possible!

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.

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

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?

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!

I know you can't give out all your secrets of how you found it but I'm sure all of us would love to hear more of where it came from and who owned it. It's an amazing piece of the sports history and I'm sure it has a good story to go with it. Please?

4:20 PM Jamacian time mon.

Built in 1994. Let's see. Do I want to go up to 130,000 ft. and skydive in an 18 year old pressure suit?

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.

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.

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!