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Anyone know where Bob Matthews is? According to my good friend Emmett (Tim) Florea, he was the 1st Marine to make 1000 jumps. He was a Captain and F-4 jockey in Atsugi Japan. Emmett jumped with him in the early 60's and completed the first baton pass in Japan. Ted D6691 SCR 3975 SCS 2242 NSCR 698 On the road to wrack and ruin………… but making damn good time.

Jerry, I believe the incident you're referring to was 72 or so, right before I got there. The first thing Mike Culler did when I showed up was cut my ripcord stop off. Bob Fitzsimmons was the young up and comer who went in. He was well liked and they named the meet after him for a couple of years. Ted D6691 SCR 3975 SCS 2242 NSCR 698 On the road to wrack and ruin………… but making damn good time.

Jeffy, pretty much agree with your post with this additonal speculation. From what I heard from Ron and John on the dive, the contributing elements were: 1. he had pushed his pilot chute well into the belly mount pouch worried that it would sneak out 2. being late in the year and cold and he was wearing thick gloves making it hard to "dig out" the PC 3. he had a self professed (and we all agreed) reputation for believing he could "fix stuff" beyond the point of common sense (on the ground as well as in the air) 4. put these all together and he pulled the reserve too late. He was quite the NW icon of the 70's. Ted D6691 SCR 3975 SCS 2242 NSCR 698 On the road to wrack and ruin………… but making damn good time.

Steve, I showed up in 73, just after the formal jump meet era you referred to. There were quite a few Air Force/Survival school types doing style and accuracy with Stato-clouds. But I hung with the civilian R/W derelicts; Roy Baldwin, Les Williams, Mike Culler, Emmett (Tim) Florea, Tom Canarozzo, Stevie Morrow, Rick True, Sully and a bunch more. It wasn't long before we were over at Henley Aerodrome in Athol ID, jumping out of Rozzo's Twin Beeches. Deer Park was history as a DZ by 79. Speaking of BJ at Deer Park, he came thru our DZ in 74, hawking the Bird rig. I was impressed with the thought behind it considering the state of piggy-backs and the requisite last hope ropes. Of course that was when we still considered rounds as the only real choice for R/W. Mike Culler compared a 10 man load with Strato-stars to 10 airplanes in the traffic pattern without power trying to dead stick it in on a 2500' runway. Gotta agree on what it took to survive back then. The injury/death rate was much higher then. Equipment, training and awareness is better now and the average age is higher. Ted D6691 SCR 3975 SCS 2242 NSCR 698 On the road to wrack and ruin………… but making damn good time.

Yeah it was quite a sight to be in free fall looking up at people sitting in the upper decks. A lot of scary thoughts run thru your head in the 2 1/4 seconds til you're open. Ted D6691 SCR 3975 SCS 2242 NSCR 698 On the road to wrack and ruin………… but making damn good time.

I've always been amazed and amused at how people assess risk by a very subjective seat of the pants means but still think they're being perfectly rational and objective. That was brought home to me about 25 years ago when I had the opportunity to static line my round reserve from the ceiling of the KingDome in Seattle. It's 250 feet down to 2nd base in case you're wondering. Four people had already done this before for a Boeing Company event and I was part of a 2nd batch of jumpers to do the same thing a year later. We did a dummy drop with our rigs to make sure it would open as quickly as we expected; full round inflation about 1/2 down. Squares did not get full cell inflation before the dummy hit the floor, so we used round reserves. Two of our best riggers packed our reserves and designed the suspension apparatus from which we would cut away. We were sitting in the saddle and used our cutaway handle to drop straight down as the reserve bridle and bag stayed tied to the celing. We were just baggage since there was absolutely nothing we coulld do to help or hurt the deployment. Before we could do anything with body postion, we had tensions on our risers. These were virtually laboratory conditions for a reserve deployment. So, by design, this was the safest jump I could ever make. With 1000 - 1500 jumps, I had all the conscious faith in my equipment, my rigger and my abiltiy to use it. So, shouldn't a left brained engineer be able to calmly relax before this piece of cake E ticket ride? You'd think. But NFW. I can't begin to describe the pit of the stomach terror I felt as I walked around on the roof the Dome geared up waiting to jump for about 15 - 20 minutes. With nothing to distract me like the spot or my performance on a 8 way competition jump, primal fear took over to the point that my first jump or my first roller coaster ride were no comparison to this. Well the jump went perfectly of course, but I couldn't do a stand up because my legs were jello from the overwhelming fight or flight adreniline that had just peaked seconds before. I've never experienced fear like that since. Sometimes late at night when I'm high, I wish I could experience that fear again for just...........15-20 seconds would be enough. What a rush. Ted D6691 SCR 3975 SCS 2242 NSCR 698 On the road to wrack and ruin………… but making damn good time.

Back in the day, mid 70’s to be precise, the first Strato-Stars had ropes and rings which, at the time, was the only reasonable way a relative worker could use a square and not damn near die from opening shock. The rope was a clothesline size rope strung thru a bunch of rings sewed to the bottom of the canopy and attached to the pilot chute. On deployment, the canopy would open about 75% of full, whereupon the jumper had to reach up and pull down a red reefing line that would pull down the pilot chute and allow enough slack in the rope to let the canopy fully open. The red line with some slack would sort of float out behind the suspension lines. I had made a couple jumps on a borrowed Strato-Star (another scary story for another day), so when I got my new SS, I was pretty horny to jump it ASAP. But being November, damn near winter in Spokane, un-jumpable weather was the norm. On the phone (the 70’s equivalent of an E-mail list or forum), I talked Mike Culler, a new pilot (another scary story for another day) into flying up to the DZ at Deer Park to jump. It didn’t matter that all he had was Beech Musketeer, a low wing plane with a car type door that required him to slip the airplane about 30 degrees right for us to squeeze out the door and fall off the wing. It didn’t matter that the ceiling was 3-5, ground winds at 25 mph and upper winds at 3-5 AGL at 50 knots (according to Flight Service) , I was young and bulletproof and horny to jump this new rocketship of a canopy. So we get up there to Deer Park and find just a handful of fools standing around thinking the same thing. Up I go, and take the longest damn spot I’ve ever had. As I clear the tail, get stable and deploy my Massey piggy back with Capewells, I look up to see several line twists with the canopy about 75% open, spinning out of control. But not violently, so what’s the big deal? Thinking I’ll unwind naturally and being at 3-5, I reach up to pull the red reefing line down and am more than a little surprised at how hard it is to even pull it 2 to 3 feet. My previous 2-3 jumps, the line was easy to pull but this time, I notice that the red line was bound up tight in the line twists. Still thinking I’ve got time, I pop the brakes, hoping this will aid the unwinding and nothing happens. The dam line twists are not unwinding even as I try to kick and pull, curse and moan. On the SS, steel rings joined the single steering line to the 3 cascaded lines sewn to the tail. If I had time to look carefully, I would have noticed that the steel rings had knotted up the line twists and nothing was gonna unwind. But I didn’t, all I knew was nothing was changing from this scary picture. Well now I’m out of ideas on how to fix this bad boy, down to 1800 feet and just “flying” across the airport still in 50 knot winds. Even though the ground winds were crazy and un-landable, I figure I’m better off with a 26 foot Navy Conical than this partially open and spinning piece of shit. So, capewell covers down, thumbs in the capewell loops, look at my reserve handle, arch and pull the loops. And nothing happens……………WTF????? After a microsecond that seems like an eternity, I notice the risers floating out in space, completely free and…………holy shit……… the red line directly in front of my nose and I’m hanging on it by one capewell cover. These covers are hinged and flimsy and I have no idea how much longer I’ll be stable in this hanging position. So I grab the red line and attempt to do a pull up on it and pull it away and off the capewell cover. I have this image that I need to pull the red line down and away from my body to get off the capewell. That was the wrong idea because the capewell cover hinges in the middle and I would’ve had to pull up and in to get off of it. But I can’t see all that in this situation, so there I am and……. “Nothing works”. Down to 1200 ft and getting dizzy, I figure “nothing to do but pull the reserve and hope for the best.” Much to my chagrin, the pilot chute does not go zinging away clear of the mess, it heads pretty much up into the main. I grab it before it gets too far and attempt to hand deploy it but it’s all over my head and everywhere. But I keep working it, all the way in, never looking at the ground. The next thing I know, I’m laying under a tree, groggy with just a vague sense of where I am but no recollection or logical explanation of how I could have got there. I continue to lay there wondering what I should be feeling, if I’m in shock, or dead or ????. I have no concept of time, but suddenly my buddies are running up to me with eyes as big as saucers, amazed that I’m conscious and not a pile of bloody goo. I slowly get up and we slowly walk back to the clubhouse trying to diagnose what could have happened. As it turns out, I had landed just inside the first row of trees at the edge of the airport and missed the hard ground of an open field. The trees were young springy evergreens with strong upswept limbs that broke my fall about as much as a guy could hope for. Feeling a little shaken but generally alright (no broken bones or real apparent injuries), we threw the shit in the airplane and flew home. I published my story in Parachutist and it wasn’t long before the slider was introduced and quickly became the norm. Danger versus scary; an interesting distinction. Although that was arguably the most danger I’ve ever been in, I never got scared, simply because there was no time to think about it. Maybe I’ll have a couple of Jacks and tell you about the scariest jump I ever made which, ironically was the safest I have made or could ever make. Ted D6691 SCR 3975 SCS 2242 NSCR 698 On the road to wrack and ruin………… but making damn good time.

Somehow, I think you made a point Ted D6691 SCR 3975 SCS 2242 NSCR 698 On the road to wrack and ruin………… but making damn good time.

Jeffy, I remember the scene well. This little "courtroom' charade went on for quite awhile and Bill's patience was wearing thin. But nope, that's not Craig, mustache is too dark, body's a little too stocky, but most important, Craig would've been in the Visions team room and not one of Roger's Freak congregation complete with hat. Ted D6691 SCR 3975 SCS 2242 NSCR 698 On the road to wrack and ruin………… but making damn good time.

I recently met Cheryl Creson, the new Public Works Director and now my boss at the City of Elk Grove. We've chatted a little about our respective histories; hers going back to Pope Valley days. Anyone have a funny or remarkable story about her (or him) that I could use while waiting for a work meeting to start? Hey Jeffy you were down in Pope for a year or two in the mid-70's weren't you? Ted D6691 SCR 3975 SCS 2242 NSCR 698 On the road to wrack and ruin………… but making damn good time.