Zing

"I just want to know, if we, as jumpers, should be paying more attention to the CofG in KAs." The short answer to this question is a RESOUNDING YES! DiverDriver pretty much covered it, still, what too many skydivers, and some pilots too, fail to be convinced off is that the laws of physics, fluid dynamics and all that other technical random-babble theory of flight stuff will not be suspended at their convenience. King Airs are fun to fly, relatively cheap and plentiful, yet possibly one of the poorest choices as a jump plane around with that low slung horizontal stabilizer and the aircraft's sensitivity to aft CG loads. I've never stalled a King Air with jumpers outside, but I've flown plenty of them and I've been real close once or twice. Had a dickhead take a swing at me next to the swimming pool at Perris following a load when he and another big boy tandem master decided to sit behind the door and watch an 8-way exit. We did a bit of porpoising, but never fell off on a wing. Scared me, he took offence, got grounded for a short while, and the staff at Perris finally started listening to the pilots about CG issues in the King Air. I'm convinced that skydivers can cause a King Air to stall despite a pilot who is doing everything right at the time, but most of the tales I've heard, and a few of my best skydiving flying lies are a combination of pilot and skydiver fault ... that chain of events thing that keeps adding up till it breaks. Yeah, more jumpers need to more aware of of CG issues during flights hauling jumpers ... but that goes without saying for all jump planes. Personally, I was always a lot more afraid of tail-srtike potential than I ever was of stalling flying King Airs. That tail fails too easily when something heavy hits or snags it. Stall spin recoveries from 15000 are much less intimidating in my flying nightmares. If it stalls, the odds are highly in your favor that a sizeable chunk of that aft load is going away when the airplane rolls over. PilotDave's video link came up while I was writing my little rant ... note the proximity of the one floater and the vidiot as they leave the airplane ... also note the crowd in the aft cabin behind the door, and the length of time the jumpers are in those positions prior to the actual stall ... SPORT DEATH! And, that was, relatively speaking, a fairly calm stall, though I'm sure it didn't seem that way to the jumpers or the pilot at the time. Stalls can be much more of violent affair than that one was. Zing Lurks

I'd never have paid for the lifetime USPA membership that expired after 12 months! Zing Lurks

I concur with what Jerry says about that GK fatality at Muskogee. If I remember correctly, something that happens less often nowadays, the rig used was one of the early Racers set up for a square reserve. Zing Lurks

Its an AN-2 ... with an oil leak near the exhaust manifold. Zing Lurks

It's definitely a female guarding her eggsac, but I don't think its a tarantula, though it is a therphosid. I've posted a copy of your photo on a tarantula and arachnid forum and I'll let you know what the real experts come up with. I just spent four days at the American Tarantula Society Conference in Phoenix. I've now got 19 spiders. All are tarantulas (15 different species) except one, which is a three-inch trapdoor spider with ATTITUDE. There are a number of large spiders which are not tarantulas finding there way into the critter hobby, but I've never seen one, or a photo of one that looks like what you posted. It's always possible that it is some relatively new species that was recently discovered. There are now an estimated 850 different kinds of tarantulas ... and more being described each year. Large spiders typically take 4-6 weeks to incubate their eggsacs. Zing Lurks

You and your opinion on this very serious matter has been officially blown off by the politician whose office generated that reply. Send him another letter with as many other peoples' signatures as you can muster, informing said politico that you will not be voting for this person when re-election time comes as long as he continues to support this onerous legislation ... see what kind of reply you get to that letter, and post it too. Know how to tell when a politician is lying? Their lips are moving! Zing Lurks

You'd be doing that momma cat and yourself a big favor if you could get it and her babies down to the animal shelter. There's a chance the kittens will get adopted out, the momma could get spayed, hence no more babies to overpopulate your neighborhood ... and you can bring her back to your place where she'll likely stay if there's food, water and shelter on your porch ... and you get cheap mice and rat removal services. Might cost you $50 to $100 dollars, but you won't end up like it's gotten around my place. My neighborhhood is overrun with feral cats now. Animal control is basically catching and euthanizing them as fast as they can, and are barely keeping up with the cats' reproduction rates. I've got two indoor cats and, apparently, they, and me, have seen the animal control folks out doing their job. Both my cats run and hide in the closet when the animal control truck stops and people in uniforms with loop-sticks and cages get out. Hate to see it, but around here the situation is so out of control on cats, and dogs, that there is no other choice. Zing Lurks

Hey Howard, that was a pretty neat trick ... can I borrow your time machine sometime? I always got a kick out of Sherman and his dog's Wayback machine. Zing Lurks

Of course, that would explain why Paracommanders at 1000 to 1500 feet, more or less, would be crabbing into an on-shore wind by facing offshore, instead of facing toward the shoreline trying to hold against an off-shore breeze and not get blown any farther from the shore line ... look at the photo again. Zing Lurks

And an on-shore breeze. Zing Lurks

Lots of those folks in the second photo look familiar, but the only one i can name for certain is Ernie butler ... kneeling on the far left with the blue cap on. Zing Lurks

I'd bet Rick Horn habn't even started jumping back when Jerry Bird still had that much hair. Zing Lurks

I did a couple thousand jumps on my Paradactyl. The first thing i did when I got it was to cut the nose slider in half and sew the first two rows of slots closed along with the center slots in the third row. It would almost keep up with a Stratostar, and descended slower, so I almost always made it back on the long spots. I weighed 130 to 140 pounds and had a 19 pound rig back when most weighed 25-plus. It was a tiny Wonderhog w 3-rings (one of the first at Ghoulidge with that fancy new cutaway handle) that was sized for a Dactyl main and a Piglet reserve. I side-packed it by stacking the line groups, splitting the nose and wrapping it around the tightly rolled canopy, then S-folded it into a bag. I gor rid of the bag and free-packed it into the container for about 1200 jumps. For about 20-25 jumps, I took of the pilot chute and sewed a Racer pud directly to the center of the point of the nose. When I pulled the pud, it opened the container and pulled the nose out into the air ... sometimes it worked just fine, but a few times, it was squirrely. I never had to cutaway from any of those, but I did put the pilot chute back on. Handbury watched me freepacking it once over at Elsinore and then said, "You're crazy!" But he gave me a few tips and tune-ups on the canopy and later it was certified as a reserve. Over three and half years of hard-core jumping, I broke a line once, a keel line in the center, and landed it, and had it streamer once that I did cutaway. When I walked over to pick it up, the nose was still wrapped around the tightly rolled, side-packed canopy, exactly like I'd packed it except it was straightened out and the lines and risers were tangled. It was about the most reliable parachute I ever owned in terms of malfunctions per jumps. I stood it up the majority of the time, and can't recall any exceptionally hard landings. It would hook to a landing pretty nicely, and, luckily, I never screwed up the times I did a hook landing. In a trun, it will attain a non-survivable rate of descent. Have you gotten it into a deep stall and then let the toogles all the way up quickly for a dynamic recovery? Do it high! Zing Lurks

"I've been thrown out of better places than this by higher class people than you." Zing Lurks

I thought it was a lot like being at the dropzone ... hours of tedious boredom in a noisy environment surrounded by a lot of people you'd never associate with in the real world, broken up by unexpected periods of sheer terror and panic. Zing Lurks

" ... but i think they're right." Yeah, but that would mean you're thinking wrong. Zing Lurks

Get the pilot to tell you all about the airplane you're flying in ... that door gets looking like a better option real fast. Zing Lurks

Damn ZigZag ... get yerself a patent on that there "reverse motion kicker plate." Just think, you'd never have to pay for a round reserve pack job ever again with one of those on the rig. You could be rich. Ya just land, give that old plate a kick and the spare repacks itself. Genius! Zing Lurks

You must be planning some REAL Combat Relative Work! Zing Lurks

I saw an article about this guy about a week ago. He deserves admiration for going for it. I would have no problem with him making a slot on the Olympic Team. I suspect the Olympic Committee will almost have to rule against him because of the possible mechanical advantage some will claim he has. In the video, he makes running on those prothesises (prothesi?) look easy, but i'm betting it's not. He's a runaway medal winner if he enters the Olympics for the Disabled, though. Sartre, ever hear of Dana Bowman? He's your man for inspiring your patients. Dana is the only Army Golden Knight to return to active jump status following the loss of both legs in a horrendous mid-air collision. Dana is partially sponsored to travel around and jump into events where he does motivational speaking. He also learned to fly after his accident and holds a ticket-full of fixed-wing and rotary-wing licenses and ratings, including the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor. I've flown the airplane for a few of his demos when he's been in Arizona, and he's an inspirational sort of guy. PM me if you want his contact info. Zing Lurks

So, it sounds like you had a pilot chute hesitation/pilot chute in tow and that the main bag may, or may not have come out of the main container ... so you fired your spare. Seems to me you did just what you needed to do to save yourself, and you'll get to jump again. Ya done good! I've both seen and experienced similiar circumstances. Sometimes it's near impossible to figure out exactly what caused it to happen. There is one question that comes to mind though ... what happened to your main parachute after you pulled the S.O.S. handle and the reserve opened? Did it stay with you, or fall away? Just curious. Zing Lurks

Hey Howard, I think the hot rw in slide one might be BT ... Bob Taylor, who jumped with USFET. I too believe that is Dave (Zinger) Singer in the USFET shirt. This is the lawyer from Seattle I keep telling people they're referring to when they get my name wrong. That might be an early Captain Hook and the Sky Pirates team in the last photo. Note, also, that that the DC-3 has landing gear doors on it. There weren't many regular DC-3s built with that option. Most of the R4D Super 3s had them though. Zing Lurks

But, if you die at home alone, they'll eat your carcass. Zing Lurks

That's been done ... more than once. Piece of cake. Zing Lurks

Errr ... Mahoney is too full of crap, but he knows it. As for the rest, it was all done with lines and mirrors, and I'm pleading the Fifth Amendment, however, the teeth did chatter, the eyes did blink and the crossbones tracked away on the break. Afterstars meet over the water tower! Zing Lurks