hardarch

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Posts posted by hardarch

  1. WGore

    The 60s and 70s for me. I have been around skydiving for almost 51 years as a jumper, rigger, and pilot. My 1st jump course might have been a half hour and my 1st jump was also my 1st airplane ride. I was hooked. In the Army I was president of the post parachute club because I had more jumps than anyone else but we had lots of enthusiastic students and we were family.
    After the Army the DZs I jumped at were also family and the coldest winter nasty day there would be 15 or 20 folks around to drink beer and tell lies. You got the DZ Friday night or Early Sat. and left Sun. night. Everyone pitched in for the sport and primadonnas were few and far between. When we won the 4 way nationals we worked with the students and RW students and passed are secrets on for NOTHING because we were all about the sport. The times and the people were good.
    Now days it is unusual for anybody to stay much past dark on Sat. night and many only jump 1 day a weekend. For me it was a lifestyle and while I never got rich doing it I wouldn't change a thing. I made a meager living but sure had a bunch of fun.



    Me too. My first jump was also my first airplane ride...and I never landed in an airplane the first year I was in the sport.

    I was curious...the Army airborne guys...how many jumps would one typically do in a year - courtesy the US Army and while in the airborne ..vs. what sport parachutists would do in that same time frame?

  2. akarunway

    ***Here's kind of a scary story - in a video...

    Two tandems going up and the plane looses power at 700 feet AGL...forced landing....at a NEARBY RC FLYING FIELD yet.
    Check out the vegetation caught in the landing gear.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyoAMuXIXXM

    Repost and it ain't OLD DAYS http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4704062;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread

    oops. Sorry. Not old days....
    But it IS an "Old" post...............LOL

  4. mccurley

    Love that film. I know, and jumped with a lot of the people in it.



    Bet you had your share of fun.
    I love watching those old "high performance" rounds coming in.

    (I see a lot of old "blast handles" on those reserves......)

  5. mccurley

    Another trip down memory lane.



    Their first jump/student training was a lot more involved than mine.
    But then again, mine was more involved than this one:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9g7sBVUFMs
    "O.K. now you'll be coming out here and you'll be doing a stable fall - face down -frog modified. Now out here comes the static line 'cause it goes like from this to here see, and then the pilot chute will open and it'll pull the bridle out and then the main canopy will be open see, 'cause they're all connected,
    and then you'll be down here and you'll be looking up here at the WDI indicator and you'll also going to check for Mae West and if that's not there then you need to check here for 4 panels and a hole.
    Then when you come down you're gonna find the piece and you're gonna land over here and you're going to get in this position - except you don't wanna do that - because that means you in trouble, so what you want to do is you wanna get right here and then you're gonna come round here and you're gonna fold up and you're gonna do a toggle and jettison and always watch the horizon O.K?.."

  7. From "down under"...nice 45 minute vid, covers the skydiving scene from static line first jumpers to an Aussie boogie with DC-3, RAAF chinook jumps, early canopy RW, some cutaways.
    Old style- Frap hats, Protec hockey helmets, belled jump suits and swooper goggles....
    And the yanks - USA "Mirror Image" 8 way team:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6j5GvXxpFg

    (I see Norman Kent in the credits for some aerial filming....)

  10. oldwomanc6

    Well, the consensus is: the '70s.

    I agree, although the early '80s were darn near as good. Before the sport changed from a "club based" pseudo barnstorming mentality to a big business one.



    Guess I was lucky then...did my first freefall back in '74 when when there was no such thing as "tandems"....

    And there was that new thing called a Strato Star that everyone longed for....

  13. Quote

    Some of the more 'interesting' concert experiences I had~

    I saw ELVIS on my birthday in '76!

    I worked security at concerts while in college, Jethro Tull came on and were SO BAD they were getting BOOed 20 minutes into the show...someone hit Ian Anderson with a Mad-Dog 2020 bottle and the band left the stage. The place was about to riot when the warm-up band came back on and ROCKED THE HOUSE for two more hours straight!
    ...the warm up band was a little known import from across the pond called U2 B|

    :ph34r:


    I can "almost" match that U-2 story.
    I saw U-2 back in 1983 in some dump of an old movie theatre in Washington DC..we were waiting in a line out in the freezing cold, and some rag ass dude tried to sell us some heroin - it was that kind of neighborhod.. U-2 were traveling in a bus and had just released their second album. They didn't have much material but they were great.

    Best:
    Bruce Springsteen at VA Tech Buruss Auditorium in 1975 . He had just made the cover of Time and Newsweek, and we were seeing him in something not much bigger than a high school auditorium. Neils Lofgren and his band happened to be in town that night playing a local cafe, and after the show Bruce jammed with him late into the night.

    Second best: Grace Potter and the Nocturnals on Brown's Island in Richmond last summer...for free!!!
    Gawd she can rock. And that lead guitar...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4bCnoqutHk

    Worst:
    I actually walked out of the Ramones...not because they were bad...but after the first three numbers...every song sounded the same.

  16. Those of you that were in the sport in the late seventies will remember Al Krueger.

    Viet Nam vet with a champion 8 way team : Captain Hook and the Sky Pirates.

    Guess you could say he not only jumpd but jumped well.
    Howard White had posted some slides of the old days, and I took the liberty of posting a link for one.
    ...and Now, .....you know the rest of the story.

    Perhaps some of you know what, and how he went about it.


    http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=85630;t=search_engine

    (Jerry Bird on the far left).