fastphil

Sure. FAI has changed the requirements. It had some sense. BTW it think the title is "experienced" and not "expert". hnmmm, thought mine said "expert", I'll have to go back and re-read it...

Night is a beautiful time to jump, kinda' what the sport is all about. Wouldn't want to call yourself an expert without the experience, would you???

Very cool Rick; party on...

The "Three Ring Circus" revolutionized gear. I succumbed to their marketing and bought one about early '77...

Wheee!! I'm not average! I started on round parachutes and now jump a 93 sq ft crossbrace, and that at 5000 ft AMSL where it's hot in the summer! Not everyone stops living when they get old. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Stewart He's a pensioner now, and runs a school that garentees to cut 20 seconds off your opening lap time. And he still drives like a star! t Although I have not jumped for a very long time I guess I never really considered it quitting; more like not being current. For myself, I planned on coming back to skydiving as I got too old for more physically demanding sports, that is if skydiving doesn't get too mainstream. But I too am probably not nearly average...

go Lisa...

I sure remember that! What an awesome idea, and it sure looked like ti would fit. When it was up and resting, sort of, someone said "wait a sec -- i want to check something" and Svec said "your mother." Apparently it was heavy Svec was being a crybaby, but I have to admit it was a bit disheartening when the car wouldn't quite fit, which was probably the best thing that could have happened to Sickler; how the heck would he have ever gotten the car back out without us... Wendy W.

Cool pics of the good ole days, but the one I'd like to see is the one that no one took of us trying to stuff Sickler's car into the DC-3; guess we all had our hands full. We had most of the car in but it would not make the turn. There are at least several Texxas Twenties at Spaceland in my log book before the McGregor Meet, including the two Markd mentioned, and a twentyfive the week after. Also, I made several team jumps that day at McGregor but no 20 ways...

It's good Carl is around to grin about it, I watch the entanglement and thought I was watching two dead men. It was just a miracle they hit the tin roof. The '76 Turkey Meet was my first, and what an enlightenment to the sport; Wet (pronounced "no") T-Shirt contests, lots of cool planes, lots of good jumps, a few bad accidents and lots of input from the herd...

I can't believe risk is much of a factor when it comes to leaving the sport, except in cases of wanting to swap to a new risk arena. Why would a person accept the risk when entering the sport and then later, as they got better thus reducing the risk level, decide it is too risky. Most people are just not cut out to do the same old thing over and over forever, and will eventually move on to something that provokes their spirit again. And for those with 12 hours or so of freefall time, I would have to say they never quit, although they may not be current...

Some of us find what we came looking for and then retire on to the next passion (oh yeah, somebody already said burnout)...

You're right; the sport started with glory hounds. Let the lemmings jump...

Airport???, I can't get beyond remembering Wendy at 20 years old (please don't take that as anything but a compliment, Wendy). Most of my jumps have always been too thought out to be scarey, but when I started I just intended to make one jump, and did I ever get hooked. I immediatly started making more jumps than I could buy or borrow gear for. Of course, the DZ had all the student gear required, but somehow altimeters were in short supply. Anyway I ripped right thru 5 static lines, 3 hop and pops, 3 ten second and three 15 second delays, all the time spending all my non jumping time getting a very accurate feel for counting off seconds. On my first 20 second delay I can still remember leaving the plane, nice and stable, and watching my JM smile and wave. The plan was to do nothing, meaning just fall flat and stable and all alone, and "nothing" is something that I found that I'm not too good at. I counted off the seconds as the plane flew away and I counted off more seconds as I checked the ground and was probably counting pretty accurate up till about 12 or so, when I fixated on the world below and got my first taste of groung rush. Not wanting to waste my freefall time I forced myself to believe in my count and to continue to count the full 20 seconds off before pulling, but for those last 8 or so seconds I could have put an auctioneer to shame. I did own my own altimeter on the next jump...

My guess is that they're not headed north, they will patiently wait for you...

WOW, don’t be so hard on Nick just for growing old; some of us are unlucky enough to do that. Actually, all his rambling is on topic, or at least it seemed so to me. And to me, it brought back memories of Carl laughing and talking and conniving, just like the perennial teenager he was, just like it was yesterday. Those were days when skydudes pushing for new limits were paving the road for you to follow. And Nick is right, there were those like Svec, an unintended adversary whose fame and flame ways were an overlooked obstacle (he tried to deny me my Gold Wings when I told him my 1000th jump was from an antennae). We were all just looking for BASE, with a madman cinema photographer leading us on…

Any girls on the jump??? I just can't get that Whistling Dixie thing billvon mentioned outta my mind...

Go figure, couple of these on the "worst" list were my favorites. The Starlite; I had several hundred jumps with, even did CRW with this canopy. And the StratoFlyer was my favorite, with many hundreds of jumps, lotta demo jumps and even BASE jumps. Although they were so unpopular people would give them away, I wore out two of them...

Mostly, people are akin to sheep, just wanting to graze with the herd while protected from the coyote by the dog. The masses find comfort in their worthless legislated security. If a man instead stays within the laws of nature (the only important laws) he will realize 1) when the jump is too dangerous, and move on, and 2) we all will have our appointment with D. Personally, I find that living on the edge is the safest of places, because I am keenly aware at all times just where that edge is. It's like Clint said, "a man's gotta know his limitations"...

I am Guessing it is "Bare Assed Star Crest Award". Sorry to leave you guessing; BASCR is the Bare Ass Star Crest Recipient, an offshoot of the SCR. Guess this was back in the days when we were keeping track of all "asspects" of the sport, so we were issued numbers. It was not handled by Bill Newell though, think his name is Carl Winthrop. Check out the JPEG. This is the only Nekkid jump I've made, and don't know how we got bored enough to do this one. The DZ management asked us to land out a ways and stash some shorts to put on after landing. Spaceland was very open so we could be seen by all anyway, I was just careful not to land in Boatman's Machine Gun Shooting Range...

I've got my BASCR on a ten way star. Nekkid flying is a bit different, especially the feeling of parts exposed like you never had them exposed before. The strangest part was the ride to altitude with a plane full of nudies...

Thanks for the insightful ramblings Pat, puts life in perspective this early morning...

uuuglyyy; rig is okay though...

The Piglet makes the bottom of my list also, even compared to a 24' flat circular with 4 line release for steering. My one Piglet jump scarred me for life...

Cool on the correction (194'), lotta my brain cells have gone by the wayside. That extra 24' was handy on one practice jump...

This one got a little off topic. Cool jump, but not really the astrodome. Astrodome jumps (from the now nonexistent gondola area) were about 170 feet (I think). Also, Carl and Smitty jumped static lined rounds (piglet canopies) for a very dramatic and long lasting deployment sequence. Smitty did a couple of shows there, the baseball game was covered by "Ripley's Believe It or Not" and he carried in the opening pitch ball...