WGore

Me too. My first jump was also my first airplane ride...and I never landed in an airplane the first year I was in the sport. I was curious...the Army airborne guys...how many jumps would one typically do in a year - courtesy the US Army and while in the airborne ..vs. what sport parachutists would do in that same time frame? I wasn't airborne so I forget how often they had to make pay jumps. 90 days comes to mind. Our club was on a leg post (Ft Knox) so we didn't get Military aircraft very often. When we did the jumps were free. We jumped off post and rented aircraft for tach time which made the jumps something over $2 a piece. That sounds pretty reasonable but the pay back then was pretty low. I was an E-5 Sgt when I got out and was making $211 a month. I went into the Army with 125 jumps and came out with about 350, most of which were made in 1 1/2 years. The number of jumps I made out of Army aircraft could be added up on both of my hands and still have fingers left over. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

The 60s and 70s for me. I have been around skydiving for almost 51 years as a jumper, rigger, and pilot. My 1st jump course might have been a half hour and my 1st jump was also my 1st airplane ride. I was hooked. In the Army I was president of the post parachute club because I had more jumps than anyone else but we had lots of enthusiastic students and we were family. After the Army the DZs I jumped at were also family and the coldest winter nasty day there would be 15 or 20 folks around to drink beer and tell lies. You got the DZ Friday night or Early Sat. and left Sun. night. Everyone pitched in for the sport and primadonnas were few and far between. When we won the 4 way nationals we worked with the students and RW students and passed are secrets on for NOTHING because we were all about the sport. The times and the people were good. Now days it is unusual for anybody to stay much past dark on Sat. night and many only jump 1 day a weekend. For me it was a lifestyle and while I never got rich doing it I wouldn't change a thing. I made a meager living but sure had a bunch of fun. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

Just wondering if there is anyone on here that jumped with the club back in 66', 67', & 68'. We never got much support from the Army but jumped off post quite a bit from civilian aircraft in Campbellsville KY. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

The 4-way was won by GC Atlanta in 73. Paul Fayard, Chuck Price, Dave Briar, and Bob Vonderau. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

Hi mr g You did what. Wle heard about the shelf life of silk canopies, it's about half of nylon. How long was that.? We found another little treasure of my Fil from thr greatest generation. Did you smoke cigs b ack in the day? Found a silver lookinng box, it slid open, there was clip to hold the matches and the rest of the inside was for a pack of cigs but it looked to short. We tried a modern pack of cigs they fit but were to long. Scratchedhead scratched butt, damn that container was for unfiltered pack of cigs. Gotta take a nap. R.I.P. . I jumped the parachute in 67 & 68. It was not that old at the time. I'm not sure who it was made for originally but jumping it with a deployment sleeve would have allowed it to be used after the 7 year limit. You have to remember that, that was a military standard based on non reefed deployments from high speed aircraft. Don't remember anything about manufacturer or the date of manufacture. That was a long time ago. Once out of the military I couldn't wait to get back to a high performance Para-commander. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

Anything to get in the pea gravel. That landing would have killed anybody else. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

We had a gentleman that use to jump with us at Greene County KY that was an original member of Easy Company Band of Brothers. He transferred to another company at the end of training in the US to help train another company coming through. He ended up making 2 combat jumps in Europe and coming home. His son came out to the DZ to make a jump in the late 70s and he got caught up in the whole thing and started sport jumping with his son. He was 56 when he started jumping again and made 250+ jumps on round canopies back then. I had the honor of taking him on a Tandem jump while his son and a grandson formed a 3 way on him in later years. It was after Band of Brothers had aired and I had a wonderful time talking to him about the characters in the mini series. No better man has trod this earth, he did well after the war and was not hesitant to share the wealth because he wanted to not because he had to. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

Suzie was no light weight she was a very fit lady with a lot of muscle. Not trying to say she was fat just a big girl that was extremely athletic. In the 60s and early 70s she was a top notch competitor on the women's US Team. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

My uncle brought back a silk flare parachute and my mom made a baptismal gown out of it. I was the oldest but all of my siblings were baptized in it as well. I guess I was born to skydive. Not sure were it is now but my sister probably has it. I actually made a number of jumps on a silk parachute that was part of the gear at the Ft. Knox SPC. I'm not sure where it came from but it was RW&B. It really packed nice but was heavy compared to a nylon chute of the same diameter. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

It is a great read if you are interested. Thanks for putting that up David. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

Dec 64 took my Christmas bonus from my first job and bought a 28' W-gore (or E-gore) along with a 24' T-7 Twill reserve with altimeter and stop watch for $50. Reserve repacks were $2 every 60 days. When I was in the Army at Ft Knox in 66-68 we could get the 4 color 28s for $10 at quartermaster sales. The lines were cut at the links but there was a rigger on post that would retie the lines and sew and modify for another $10. His wife made sleeves for $5 IIRC. Sage green harnesses and containers (the hot ticket at the time) were another $5. Problem was there was no one around to install D-rings. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

Yeah, everyone had the cash for a brand new Cessna Caravan in '85. Yours Truly, 95870-024 I don't have any first hand knowledge of that. Cowboy was a business man and fairly successful at that from what I heard and he was leasing the Caravan out to DZs for boogies. Point taken though. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

Drew and Cowboy were friends but I don't know that he was involved in any way. I think that rumor was started by DEA to try and shake some information loose. There were a lot of friends to many people lost in that crash including one very close friend of mine. NTSB ruled it water in the fuel along with a clogged fuel filter. Add to that mix a really green pilot with very few hours in the Caravan and the outcome was a disaster. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

Sorry to hear this. I met Coss back in the 70s at the Nationals and always enjoyed talking to him when we crossed paths. RIP. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

Drew had a number of rigs. The info that I got was that the reserve was square. I was interviewed and i may have forgotten some of the details but the gist was that his aorta was ruptured and the brakes on the reserve were never released. They were using a Cessna 402 for this run and the door is very close to the horizontal stabilizer. There have been several fatalities over the years with people hitting the tail which is why they were never used much for skydiving. My theory is that he set the auto pilot for climb and headed out to sea and ran to the back of the airplane to exit. The auto pilot probably wouldn't compensate fast enough along with the bag of cocaine maybe catching air and slamming him into the horizontal. He knew he was hurt and pulled the reserve but didn't maintain conscientiousness long enough to release the brakes. I'll try and find my log books from back then and see which reserves might have been used. He had round reserve rigs but that would have been a small reserve for the load he was carrying and Drew was a big guy. I remember a Black main but can't remember the brand, but it was big. In fact he used it to jump off of a building in downtown Louisville KY but didn't use an oversize pilot chute and damned near bought it then. Folks that were there said he was only under canopy 2 to 3 seconds. The others were all opened much much higher. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!