SunbumPaul

Somehow, the settings were changed to "Friends only". It has now been changed back to "Everyone". I hope that works. If not, let me know, again.

The photos should be available to everyone. I'll check the Face Book settings, again. I have trouble using Face Book at time, too. Thanks for letting me know. Paul

PS. Crusty was able to get to the photos and make comments. Hmmmm. Still, I'll check the settings.

Try this link, to go directly to my page, where you will be able to find Frenchy's Albums, along with my photo albums. I hope this works.

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/profile.php?id=1316702265

Frenchy's photos from his Z-Hill's years, can be found on my Face Book page. His photos are of many people that passed through the Z-Hill's dropzone, from 1976 until he left.
Paul Juel

HI Fred and Steve,
Paul Juel here. I bought and jumped a red PC, used, from Kevin O'Neil. I'm thinking of flying over to see you during your meet in July. Your meets in the early 70's were great. Miss them. Hope to see you then. Paul

I weighed 140 pounds at the time, so standup landings were easy. At that time, a small rig was more important as was the freefall. The canopy was just to get you to the ground so you could make another freefall.
I remember the jumpers, that winter of '75 at the Gulch, didn't like to have square canopies on the load. Way too dangerous. Pretty funny now, looking back.
I remember one opening on the 26' Navy conical, where the front right lines were tangled a little and shortened, causing the canopy front skirt to fold under and reopen. I thought I might be able to land it without getting hurt but looking for a rush, decided that this was a good enough excuse to cut away. Unlike the main canopy with four risers, the 26'navy reserve was on two risers and that made steering more difficult. I had to grab groups of lines to steer the canopy. It was unmodified, but I think it had a Four-line release.
I made a few hundred jumps on the canopy. It did the job. It was stable. It was small. It was cheap. It was strong. I continued flying it even when it was full of holes from lines burns. I might have gotten more forward speed if the holes hadn't been in the front.

In 1975, before heading to Casa Grande for the winter, I purchased a SST piggyback container. It was beautiful compared to my military surplus equipment. Unfortunately, my Paracommander would not fit in the small container. I bought two 26' Navy Conical reserves for $25 each, that fit easily into the containers. I used a diaper deployment and rigged the back four lines to release on rings(Four line release). To steer the canopies, I used opposite front risers to steer and used the rear risers to flare.
Standups were not a problem, when I wasn't backing up too fast. The turns were a little slow. I crossed a highway and a power line at Casa Grande, before doing a hook turn. It would have been impressive, if I hadn't grabbed the wrong front riser, turned downwind with no time left to correct.
I jumped these canopies at the big Turkey meet in Z-Hills in 1976. The organizers reported the number of reserve rides taken during the meet. I was not the only jumper jumping a reserve as main, so their report was probably inaccurate.
I finally bought a Strato Star, while in Z-Hills and didn't have to walk out of the swamps as often.
Those were fun times. Paul Juel

HI Jack,
I received a letter from Frenchy (Robert Rouvreau) on June 15th. His address is
Suite 18 Dr Whillans Manor Box 189 Crossfield, A.B. T0M 0S0 Canada
It is difficult to read Frenchy's handwriting and hope the address is correct.
Frenchy isn't feeling very strong at the moment. I bet he'd be entertained if people would write to him. I'm sure he must miss Florida and the jumpers.
Later Paul