steve1

I was wondering which D.Z. is closest to Loma Linda Hospital near L.A. I have a bad postrate that needs radiation therapy for a couple months. I guess there's few side affects, so I plan to make some jumps. I guess I could always jump with a diaper, if I have to.

26 coni's were supposed to be a great reserve, back in the day. Most of us felt they were a lot better than the 24' round. I may be in the market for one, when I get back to jumping again. I've been grounded for a few years. I have an old P.C. that needs to be jumped. I'd like to find one, still in good shape, in a chest pack. I think I'd be scared to jump one that was 55 years old.

Some of my proudest moments were captured by Ray Cottingham and Mike McGowan. They might look like little ways in another's eye, but they were big doings in mine.

We called them jump meets in the early 70's. Later in the 70's the term was changed to boogies. Not sure how that came about. I've often wondered the same thing.

Thanks for the great story, Mike. I spent about six months at Bragg. My biggest regret is that I wasn't a sport jumper then. I made several army jumps at DZ Sicily in 1970. They had some big ass drop zones there. We'd usually jump C-130's but occaisionally a 119. I have fond memories of all that. It's amazing how you forget all the awful stuff. I was only in the Green Beret Parachute Club bar one time. That was one interesting place. I wish I could have met more of the old salts that frequented that place. Many were S.F. vets from Vietnam. It's been a long time since I've put a spit shine on a pair of Corcorans.....

Veteran's Day is Sunday....Dahh! Sorry about that.

Sorry for your loss! Brian sounded like a hell of a person. I wish I could have known him. Veteran's Day is Monday. I'll be thinking of Brian and all the other Vet's, who gave so much for their country.

This is a story about an old jumper who is one of my heroes in life, so I thought I'd put it here. Blaine almost died last fall. He was jumping into the Grizzly Stadium in Missoula, Montana. This is near Hellgate Canyon. The winds are unpredictable here. Blaine was the senior jumper on the load. He wasn't going to make the stadium without hitting a crowd of people. He turned off to try for a grassy area that was nearby. His canopy hit a tree, and he crashed into a cement wall, and a little girl. It was lights out from that point on. He broke his femur and like twenty other broken bones. He almost bled to death internally. They life flighted him to Seattle. He said he almost died on that flight. With his collapsed lungs, he was struggling to breath. It was months and months before he could walk again. Last week he walked into Grizzly Stadium. He stood on the fifty yard line, to a standing ovation. This was one year after his tragic landing. This stirred up a lot of memories in Blaine. He has more jumps into Grizzly stadium than anyone I know. This is the town he grew up in, and where he trained to jump forty some years ago. Blaine is a World Team Member several times over. The only Montana jumpers that I know of, that are on his level are B.J. Worth, and Hod Sanders. On a few world record jumps, in Thailand, Blaine would release some of his Dad's ashes as he was coming down. We were jumping with Blaine at Lost Prairie one time, when I noticed a scarr that ran most of the way down one of his legs. I asked about it. I guess it was from a broken femur, that he got blade running. I heard he broke his femur again, a couple years ago, mountain biking. Blaine started jumping in the early 70's in Missoula. I even helped train him. He was 16 years old. He went a long ways since then, but the nice thing about Blaine is that he isn't too good to jump with old friends. Blaine has a big heart! After the accident he visited the little girl he hit on landing. She was unhurt, but shook up about things. When he was home and able to walk, Blaine went to her classroom and gave her a skydiving T-shirt. I don't know of all of Blaine's accomplishments. I'll bet there is a long list. He works as an aero-space engineer. He used to be a professional water skier. Blaine doesn't know if he'll jump again. Coming that close to death changes one's perspective on things. I don't have a lot of heroes in life, but Blaine is one of them.

I was referring to flying in general. I've known a bunch of pilots who've bought the farm, just out flying for fun. A few of them were skydivers. I had a good friend killed just last Spring. They swooped a farm house and then went into a steep climb. The plane stalled and crashed in the back yard. My friend died in front of his wife and kids. The pilot broke his neck, back, and a bunch of other things. His pregnant wife was watching too. I could go on and on with stories like this. Flying in my mind is about as dangerous as jumping.

I was wondering which is more dangerous. Skydiving or flying. I've known more than a few skydivers that have been killed flying (prior to jumping or just out flying their own aircraft). I've talked to pilots who thought skydiving was flat out crazy. They didn't know how to reply, when I said that aviation (in my mind) was just about as dangerous. When I first started jumping, Jim Ledbettor was one of the most experienced skydivers in our club. One day they were going up to jump over Missoula. Out of the clouds came a low wing aircraft, that slammed into their Cessna. Everyone, except Jim, was killed. He steered his round parachute down, and landed in a football field, in a congested part of town. A couple years later he had a piece of gravel in his rip-cord housing. He was unable to pull. He openned up his reserve. It was full of holes. He was hurt pretty bad on landing. So, he kind of quit skydiving for a while. His wife talked him into it. I remember waking up one snowy morning. There was news of an airplane crash, on the radio. It was Jim. He finally ran out of luck. He was out flying his plane in bad weather. I hope you don't get sick of hearing this story again....I have a hard time forgetting it.

Pat, Thanks for sharing your memories with us. I'm sure enjoying your stories. There's a lot of history in your words. I visited with Jeff Jacuzzi, via e-mail, about a year back. He's alive and well. He survived Nam, the Gulch, and years of flying rescue helicopter. Many of my heroes are now gone. I'm glad he's still alive and doing well. Blue Skies and Black Death!

Now that sounds like a wild time. This may be a whole new discipline that nobody has ever thought up....

I enjoyed reading it. I didn't know that you were once a Texas Bull rider, who later earned his doctorate. Not to mention all those other things you've accomplished. I think you've seasoned well. Thanks for sharing!

Great thread! It made me realize that I need to get back in the air....

Remember those pilot chutes that had about two million jumps on them. Some of them didn't have much spring left. You'd pull, then wait and wait for the pilot chute to clear your burble......Hoping it didn't snag on a bungie that wouldn't stay hooked up. What we would have given for a modern day pilot chute, that will jump clear across the room when you pull the rip cord.

Steve: What was the lowest temp you guy's were jumping in the big sky country in the winter.? We were young and tough, in the 70's. We'd jump all winter, at Missoula. I don't remember anybody getting frost bit, but I'll bet that happened. On a couple jumps it was almost down to zero, Fahrenheit. That added up to quite a chill factor. My gosh, you guys have some scary stories. Maybe the true meaning of a death rig is one that someone went in on. Jumping a rig like that, would be "hard core" to say the least. I'll bet that gear would sell cheap!.... I'm not sure how long you'd want to wait, before asking to buy a rig like that..... I'll bet Airtwardo would know.

Sounds like the rig my Para-Plane is in, except the blast handle. I jump it and there is nothing wrong with it. I still don't like the way the Para-Plane packs. Too many straps and ropes strangling other things. The canopy once out of the bag isn't so bad. When para-planes first came out, I was in awe. Then I heard that Wally Benton broke his back on one down at Boise. I think he was doing a demo into a football game, and made a wild turn. I've only jumped one a couple times. The one in our club would malfunction about once every ten jumps. Maybe it was because it was being packed wrong. On landing we were afraid to flare it out early, so we usually dug up a bunch of dirt on landing the thing. Yep, para-planes were scary in my book.

All this talk about cape wells, got me thinking.... You young "Whipper Snappers" may not know what a death rig is.... In the early seventies a few brave souls jumped gear that scared your average jumper. Some of it was perfectly legal, but you had to be a "manly" man to jump it. We had a couple guys in our club who jumped rigs like that. I used to get scared just looking at them. I think both of those guys, are now both deceased. Jeez, I wonder why? There was no messing around with these guys. I think their motto in life, was "No guts, no glory"! In my mind's eye, a death rig, might have been a pig rig, with one shot cape wells. Complete with Jesus cord, and blast handle. Inside might have been a para-plane. A 24 foot-round-reserve might have topped off their back pack. I seem to remember a photo of of Airtwardo wearing a rig just like that.....Like I said, if you were really really good, you could survive jumping a death rig, on a regular basis.

The U.S. is not the only country who has well trained soldiers. Nor are we the only ones who could be nuked by Iran. Israel may have been behind this raid. Forty years ago I saw a lot of Israeli soldiers walking around Fort Bragg. Many were being trained by our Special Forces. I suspect a lot of that is going on now. I used to skydive with a guy who was in the Israeli Army for a while. They are hard core troops.

Plenty of exposed metal on those too, saw my 1st fatality about '76 with a belly-wart pilot-chute hung up in an activated shot & a half's...I went to R3's the next day. And to think that most of us, felt relatively safe, jumping that junk! "Ignorance is Bliss".

I wish I could have jumped with the Green Beret Parachute club in Bragg. We used to stop in for a beer once in while, at their bar. That was one interesting place, during the Vietnam era. I was airborne then, but that skydiving stuff, scared me. It's too bad all those clubs are going by the wayside...

You might call Hod Sanders at Sky Dive Montana, in Missoula. I think B.J. has an address in Whitefish. Maybe they can steer you in the right direction.

A fully loaded weapon, won't do you any good if you have an empty magazine between your ears. I can't recall who said that, but it makes sense.

There's probably many reasons for that.... Some schools do nothing but prepare for the test all year. They will skip any important fundamentals that kids need, if it's not on the test. Many schools cheat on this test. This cheating is encouraged by some administrators. Sure, they can fire you for that. But they can also fire you if your test scores are not high enough. Sometimes this cheating is not easily detected. It could be that these schools have a higher percentage of normal kids. This is a huge deciding factor in how well they learn. Kids who are well adjusted absorb knowledge like a sponge. It's easy to teach kids like that. On the contrary many troubled kids can not even concentrate in school. Many, many, of these kids have huge anger problems. They are disrupting the school environment. It's obvious that this news article is sleezy journalism. After all sensationalism sells more news papers. The media is trying to paint a picture of lazy, fat, worthless, teachers who are greedy as hell. If they can get people wound up and thinking emotionally, this will sell even more newspapers. Don't be so easily manipulated by the media!

And whose fault is that? Don't you think a student's home has a big influence on this? Have you ever tried to produce beautiful finished furniture out of wood that is filled with knots and rot. It's pretty damn tough. More people should try working as a teacher in todays overcrowded class rooms. You'd have a whole new perspective on the problem.....