WGore

I probably should have clarified that the Rising Sun 182 was the one torn up, not the Howard. The Howard was torn up after a Demo IIRC. The Cincinnati Skydivers lost 2 182s in less than a year the first went down in the Caribbean While one of the owners, Bob Pierson, was on vacation with it. Neil Ficke was flying both of them when they were lost. They lucked out and had a cargo ship pick them up out of the ocean and no one was hurt in the second one either. Howard, the Howard in the pictures had an R1340 on it so it was even heavier than the normal DGA-15s with the R-985 on them. Of course the rest of the airplane was tubing and fabric and with no one in the back would tend to be very nose heavy. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

Jumped at Xenia the day before (Christmas Day) with Kenn Heismann from 16,500 from the 650 Howard. -31 degrees and no door. Note to self, don't do that any more, and I haven't. There were 8 cases of frostbite or beginning cases. I was just over 6 months in the Army at that point and hadn't jumped in what seemed like forever and needed a fix. I remember that party and West carrying Lee out over his shoulder. I think it was at Moose's house IIRC. Those were some good times for sure. The airplane from there was torn up right after the first of the year when the engine puked on takeoff. After that the Rising Sun bunch became part of the Greene County Bunch. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

Welcome to the over 40 club Steve. It will be 45 for me 11/7. Rising Sun IN. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

The damned things opened hard as hell to. We had a demo when they first came out and it was full flaps and just get out of the prop blast before you pulled. It was a novelty but there weren't too many volunteers for more than a couple jumps on it. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

We used to just pack them up and jump them again. Pretty slow deployment but they were dry by the time you got down. Just a hop & pop with extra airspeed, and don't look up. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

We had a guy that was a member of Easy Co. 506th but transferred out after training in GA that used to jump with us in the late 70s. He started after his son took up skydiving and made 250 or so jumps. He was jumping a round and I think that the landings started getting to him. I had the honor of taking him on a tandem in the late 90s and his son and grandson came in and made a 3 way star with him. He was one of the best and most generous people that I have ever met and one hell of good guy otherwise. IIRC he had 2 combat stars. He passed the day after Christmas 07. He had been sick for awhile and his son told me his mom told his dad that he wasn't to die on Christmas Day. He died at 3:00 in the morning of the 26th. They had to have the visitation in his church because there wasn't a funeral home big enough to handle the numbers they were expecting and they were right. There wasn't anybody in that town that didn't know and respect him. He was definitely one of the"Greatest Generation". GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

There were several different engines used on these according to my research. Smallest being an IO-470 at 260hp, which would equal slow climber. 400hp with 8 jumpers should equal about Cessna climb rates. I've got a ton of Beaver time with 8 jumpers and the gross on this thing is about 800lbs less, but 50hp less as well. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

It has been a long time ago, but if memory serves he crashed his ultra lite into the Cumberland River outside of Clarksville TN. I think it was around 74 or 75, but wouldn't swear to it. In the early 70s I purchased a lot of hardware from Mike for the gear I used to build at the time, but was not a good friend. You might be able to find out some more info on line from what ever the local paper down there is. Sorry I couldn't help any more than that. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

I will unoffically claim the highest wind landing (for sport) under a rag. about 80-81 in Perris and we did a 4 way and a micro-burst moved in under us... 2 26' cony mains on the 4 way (Ron the stinkin dutchmen was the other).. the winds down to about 1K were light, then look out ... the wind meter in the Perris officed that registered 40 Kts was PEGGED ... landing was feet, head, feet, head, cutaway ... no injuries... Randy Berry (on a square) said he turned to cross the wires along the road to the north and before he could turn around again, he had crossed the next field and next set of wires at the next road north ... said he couldn't believe the downwind speed (and these were old squares) they had 14 people standing on the runway facing the 182 as it landed (about 50 ft in front of them and an instant stop) because they had to put 7 on each wing and walk it into the tiedowns.. BSBD First liar doesn't stand a chance I saw 3 jumpers get caught in a gust front back in 69 IIRC. The first 2 got on the ground just before it hit. The 3rd was Jim West and he got blown down the road quite a ways. One of the guys jumped in a van and took off after him because he knew it was going to be bad. When Jim turned down wind to clear the road and power lines he passed the van up and it was doing 55mph. He was knocked silly when he hit the ground and was drug probably a quarter mile before he got caught in a downed tree which stopped him long enough to get to him. Nothing was broke but he was hurting pretty bad and didn't jump for a couple weeks. What we didn't know at the time was a tornado was tearing hell out of Cincinnati just down the road. It was one of those "we can get one more load in deals". GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

Short retainer line = hard opening. A long retainer line seperates the snatch force and opening shock so you don't get it all at once. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

The UT-15 was the last round that I owned before converting to squares. It was hands down the best accuracy round that I ever jumped followed closely by the French Pap. Those 2 were the only rounds that I never had a mlfunction on as well. Seems like I averaged a mal every 200 or so jumps on PCs. I made 1600+ jumps on the Pap and UT with narry a mal. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

That is one of the conventional rigs that I used to build in Bardstown. If the date was 75 it was probably for a Stato Star. That would have been one of the last conventional rigs that I built. At that time or shorltly after I started building a piggybacks. The main container did not have to be TSOed so I made changes as needed or gear size changed. The whole design was an off shoot of cut down military surplus containers, which was the only option you had back in the early days. The other option you had was OD green or the latest and greatest Sage green. Most of my stuff was custom built. Colors were available when this rig was built so it might have been built for one of the guys at Ft Campbell. Sage green was still in with the military guys. The inboard pull was a fad around our area then to protect the ripcord. Normally I used an inverted Martin Baker handle. The reserve typically hung low enough to allow an easy pull. As far as packing instructions the standard military belly wart instuctions applied. You have to remember that there wasn't the variety there is today or the need for proprietory packing instructions. In fact for the first 5 or 6 years that I built gear I didn't have a TSO. It wasn't anything the FAA pushed for, they would have rather ignored us hoping we would go away. Didn't happen though and we eventually had to come into the mainstream of general aviation. Unfortunately all of those records from gear sales and TSO paperwork were destroyed in 1980 when my shop burned to the ground. Shorlty after that I accepted a job in South Africa working for PISA and never got back into the gear business when I returned. Concerns about liability and the lawsuit that Greene Star went through around that time convinced me to go another direction. I don't recognise the seal symbol so can't help you there. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

Got to love that radial growl! Although the neighbors around our old DZ weren't quite as appreciative of that sound especiaally after we put the longer prop on it. It was noisey, I could here it starting down the runway from my house more than 2 miles away. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

Lot of brain cells killed since then. But that does come back now that you mention it.I vaguely remember a picture from a paper of the 3 of them that somebody sent me while I was in AIT. I can't remember if they were in front of the B-25 or one of the guys car. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

The last 3 guys thrown off of the airplane were jump buddies of mine. A bunch of guys from Cincinnati drove up to jump the aircraft. The only reason I wasn't there is I had been drafted that summer. They didn't know anything was wrong till they heard about it on the radio on the way home. IIRC the 3 guys thrown off were Bob Pierson, Paul Ritchie, and I believe Dave Ellis. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

Yeh that was Mike's Beaver and from what I understand he sold it to Whip Air. Never flew one of the turbine Beavers but have several thousand hours in a radial and still think it is a nice ride, albeit loud. Those engines were designed to be out on the wings as far away from the fuselage as possible. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

Bill you are thinking of Franklin KY. That ended up moving to Elkton KY after 5 months. The GA DZ you are thinking of was Jenkinsburg GA. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

The longest running DZ in Ky, Greene County SPC 69 to 07. Before that they were in Springfield Ky for a year. GC also had a DZ outside Ft Campbell in Elkton Ky 72 to 76. The Ft Knox Club jumped at Campbellsville Ky 67 & 68. The Louisville Skydivers jumped there for several years after that, as well as the Nelson Co. Airport in Bardstown. The Cincinnati Sky Divers jumped in Cynthiana Ky for awhile in the late 60s early 70s I believe. The Ft Campbell Sport Club jumped in both Princeton and Greenville Ky in the early 70s. Around the Cincinnati Area, there were DZs in Rising Sun IN (where I started), Harrison OH, Williamsburg OH, Hillsboro OH and Waynesville, OH. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

Geeessshhhh Bill it's right there in the bottom line of your profile 40 years ago. During the bulletproof years. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

A couple good friends of mine were on the Kings Island team and they would jump that thing every evening and there were 4 or 5 of them on the airplane. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

Steve beat me to it, but yeh it was Darbydale, only jumped there once in 65 IIRC. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

Most of those landings looked like they needed PLFs. There were a lot of late turns that increased rate of decent in the video. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

That could very well be, it has been quite a few years. Back then I was bullet proof and went for the high performance 28 footers with a 7TU cut. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

Yeh I do. I used grade A aircraft cotton when I could get it. When we training for the 72 Nationals we went to another DZ to make some practice jumps from a different aircraft than we were used to jumping. One of the guys had a small tear at the end of one of the load tapes on his short sleeve. The weather was deteriorating rapidly and we wanted to get one more jump in and I told him the thing would make one more jump. After break off and opening I see Tony going by with a streamer. The top of the sleeve had just ripped off leaving the bottom choking off the skirt. He cuts it away and pulls his reserve, so I follow him down to make sure he's OK. He looks at me and says "I thought you said it would make one more jump"? Of course I pointed out that it did make one more jump, I didn't say it would work. We called it a beer front at that point. Got a lot of good laughs out of that over the years. In all honesty I really did think it would be OK. Everything was a learning curve back then. GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!