DrEco

From: DrEcon aka DrEco aka Richard Economy D115 The ultimate altitude safety device: Your eyeballs and a visual knowledge of the dropzone and its surrounding. . If you are familiar with the DZ and its surrounding area and you look or glance at the ground during freefall relative work you will never cream in. When you are at about 1500 feet or lower, ground rush and horizon wrap will get your attention every time. Horizon wrap is when the horizon appears to be swallowing you up, i.e., when you are no longer feel remote from the earth. Under a 1000 feet if you glance at the horizon and or ground, you have to be blind not to know that you have a problem and you just pull your reserve chute because it opens much faster. A method I used in my early jump career was to drive down a highway where the speed limit is 60 to 65 mph where you are closing with on coming cars at between 120 to 130 mph (freefall speed). You look at the cars and their windshield and judge their size and rate of change of size. Start counting when you think that the cars are 2000 feet away. If you reach a count of 10-12 seconds, the cars were about 2000 feet away when you started to count. Then do the same thing when you think the cars are about 1000 feet away. Repeat this process for building that about the size of those near the DZ when you think they are about a 1000 feet away. Now when you are skydiving at a DZ you look for any building, cars, or the pickup wagon in the vicinity of the DZ just before and just after you open your chute at 2000 feet and judge their size and their rate of change of size. You have now calibrated your eyeballs/brain to the opening altitude for that DZ. After about 60 or so jumps I never used an altimeter or stopwatch. I just looked at the ground and or the horizon. Of course when you are doing relative work with a bunch of jumpers and they have all pulled it is a good time to pull your own ripcord.

Posted as requested by Pat. Richard Economy DrEco aka: DrEcon aka: D115 Email: [email protected] 1. How I got started: Moe came back from California in 1959 with a couple of Air Force surplus parachutes and talked me in to making some jumps. At Casterville airport all the instructions Moe gave me were "Crall out and stand on the wheel. When your over the DZ leave the plane, count to 3, then pull the ripcord and put you feet together when you land". First Jump: Jump count 3 and pull with an unmodified chute with no sleve April 1960 at Casterville, Texas. Third Jump: 12 second delay freefall from 3500 ft from J3 Cub with out a sleeve deployed chute. (very hard opening, I had harness bruises on my shoulder and chest.). Fourth Jump:15 second delay freefall from 4000 feet from J3 Cub. Used a deployment sleeve for the first time (much smaller opening shock). Jump Number 5. An 18-second delay free fall. Tried a baton pass. Jump Number 7: A 20-second delay from about 5000 feet from a Piper Tri-Pacer at Mitchell Field. Mitchell Field was next to Mitchell Lake (a sewage disposal lake for San Antonio). I wanted to take the right side door off the plane but Moe told the pilot no, no, don’t bother taking the door off. This made it very difficult for me to look straight down to spot when I was over the target. Also trying to open the door against a 60-mph air stream made leaving the plane difficult and time consuming. Buy the time I left the plane, I was over the middle of Mitchell Lake. From 5000 feet my position did not look too bad. However once I open my chute at about 2000 feet and started looking around, I saw I had a problem. I landed in the middle of Mitchell Lake with my parachute harness, boots and overalls on and of course the canopy had to come down right on top of me. I did not have any flotation gear with me and the lake was about 8 feet deep. I got the canopy off my head but I was all tangled up in the canopy and the lines. With the parachute wrapped around me, and my harness, my boots and my overalls on, swimming was all but impossible. I was staying afloat OK but my arms were getting tired. So I would take a breath sink down and stand on the bottom for a while to rest and try to get my parachute harness off, then come back up. I did this for about 6-7 minutes until two guys got a rowboat and came out to pick me up. As they started to pulled me out of the water, Moe was on the bank yelling: "Get the parachute, get the parachute, be careful with the parachute, don’t tear the parachute." He never once asked if I was OK. But that was Moe and that is what I liked about him. When they got me to the bank, they pull me out of the boat and sat me down. I was sitting there, exhausted, spitting out sewer water, when Moe comes over to me. His first endearing words were: "You have ruined my parachute, you have ruined my parachute." Jump Number 8: My first night jump. A 20 second free fall. I spotted for myself for my first 10 jumps. I was on a 1960's accelerated free fall schedule.

Rubber Chicken vs. Real Chicken freefall pass. Circa 1963 at the old Lancaster, Calif. DZ, there were some live chickens running around the Lancaster packing area. Ed Fromberg and Walt Scherer got the idea of making a chicken pass. Walt left the plane with the chicken and passed it on to Ed. After Ed open his chute he let go of the chicken thinking it would spread it wings and fly safely to the ground. Instead the chicken went into a full delta with its wings tightly tucked in and hit the ground at the maximum chicken freefall velocity. After contact with the ground the chicken was still alive but dazed and was staggering around like a drunk sailor while a while and then fell over dead. The chicken was later roasted but was imposible to eat because there were bone fragments spread through out the chicken's meat. DrEco aka DrEcon D-115, [email protected]

Jack: I found one of my old log books and there are the following Jack Cupp Signoffs for DrEco aka DrEcon D115 aka Richard Economy June 30 1962 @ Piru. Jack Cupp D84 Signature on 3 jumps Dec 30, 1962 @ Lancaster Jack Cupp D84 Signature on two Jumps. Also some Muriel Simbro D78 signoffs. Muriel Jean Simbro was the wife of Hank Simbro D-63 I still looking for my other log books. [email protected] & [email protected]

Jack: For most of my Skydiving posting see the post by BIGUN of my Skydiving History. BIGUN was good enough to post it all in one link. Richard Economy D-115 Re: [BIGUN] Skydiving History - by Dr. Eco

Jack: My full name is Richard Economy. My D number was 115. I was a Lt. then a Capt in the Air Force at Edwards in Calif. when I did my Calif jumping. Most of my Calif jumps were at Lancaster and Arvin. I also some jumped at Taft and Calif City were Bob Sinclair ran the DZ there. Because of my PhD in Physics from the Univ of Texas, I go by DrEco and DrEcon. I jumped a lot with Buquor at Arvin and was in Bob's Buquor photo of the First Six Man Star in the World Photo. I can'f find my log book but I beleave we jumped together at Lancaster and Arvin DZ's and maybe Taft DZ,s My Emails are: [email protected] and [email protected]. [email protected] is the one I use the most.

If a person is going to carry a handgun then they should select a gun that has sufficiency stopping power. In other words if you shoot someone in self-defense you want the person to stop attacking you. All handguns including a 22-caliber gun will kill someone. The problem is how long it takes the attacker to become disable and stop assaulting you. If you shoot someone attacking you with a knife and you shoot him in the body with a 22-caliber gun, they will most likely become disable after a while –10s of seconds to several minutes. During this interval the attacking gunman can do a lot of damage with his gun or knife. What you want in a hand gun is quick sure Attacker Stopping Power. The Book below as stated in the title is the Definitive Study on Handgun Stopping Power. I have a signed copy of their book thanking me for some data I contributed. Dr Eco aka DrEcon aka D115 Handgun Stopping Power: The Definitive Study Evan P. Marshall & Edwin J. Sanow Dramatic first-hand accounts of the results of handgun rounds fired into criminals by cops, storeowners, housewives, soldiers, cab drivers, and a host of others are the heart and soul of this long-awaited book by firearms experts Evan Marshall and Ed Sanow. Handgun Stopping Power: The Definitive Study presents their conclusions regarding which handgun bullets will and will not work effectively in a police-action or personal-defense shooting. The work has one goal: to provide accurate wound ballistics and ammunition information that police offices are civilians can use to survive lethal confrontations on the street. What sets Handgun Stopping Power apart from all other studies is the inclusion of results from actual shooting incidents. The use of this data has spurred much controversy in the firearms field - prompting questions of whether it was gathered and analyzed in a scientific fashion. Yet by combining case studies of actual shootings with scientifically controlled test firings into 10-percent ordnance gelatin, Marshall and Sanow have developed what may prove to be the definitive methodology for predicting the stopping power of any given handgun load. All other theories and formulas fade in comparison to this data what really happens when a bullet meets a man. Quote

I have had a Florida Concealed Weapon License for about 25 years. It is a great personal identifier. I was coming back from the Middle East about 20 years ago and had mispaced my pastport. At the New York Port of Entry, they were not going to let me into the USA until I showed them my Florida Concealed Weapon License. The Port Authorty Agent told me that the Florida Concealed Weapon License was the best ID I could have. It was better than a pastport because it required a FBI background investigation for the holder. DrEco D115

I have had a Florida Concealed Weapon License for about 25 years. It is a great personal identifier. I was coming back from the Middle East about 20 years ago and had mispaced my pastport. At the New York Port of Entry, they were not going to let me into the USA until I showed them my Florida Concealed Weapon License. The Port Authorty Agent told me that the Florida Concealed Weapon License was the best ID I could have. It was better than a pastport because it required a FBI background investigation for the holder. DrEco D115

If you are searching for comments from Richard Economy D115 under Skydiving History, they are under the follow names: Dr. Eco with a period and a space between Dr. and Eco DrEco no space and no space between Dr and Eco, Dr.Eco with a period between Dr and Eco

If you are searching for comments from Richard Economy D115 under Skydiving History, they are under the follow names: Dr. Eco with a period and a space between Dr. and Eco DrEco no space and no space between Dr and Eco, Dr.Eco with a period between Dr and Eco

Skydiving History- Dr. Eco- DrEco-Dr.Eco If you are searching for Richard Economy D115 replies and comments they are under the following names. 1) Dr.Eco, - a period but no space between Dr.and Eco 2) DrEco, - no space and no period between Dr and Eco 3) Dr. Eco - a space between Dr. and Eco Sorry for the confusion DrEco, aka Dr.Eco aka Dr. Eco D115

Skydiving History- Dr. Eco- DrEco-Dr.Eco If you are searching for Richard Economy D115 Replies and comments they are under the following names. 1) Dr.Eco, - a period but no space between Dr.and Eco 2) DrEco, - no space and no period between Dr and Eco 3) Dr. Eco - a space between Dr. and Eco Sorry for the confusion DrEco, aka Dr.Eco aka Dr. Eco D115

Golden Cargo Why should going to Army Airborne jump school and making some static line jumps qualify anyone for a Skydiving rating or License or to be a member of the Golden Knights?? An Army Airborne jumper can get his jump wings and yet have 1) never spotted for himself 2) never obtained terminal vertical freefall velocity, 3) never have had any control of his body while in freefall, 4) never pulled his own ripcord to open his own parachute, 5) never used a controllable chute for accuracy landings, etc, etc, etc,. I would not call a static line jump ‘skydiving’. An airborne static line jump is more like being cargo getting dumped out of an airplane. I have never made a static line jump and I hope I never have to. On my first jump I spotted for myself, counted to three, and then pull my own ripcord. For my first jump I used a 28-foot controllable canopy with a one panel cut out in the back of the chute for some forward speed and turn lines on both side of the blank panel for turn control. DrEco D-115

Golden Cargo Why should going to Army Airborne jump school and making some static line jumps qualify anyone for a Skydiving rating or License or to be a member of the Golden Knights?? An Army Airborne jumper can get his jump wings and yet have 1) never spotted for himself 2) never obtained terminal vertical freefall velocity, 3) never have had any control of his body while in freefall, 4) never pulled his own ripcord to open his own parachute, 5) never used a controllable chute for accuracy landings, etc, etc, etc,. I would not call a static line jump ‘skydiving’. An airborne static line jump is more like being cargo getting dumped out of an airplane. I have never made a static line jump and I hope I never have to. On my first jump I spotted for myself, counted to three, and then pull my own ripcord. For my first jump I used a 28-foot controllable canopy with a one panel cut out in the back of the chute for some forward speed and turn lines on both side of the blank panel for turn control. DrEco D-115 [email protected]

Relative work without contact was a requirement when jumping with a cameraman. Any contact with the cameraman would screw up his ability to compose and frame a photo shot. So both the cameraman and his jumper subject developed hovering abilities. If you wanted to be in the picture you learn to stay close but not make contact with the cameraman. It started there and then spread to doing the same thing with other jumpers. [email protected]

Dr. Eco can be reached at via Email at: [email protected] or phone 386 672 1811. Leave a message and I will return your call. DrEco

Does anyone remember when Jack Smith, the Lancaster DZ safety officer, creamed in. It was sometimes in the 1964 to 1966 time frame. Jack was jumping with a student. He was working with and looking at the student and when the student pulled too low Jack did not have enough altitude for his chute to open after he pulled. DrEco D-115 You can replay directly to me at [email protected]

Does anyone remember when Jack Smith, the Lancaster DZ safety officer, creamed in. It was sometimes in the 1964 to 1966 time frame. Jack was jumping with a student. He was working with and looking at the student and when the student pulled too low Jack did not have enough altitude for his chute to open after he pulled You can Email me directly at: [email protected]

Does anyone remember when Jack Smith, the Lancaster DZ safety officer, creamed in. It was sometimes in the 1964 to 1966 time frame. Jack was jumping with a student. He was working with and looking at the student and when the student pulled too low Jack did not have enough altitude for his chute to open after he pulled.

Great job on Parachutist archives. Now if some one would just do the same thing for the old SkyDiving magazines back issues 1960 to 1965. DrEco D115

Jerry: I read you posting again…There was never any question about me being a skydiver when I was in the Air Force When I first arrived at Edwards TDY from Rome NY. I had brought my parachutes with me. The next day I drove to Taft to do some skydiving. I had never jumped from a Twin Beach, which held 8 jumpers, before. On the fourth jump, we had all gotten together during freefall and when we opened we were all close to each other heading for the same target. About the time I was ready to land another chutist went right under me and sold my air. I landed hard and sprained both ankles. They loaded me in my car and I headed back to Edwards and checked myself in to the base hospital. Monday morning I phone my new boss, Major Joe Bulger, and told him what happened. I had just been transfered in from Rome NY to Edwards AFB for one of his high priority job and I was in the hospital. Major Bulger was very understanding and he brought me some material to read and get up to speed. Joe Bulger had flown F86’s in Korea and was credited with about 7 MIG kills yet he was impress that I was a skydiver. Col. Peterson (Col. Pete), Major Bulger’s boss, was the head of the Flight Test Directorate at Edwards. Col. Pete never had any problem with my jumping. Col. Pete had been a test pilot, had flown in WWII and had about 12 German Messersmitts kills to his name, and was interested in skydiving. He came to the Lancaster DZ several times to watch me jump. He wanted to make a freefall jump with me, but I talked him out of it. He was about 55 years old and was presently on flight status flying F104’s. He had made a jump 20 years before when he had been shot down over Europe. But that was 20 years ago and hurting an ankle jumping now could affect his flight status. Being the head of the Flight Test Directorate, policy was not the issue. He wrote the policies. Also test pilots were ejecting out of cripple planes all the time at Edwards. Jumping was just was not a wise thing for Col. Pete to do at that time.

[email protected] When I got to Edwards AFB in early 1962, my boss Major Bulger who knew I was a skydiver suggested that I contact Chief Master Sergeant Brownley who was the Head of the Air/Sea/Underwater Rescue enlisted men at Edwards. Brownley was also a Master Rigger and a Paramedic. We were both jumping fanatics and we got to be good friends. Sgt. Brownley would support all of the test flights at Edwards. He would be airborne in a C130 during the flight test phase. If the plane crashed or the pilot ejected, Browneley would be the first one to get to him. His job was to extinguish any cockpit fires and get the pilot out of the plane. If the pilot was in the water, Brownley would pull him into his inflatable rubber boat. If the plane was under water he would use his diving gear to get the pilot out of the cockpit and to the surface and then into the inflatable boat. Once in the boat he would administer the required aid, until other medics and doctors would arrive. I got to be good friends with Sgt. Brownley and he would take me to his storage area / loft and showed me his parachute stash. There must have been a couple hundred out of date, but never jumped, orange and white 28 foot canopies some with Capewell risers attached. And about 80 canopies were still in their never opened original container plus there were about 40 complete backpacks. Though in perfect condition and never used, they were being surpluses because they were out of date. AF policy dictated that they be destroyed or sold as surplus. I was like a kid in a candy store and I help myself to about 10 canopies. And about 4 backpacks with Capewell harnesses. I had a rigger cut 7 wide TU’s in about 5 of them and had two modified with a T in the back and 7 and 9 panel wide Double Derries slots. Brownley would go on Air/Sea/Underwater training exercisers off the California coast. He would rob the lobster traps by cherry picking the largest lobsters for the traps. Brownley would invite me over to his house for lobster dinner and serve a broiled lobster tail out of the shell that was about 15 inches long and about 6 inches in diameter. You would slice off a piece about an inch thick and with drawn butter it was yummy. Four people could not eat of one tail at one setting.. He would give me a couple of these jumbo lobster tails out of his freezer from time to time A Chief Master Sergeant had a good life at Edwards AFB.

To: Jim (Twardo) Congratulations on the "LibertyParachute" impressive WEB site. Your "Exhibitions" are complex and well choreographed. Exhibition jumping had come a long way from the early 60's when I did most all of my jumping. At first, jumping at some hick county fair with a different color smoke bomb on each foot and doing some spirals would excite the crowd. If you got fancy, two jumpers could do some crisscrossing with some smoke. When that got old, you could always get the crowds attention by opening at about 800 feet with a lot of scrapes of paper and the contents of a couple of a large jars of talcum powder packed in with your chute. Openings would look like you chute blew up. I did the paper - talcum powder thing at a fair in some nondescript hick town in East Texas back in 1961, and the crowd went wild. About a hundred people kept running under me when I was trying to land. It was like Lindbergh landing in Paris in the 1920s. I landed right in the middle of them and luckily I did not hurt anyone. But then they started trying to tear souvenir pieces off my canopy and run off with my ripcord and sleeve. I barely got out of there in one piece. Here to the Good Old Days when we were young and reckless, Dr. Richard Economy D115 [email protected]

Bob Sinclair shot the first part of the Rip Cord series. I belive his company was called ParaVentures. His partners name might have been Lee Hunt. I had about 10 jumps with Bob Sinclair when he ran the California City DZ. Bob Buquor was the camera man for the second part of the Rip Cord series. I had about 50 jumps with Bob Buquor at the Arvin DZ. With most of them, Bob was taking photos with his motorized 35 mm Nikon mounted on his helmet. I knew Bob from San Antonio, Texas before we both ended up in California. Bob had a low C license number C-150 but never got around to applying for his D license because he thought that C-150 would look better than a higher number D license (ahh, vanity). Bob was trying to make it in the movie business. He shot freefall sequences for part of the "Rip Cord" series and for several other movies. At this time, I was a 1st Lt. in the USAF at the Flight Research Center at Edward's AFB Calif. I did most of my California sport jumping at the Lancaster DZ which was close to Edwards AFB. However, Bob and I would get together at Arvin to jump. Bob shot the freefall photo's when we made the "First Six Man Star in the World” September 6, 1964, at Arvin, California." The photo of the Six Man Star was a centerfold of Skydiver Magazine. Bob Buguor was the cameraman for another Skydiver Magazine centerfold that showed the same group of jumpers leaving a Twin Beach. Bob drowned off Malibu Beach, California in 1966, while filming a movie sequence for a major studio. Bob was a good swimmer and would not have drowned if he would have dumped his helmet, with a large 35mm movie camera mounted on it, and the large heavy battery pack attached to his waist. But good jumpers never dropped ripcords handles or dump a large expensive camera, not when it belong to the movie studio, in the ocean. It ironic, the camera and battery pack were recovered in good shape along with Bob’s dead body. Dr Richard Economy D115 [email protected] See the Web link below: (http://www.scr-awards.com/bbmsc_the_beginning.html) The Bob Buquor Memorial Star Crest http://www.afn.org/skydive/rw/bbmsc/index-old.html The Bob Buquor Memorial Star Crest (BBMSC) is a perpetual memorial to commemorate the efforts of the late Robert H. Buquor who played a major role in the origin of star formation relative work. Bob Buquor initiated and photographed the majority of the star attempts at Arvin, California in the early 1960's and was successful in capturing the first 6-way star there on film on September 6, 1964. Bob drowned off Malibu Beach, California in 1966, while filming a dangerous movie sequence for a major studio. It is to his driving enthusiasm in this aspect of the sport that this membership is dedicated.