EricGleason

Wally, thanks for posting! I just talked to Mom and she doesn't remember what happened to Jim Murray. My dad stopped flying in '81 and she thinks that Murray wasn't active around Chicago by then and may have moved west. She also said he was quite a character (this is putting it very mildly) and made some "special" cheesecakes for the Freak Brothers conventions. And yes, Mom did do the concession from that school bus. I have just a couple of vivid memories of that, one of which was being told to keep my 3 year old nose away from the fryers. I think I posted this before elsewhere in other threads, but my dad's years flying skydivers were by far the favorite years of his life. My folks were broke but still able to have more than their share of adventures thanks to their friends in aviation and skydiving. God bless him, my dad moved us to the 'burbs so my brother and I could go to better schools, and that's when he stopped flying to be a good suburban dad. One of my treasured possessions is this black and white photo of my dad and I on top of that school bus when I was two or three.

Someone asked privately what DZ I referred to, thinking that it was a Chicago-area one. I've moved to upstate New York now and was referring to one local to me now, not any of the Chicago area DZs.

My apologies if my post made you think I was a troll. I'm an absolute newbie to this sport and really am curious. Like I said in another post, I spent a lot of time at the Hinckley DZ as a young kid, but after my dad stopped flying we drifted away from that scene. So all of my direct exposure to the sport is clouded by virtue of being 25 year old childhood memories. A while back I got to thinking more about aviation safety and made a decision that I am not going to die in an airplane I'm flying. Just ain't gonna happen. I don't fly conservatively or sometimes even with a large margin of error, but unless I am 100% positive of the ability of my equipment and my self to complete a flight or manuever, I don't do it. And I train a lot. I'm kind of wondering if one can become proficient enough at skydiving to make that same sort of decision. Browsing through the Fatalities forum, it does seem that most accidents are caused by a bad decision (or string of them). There are a couple of incidents I noticed where one person's mistakes caused the injury or death of an innocent and unsuspecting victim who was probably doing everything right (Roger Nelson's fatal accident comes to mind), though one could argue that if you're not 100% confident in the ability of those you're jumping with not to kill you, you probably shouldn't jump with them. It's the same reason why I choose not to fly with certain pilots, or ocassionally even in the same vicinity as other pilots. It's also the reason why I've ruled out a local DZ, even though the owner and I have many mutual acquaintances (going all the way back to my parents' days at Hinckley) and I'm sure he'd give me a good deal. One look around the training facility and equipment made it pretty clear to me that they are not interested in good training and safety. The airplanes even seemed to be in poor shape for jump planes. There is no doubt in my mind that the likelihood of an accident is much higher there than at other places, and to avoid being the victim of it I"m going elsewhere.

I'm curious to know if most accidents in skydiving happen because of "pilot error" the way they do in aviation. This is on my mind tonight since I just completed a safety seminar focusing on some crashes, and we were reminded that almost every crash was because of a pilot overestimating their skill, hot-dogging and screwing up, poor decision-making, or something along those lines. It almost never happens that a plane crashes because of something hidden that the pilot shouldn't have known about (at least in General Aviation). Is it the same way in skydiving? The inherent risks are obvious, but it seems that so much is done to prevent accidents that there are few causes of accidents that can't be controlled.

That's him. And at least in this one he was dressed somewhat normally. There are a couple of pictures of him when he was dressed wacky even for a skydiver :)

Do you have any sinus congestion? Typically when you have an ear on the ground that won't pop, it'll go back to feeling normal as you climb because the outside pressure will reduce to the pressure inside your ear. But unless something happens to clear out the blockage, you'll be right back in the same boat when you're on the ground. Did you try something as simple as Afrin to clear yourself out?

Do you know when he started flying the Breezy and where he kept it? There's an old picture of my dad sitting at the controls of one sometime in the last half of the 70s. I wonder if it was Bob's.

Browsing through some of the history on this sight prompted me to dig out my dad's old logbooks. There weren't a lot of interesting remarks, but there were a few that stuck out. (Pat Gleason, FB #505, btw.) His skydiving log book does have the honor of being signed "Freak Bro #2" on his first AFF. His third to last jump is entered upside down by NNFB #18 Jim Murray, with "LEARN TO RELAX 'PLEASE'!" also written upside down. Apparenly in 18 jumps Dad decided that he'd better stick to flying the jump plane. :) My favorite is from his pilot log book and was absolutely dead-pan: 8/12/79 Beech 18. Remarks "Freak Bros. Hole in rudder after 4th load. Installed new rudder and came home." No mention of how the hole got there and I remember him telling people that he didn't notice any change in the flying qualities and was ready for another load when he landed. Someone had to point out the problem and keep him from going again. I was a big kid and a couple of people said that I could have easily fit through the gaping hole that they saw. There's a much sadder entry from a week before at Hinckley: "Ann went in from 3.5. No Pull." I have a vague memory of someone named Ann around the DZ back then, but don't remember a last name or even a face.

Hey, Kevin. In the spring of '94 I was a freshman at IIT in downtown Chicago and we had a glider club going that flew at Hinckley. I'm not sure how we managed it, but we were able to fly for something like $15/flight, including the tow. One of my buddies had a car and we'd pile 4 of us into it and head out to Hinckley. We'd spend the day flying gliders and *always* hit the Dairy Joy on the way back. Imagine spending $50 to stay in the air most of the day and come back with a full belly. We thought we were living like kings. :) I've been checking out the Chicagoland Skydiving website and I'm impressed at the way things changed. Does it really have a snack bar in a building now? In about '77 my parents ran a snack bar out of an old broken down school bus. I think they sold hot dogs, fries, and lemonaid only. Enjoy that burger, brother!

Disregard previous. I found my parents' old logbooks and it looks like they didn't do anything at Hinckley until '76. And Mom says that she doesn't remember Dad ever wearing a black jump suit.

Hi, everyone. I've been looking for info on skydiving and this seems to be an excellent community, so I'm hoping to learn a lot here before I have an opportunity to spend some time at the DZ. A little about me: I actually grew up at Hinckley, IL. My parents both jumped there and my dad was a jump pilot for most of the late 70s. Lots of fond memories of my little brother and I waiting at the line of tires that marked the aircraft parking area for the prop to stop so we could race out to meet my dad at the jump plane and things like that. I also have some memories of the early Freakbrothers events. My parents were good friends of Jim & Louise Baron while we lived out there in Hinckley (about three blocks from the Dairy Joy, for those that know the lay of the land). The story is that I could execute a perfect PLF by the time I was 3 or 4, but I haven't practiced in 27 years. :) Since my family tree has tangled shroud lines in it, I've always had an interest in jumping, but put the time and money towards school and pilot licenses instead. Now I'm doing some research and am able to put together bits and pieces, but not all of it. Please forgive these newbie questions. Everything seems to have changed since the days when a Twin Beech was still a hot jump plane and I've forgotten most of what I used to know anyway. I've spent hours and hours searching and haven't found answers to these questions. I'm considering making my first jump soon and want to find out as much as I can before I go to the DZ. The more time I have to think about it, the more likely I am to make a good decision. So #1: How much (roughly) does it cost and how many jumps to get to the point where you can jump without an instructor? Is that the A license? Or can you go solo without an instructor with you? #2: Are these lessons like flying lessons where you're expected to learn something one day and come back for a new lesson another day, or do people typically make two or three jumps in a day to learn the lessons? #3: After you can go solo, how much do the flights and gear rental cost? #4: How much does a decent rig cost? #5: How do I tell if a DZ is a good one or not? I'm in Albany, NY and there seem to be about 4 options within driving distance: Duanesburg, Mohawk Valley, Blue Sky Ranch, and Heber. And lastly, thanks!

Digging up an old thread... I just joined the forum, my long-time interest in skydiving has finally motivated me to think more seriously about doing it, and I happened to find dropzone.com while looking for more info. I grew up at Hinckley in the later 70s. My dad jumped and was a pilot and my mom worked the manifests. Pat & Sandy Gleason. I doubt their names mean much to any but the oldest of the old timers anymore. My dad quit flying in 1980 or 81 and pretty soon after that they lost touch with everyone from the DZ. Anyway, I'm posting because that picture of the James Gang may not actually be a picture of the James Gang. The guy kneeling in the dark suit at the left end of the group looks an awful lot like my dad did in the early 70s, and in his 30-odd jumps I don't think he ever became skilled enough to be invited to participate in anything record-setting unless he was flying the plane. Of course, some of my earliest memories are of things like naked jumps under a full moon and being warned not to turn off the headlights in the car because that's how they were going to find the airport, so I suppose anything's possible :) Dad died a couple of years ago, but I'll forward this picture on to Mom and see if she can tell me anything. Some of those names mentioned earlier are names that I remember being good friends of my parents back then.