fastphil

Be careful, on a windy day in the mid 1980s instead of skydiving I went windsurfing and never came back.

Came right after I said "hold my beer and watch this"

"Lord love a duck", haven't heard that in quite a while...

Wow, might as well just come out and call him a skydiver...

Yeah, "sky,,ground,,sky" got me intrigued...

Hey, I didn't realize till now I understand Russian...

A DC-3 on that grass strip would make my day...

Doc's DZ in Hitchcock TX was pretty reasonable in the 70's (four bucks to 7,200) Also I remember three jumps at Spaceland and a BBQ Sandwich and beer down the road at the Branding Iron, all for twenty bucks...

Well, anyone who's ever done a three-way has had to make some difficult decisions. At first I thought maybe you meant either up or down, but now that you mention it, yes, my first 3 way was a game changer...

I was on a jump where we did an eight way with a guy making his first jump. I don't think he sent in for a SCR # though. This happened back in the twentieth century...

Houston summers are still hot and humid but air condition is a lot easier to find now then it was in the 1960s...

The photo says it all (and in fewer words). Thanks for the story...

He's probably running late to the party; front riser or front line turns will get you where you are going (and down) in a hurry...

I was a natural, although initially I may have not realized this, and really didn't know what the sport was about...

Just once, we lost an engine on a DC-3 at Z-Hills on take-off. We did a go around at about 300 feet, way too low for me. I have gotton out about 1100 ft due to low ceiling...

...and "numbers" meant everything. I used to have lots more, they seem to have evaporated over the years.

Like a baton pass between generations...

Maybe a plane with no in-flight door is what you need...

But speed, direction and angle are not nearly as important as just knowing where others are around you and being predictable. Like driving fast in freeway traffic won't get you to the front...

My brother used to fly twin otters for Spaceland, and I would occasionally fly right seat if I wasn't on a jump. I was always amazed at how close he could stay to the free falling jumpers on the descent; quite a rush in its own...

Scariest would have to be my first BASE. It was my 1000th freefall and the first antennae jump, year 1980, and BASE was not a coined word yet. It was one of those situations where you had to let your logical mind override your sense of fear. As for airplane jumps it would be a jump at a Nationals Boogie at Muskogee, and what I fear most is when I put someone else in danger. After a fun jump and at opening, which was not particularly high, I could see my wife getting open just below me so I did a quick front riser spin to close in on her fast. I closed in all right, and way too fast. I ended up completely wrapped with her canopy and we lost a lot of altitude quickly during the process. Fearing we were getting low for a cut away but not able to verify that because I could see nothing but ripstop, and also knowing I was not getting out of her completely collapsed canopy I yelled for her to transfer (as you can imagine, we had a line of communication going and we had one good canopy). At our slow airspeed her reserve took what seemed (and almost was) a lifetime to get line-stretch and inflate, at which time her round reserve and my square main pulled me to about horizontal to the ground, with my main about horizontal to me. After she chopped I was able to get her main unwrapped and rolled under my arm just in time to land on the apron near the loading area, and she was caught on landing by Jerry Bird, an old friend of hers, after just making it over a hanger. Lessons to be learned from that jump are numerous, but of utmost importance, never run out of altitude and ideas at the same time…

SCR, if that's not too backwoods for ya...

I fell for my first jump instructor too...

Hmmm, did I go all the way thru a hole...

Skydiving is hardly the only form of an adrenaline rush, and most people probably don't even understand what skydiving offers. However, the people you refer to are actually sheep...