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Its a DUMOD Liner, a Beech 18 conversion. Very rare. Has 3 vertical stabilizers, like a Connie. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Been jumping for over thirty years with no injuries. I look at the stats and see that hot shot landings gone wrong is the main cause of injuries and fatalities these days. What is really sobering is that many of the accidents involve highly experienced jumpers with canopy piloting skills far beyond my own. I figured if I consistently flew boring airliner type landing approaches, I could theoretically cut my injury risks by about 66%. Sure, its far less impressive and exciting than a hook turn landing, but so far no titanium has been attached to my bones by orthopedic surgeons. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

My guess is that my experience was caused by a combination of factors which included surface area of the back of my hand (large) and the angle of attack of my hand (palm perpendicular to the relative wind). I too was very surprised that the error could be so large, but believe me it was there and repeatable on three jumps. If I had been wearing only my Digitude and kept my palm perpendicular to the relative wind, I would have been pulling at an indicated 2.5K and really been at 1.5K. I wonder how Cypres software deals with this kind of error? Surely there is a low pressure area on your back when you are belly flying. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

At WFFC Alti 2 sets up an altimeter test chamber and offers free testing of all altimeters, whether made by them or not. I Had my Altimaster 2 and Digitude checked and they were both within 100 ft accuracy at all altitudes below 6K. So I decide to wear both of them on the same arm and watch them together, Altimaster 2 on a wrist strap worn like a watch on my wrist and the Digitude worn with a wrist strap and a rubber ring over a couple of fingers to keep it in place, riding on the back of my hand. So here I am going through 3.5 on the Altimaster but the Digitude says 4.5. No time for more in flight testing on this jump but on the next one it's consistent , the Digitude reads almost exactly 1000 ft higher than the Altimaster. Under open canopy they agree and on the ground they are both zero. I figure maybe the Digitude has a rate response problem and cannot respond fast enough to freefall altitude changes, so I take em both back to the Alti 2 booth and ask them to put them both in the chamber and take em down from 15K at about freefall rate. They agree perfectly in the chamber. I am baffled. On the next jump same thing, Digitude is 1K higher but I try rotating my hand so the Digitude is not riding on the back of my hand parallel to the ground. BINGO, the 1 K difference disappears immediately and the two altimeters agree in freefall. Apparently a low pressure area was created on the back of my hand that caused the Digitude to accurately report pressure, but not altitude. 1 K can make a BIG difference at opening time so I thought I'd post this. I never would have known had I not worn two altimeters on the same arm. I thought passing a chamber accuracy check assured accurate altitude readings... WRONG!!!!!

Rod's ride along airshow stunt routine is the best... and then you get to jump too! Its so wild that you keep wondering why the insurance companies, FAA, and all the other fun killers allow it to happen. There you are, blades pointed almost straight down, hanging from your seatbelt and those rotor tips are barely clearing the corn as Rod rolls into the next outrageous maneuver. I sure hope he comes back. It was a bargain even after he raised the prices. Those twin turbine helos cost a fortune to operate. Marcus must be needing a fix about now. Seemed like he was on almost every 412 ride. I am sure that big old Sikorsky S 58T is like methadone. Marcus wants the real stuff. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Man I wish I had seen that Connie low pass at Quincy. Several people who did see it have told me it was way beyond scary-awesome. Surely somebody must have a video. I spoke with someone at Save-a-Connie and he said that the pilot on that pass misjudged his height and did not realize how low he actually was. Thank goodness he didnt decide to take it down just a bit lower. Low passes are probably not worth the risk. At Livermore CA back in the 60s a guy buzzing the DZ hit the windsock pole and crashed killing his passenger. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Check out www.douglasdc3.com. Awesome website just about DC 3s. Currently has a picture of the Rantoul DC 3 jumpship on the home page. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Dan Bergman usually makes one or two PC jumps a year at Lodi or Byron and offers to let others jump it after getting a briefing. As far as I can recall only one or two jumpers have accepted the offer. I have been to 4 WFFC events at Quincy and Rantoul. There are always a few PC jumps at those events and they get a lot of puzzled looks ("what IS that canopy?). I jumped a PC in the 70s and it seemed like heaven after those brutal surplus round landings. People were selling low jump PCs for almost nothing once the squares really got going in the market and that let me buy one. I never got a standup until I jumped a PC. PLFs were mandatory under the porous third hand surplus rounds that I could afford back then. Now that I can afford good gear I wonder what I was thinking jumping that surplus junk in the 60s and 70s. I could and probably should have grounded myself for a year and bought better gear with the jump money saved. I was stupid and lucky, a winning combination. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

WFFC had a beautiful DC 3 at Rantoul last year, N26MA if I recall correctly. It was a real 1939 airliner DC 3 not a C 47. Had Wright engines. Owned and flown by Skip Evans, used to fly at Elsinore. Didn't get too many loads which probably means it won't come back. Today's jumpers just want fast lift, not a nostalgic half hour journey to jump altitude. I made almost every DC 3 load. LOVE that plane! 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

L&B is flat out awesome. I have owned every audible product that they have made and they all were great. I had a Pro Track go goofy waaaay out of warranty and they gave me a new one. I wish every company treated their custmers this well. I'd buy their products just out of loyalty, but they also happen to make the best audibles so its no compromise between service and product quality. I have a feeling that the ProTrack could have been made into an AAD pretty easily, but they don't want to step on AirTecs toes. They even treat their competitors well. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Cheap doesnt always mean unsafe. When I got back into jumping 5 years ago the DZ would not let me jump my old round chutes. I went on eBay and found a Vector, Raven 2 and Fury 220 for $300. It was definitely older gear but it worked just fine. Of course I had a rigger thoroughly inspect everything and at his suggestion added an RSL. When I was sure I was back in skydiving to stay, I bought better gear. Deals like this still are out there. I found a guy selling a ratty looking but safe Vector and a 0 jump square reserve (North American) along with a big Laser main that looked brand new for $350, with no takers. The canopies were too unfamilar to most and the appearance of the container was bad (not worn out, just filthy). Some of these ratty looking containers come out looking 100% better when you just wash them carefully. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I have bought several skydive gear items from Total Control in Australia and zero problems. A bit closer to NZ than US dealers and good prices too. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

L&B has the best customer service of any company I have EVER seen. It has to be experienced to be believed. Even if you screw up they make it right. Althoug there is no written lifetime warranty, they certainly support a product waaaaaay beyond warranty expiration. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

I have a large head and couldnt fit into the largest Oxygen helmet. Who makes an xxxl full face? 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

How about two classes of citizenship? You can choose one or the other. One has normal rights to sue and the other has iron clad waivers to accept a system like workers comp where you get compensated for injuries due to negligence, but you dont get a jury trial or millions of dollars for minor injuries. Then allow pricing differentials for the two classes to be legal. Let those who run up the liablility exposure costs pay the premium prices. On things like planes and cars the no sue provision would go on the original title and be binding on subsequent purchasers. Just an idea. Suits are OK, but if you are going to waive your right to sue you should get a waaaaay better price. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

You think Cypres lithium batts are expensive? I once worked for a company making implantable heart defibrillators and our cost for custom lithium batts no larger than the Cypres batt was around $800.00 each! It isnt cheap to get custom lithium batts unless they incorporate standard sized cells. Don't know whats inside the Cypres batt pack. A competitor just used Panasonic lithium camera batteries repackaged at a huge cost savings. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

The Super Lite is really an ingenious design. It's light, very stable when fastened down, and has a very clever cutaway system so you can jettison your camera helmet if you need to. The bad thing is that it offers little head protection. It isnt really a helmet, just a head mounted camera platform. When rigging a camera, be sure that you are not defeating the cutaway system by having a bite switch or other accessory that will not easily disconnect when the Super Lite is cut away. I had a camera switch that went into the camera through a right angle plug into a jack on the camera. It would not come loose easily in a cutaway of the Super Lite. I rigged an inline barrel mini jack connector (from Radio Shack) that would pull out easily if the Super Lite were cut away. Problem solved. You would have a hard time making the Super Lite for the retail price they ask for it. It is a very good value. Just don't count on it to protect your noggin. It isnt really a helmet.

GPSs are so cheap now. Saw one for under $70 today. Why not just have one attached to the plane interior near the door reading out groundspeed? Groundspeed tells you how much time to give the previous jumper before you exit. Sooner or later jumpers would get used to using groundspeed numbers to time exits. Some jump pilots are really aware and will caution the jumpers about really low groundspeed and the need for long delays between exits, but they seem to be the exception. A pilot at Monterey once advised 30 sec between exits and he was right. The headwinds were screaming and the Otter was almost standing still relative to the ground on jump run. Many of the jumpers ignored his advice and they ended up in an almost vertical stack even after 10 seconds of exit delay. Forget 45 degree visual angles and intuition, its all about groundspeed. GPS measures it accurately and cheaply. It will even give you CMG, course made good, which is often very different from the aircraft heading. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Voltage, especially open circuit (no load) voltage does not necessarily indicate the ability of the battery to reliably deliver high current. It takes some power to ignite the cutter cartridge, I'd guess a lot more power (and certainly more instantaneous current) than it takes just to run the processor in the Cypres. These lithium batteries are not recharged. They only have so many amp hours to deliver and that capacity is reduced every time you run your Cypres. Why spend a grand for an AAD then risk malfunction by skimping on a battery replacement? 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

The Pro Dytter is a great audible, loud accurate and easy to use. The clip will NOT hold it on your helmet reliably, so use gaffers tape ot tie wraps. If ANYTHING ever goes wrong, even out of warranty, L&B will likely fix it free. They have redefined customer service and taken it to a new level. L&B's customer service is the best I have ever seen in any industry for any product.

The Gath helmet was designed for surfing, not skydiving. It is cheap, good looking, but not very strong or durable. It has very little frontal protection and leaves your forhead almost competely exposed. It is a lot better than no helmet, but not nearly as good as most any made-for- skydiving helmet. I don't think a Gath will absorb much energy in a collision as there is no crushable foam, just some thin resilient padding. Still, its a lot better than no helmet. I use my Gath for surfing and bought an INVERTIGO for skydiving.

The Digitude is a very good altimeter. It is accurate, rugged and easy to read. The mfr supports older units and offers very reasonbly priced upgrades, a BIG plus in my book. My only gripe is that you can't rely on its LCD battery indicator. If you do you may end up with a dead altimeter on a jump. No big deal, just put in a new battery when you see even the slightest decrease in indicated battery strength on the LCD. It does not eat bateries fast if you turn it off btwn jumps. The upgrade from the incandescent light to the glow panel is worth doing if you do night jumps and have the old style. The extra digit upgrade for reading out in tens of feet rather than hundreds is probably not worth doing, just not that useful.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=36065&item=2224997338 Anyone remember this system? Flying C 130 snatches a guy from the ground by snagging a balloon, guy is winched into Herc. Was it ever used operationally? 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

You know Marcus has really made it hard for anyone to ever patent anything like this and that might be good or bad, depending on how you see it. He has made a public disclosure of a number of possibly patentable inventions and unless he applies for a patent within a year, it's likely to be public domain. Sure, its a spoof, and some of the ideas are 100%whacko, but there are a couple of very clever ideas here. Full page color ad with convincing graphics, for fun only... Hats off to the master skydive media jester, Marcus Antebi. 2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

Is this system for real or a hoax? Wireless controlled cutters for main 3 ring loops, a wristwatch that can command a cutaway or a reserve activation, gyro sensors to determine angle of attack etc etc etc. Someone spent a lot on a full pg color ad.