patmoore

I was thinking about the Portias the other day. I was contemplating their use over my contacts while ski and snowboard racing. Unless it's really cold I don't need full sized goggles. DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

Add to the list Mike Swain's "The Endless Fall" (video and book). I had a couple of appearances in that one as well as one brief shot of an accuracy landing in "Masters of the Sky" which I think was filmed at Marana in '69. DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

Congrats Pat! Ironically, our D numbers are one digit apart and I just passed my 48th anniversary. I'm attaching a photo I took of Doc Fitch at the Nationals in Marana in 1969 Pat Moore DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

Never one to be content to just ride a canopy down, I discovered that pulling down on one of the front risers of my newly acquired StratoStar would cause it to dive forward and begin spinning rapidly. It would race downward so fast that I could actually see the horizon above the canopy. Recovering from this spiral was simple – just let go of the riser. My reserve chute was equipped with a Sentinel that was designed to deploy if I passed through 1000 feet elevation at speeds greater than ½ terminal velocity. Apparently my earthward spins triggered the sensor and the reserve (remember it was hanging on my left side) suddenly burst open inflating the 26’ canopy. I realized instantly what had happened and then thought, “No problem, I’ll just ride both chutes down”. That would have been fine under a round parachute but no one had ever deployed a reserve with a square before. The forward speed of the main chute was so powerful that it continued going forward, fighting the drag of the reserve. It got level with me in front and then dove toward the ground collapsing and floating back up at me. Since it could entangle with my reserve, I immediately popped the canopy releases to jettison it. Just as I did I had the horrible realization that I was only connected to one side of my reserve! I had installed an extra D ring low on the left main lift web and would connect the right butterfly of my reserve to it after opening to give me better visibility for accuracy approaches. Fortunately, when I built my rig I had sewn in a connecting strap between the reserve’s two butterflies that attached to the canopy. The strap was a meter long so that I was only attached at my left hip to the right side of my reserve. The left side of the reserve was a full meter higher secured by the strap. The reserve started a slow spin with me hanging below it powerless to steer it. I crashed into a tree and slammed into the ground twisting my ankle. In retrospect I guess I was lucky. The Darwin Awards hadn’t been created in 1976 but I came close to being an early contender. A few years later I ran into Steve Snyder at an air show in New Hampshire where he was flying his Super Pinto and I told him about my experience. He seemed surprised that a reserve could have that effect on a ram air canopy but the more he thought about it he could see it happening. DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

Around 1965 I remember Gary Dupuis of Deland telling me how he and his brother Joe had made a jump into a nudist camp but I don't think they were nude. DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

You've probably seen this video but it's worth watching again. Sure shows one of the problems of naked skydiving.... DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

I think I hold some kind of record for the most flight time on two consecutive military jumps. Sometime in 1968 I boarded a C-130 at MacDill AFB in Tampa and flew for about eight hours before jumping into Indian Springs At Nellis AFB in Nevada. A week later I again boarded a C-130 and we flew around Cuba to Panama where I jumped into Rio Hata. I think that flight was eight or nine hours non-stop. Fortunately the Air Force was in charge of both jumps and let us suit up in flight. If the Army had run the show we'd have been in our rigs for the entire flights. I'm attaching a shot of me from 1969. In all I logged 43 military jumps from Hueys, C-130s, and once from a C-141 at 1100 feet. DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

Found it. It was a shot of me making an accuracy jump. Note the nasty storm clouds in the background. DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

Enjoyed the write up! (There's a typo in your URL, replace the ; with a :). I have my ex's old Papillon and I've been tempted to air it out on a windy day. I think you've convinced me otherwise..... DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

Hey Mike! How's life treating you? Somewhere I have a photo taken at your DZ. I'll try to dig it out. DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

In the summer of '66 I was jumping at Manassas, Virginia at a DZ shared by the Targeteers and Pelicans. It was a tough summer with two unrelated fatalities: Chick Gates (streamer) and Bill George (mid-air collision). My father, my 18 year old sister, and my 16 year old brother were just getting into the sport. I was about to turn 20 and was enlisting in the Air Force. I had logged a little over a hundred jumps at that point. Carl Rutledge ran the DZ and allowed both his sons to jump. The older boy didn't continue after his first few but Danny did. By November I was at Lackland AFB in Texas when going to breakfast when I saw a newspaper headline that read "Dad sees boy, 11, skydive to death". I knew immediately who it was. I called home to learn what happened. Dad, a widower, was concerned after the second fatality and asked Carl to order a Sentinel automatic opener for his reserve. The Sentinel arrived in the mail when the rest of my family was absent from the DZ. Carl hooked it up on Dad's reserve and had Danny wear it for his first freefall. Danny had done his dummy pulls on static line flawlessly so Carl figured the Sentinel was just an added precaution. Upon exit, I'm told that Danny froze and never pulled. The Sentinel did fire but too low for the reserve to open. I recall Bill Ottley telling me later that a planned National Skydiving Center near Washington,DC was scrapped right after the fatality. Dad and my sister hung it up as did my younger brother although he visited me in Florida ten years later and made a few jumps. I came home on leave and Dad and I visited Carl. He showed us the new Mustang he had bought with the money he had gotten from a magazine article. I stayed active in the sport until 1976 and lost a lot of friends along the way but the one that hit me hardest was an 11 year old kid who should have turned 55 this year. DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

The poor kid was Danny Rutledge. He was wearing my dad's reserve at the time. I'm swamped at work but will add more later. DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

My brother spotted this skydiving video on Vimeo. A little drawn out but the music is nice and editing very professional. DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

I watched Phil Smith drop backward at the Wolverine that night. Impressive sight! I had a shorter distance to fall and beat him to the floor. The Wolverine was legendary. I was part of a 17 person streak there one night. The bar owner's sister whom we called Aunt Margaret had driven an ambulance in the first world war. I was one of the sky divers selected as a pallbearer at her funeral. A young underage jumper walked up to the bar one night and would have gotten away with it if he hadn't asked Aunt Margaret for a "bourbon and scotch". There was an attached house to the bar and it was there that we watched Apollo 11 land on the moon on an ancient black and white TV. The place certainly brings back memories, especially when I became "Pope Patrick the Minor" DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

I remember Chet Poland fondly. I'm sure I have some color slides of him from the early 70s in my massive collection. I now own a slide scanner but can never find the time to sit down and digitize all those slides. DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

Okay. Jump #11 was a Mae West on a flat circular surplus 5 TU. I hand deployed a WWII vintage 24' twill reserve and then cut away the garbage, The reserve oscillated a lot but by luck I managed to time one of the oscillations perfectly and made a standup on a concrete apron. Fifty jumps later, I had another reserve ride under the twill. This time the landing was a LOT harder.... DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

Dec. 2, 1962. Dad asked what I wanted for my 16th birthday and he said, "How about a parachute jump?". I said "Why not"" and it was the start of whole lot of fun. DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

Susie Neumann's US team Papillon from the the early 70s is still in my garage. My ex-wife bought it from her way back when and somehow I wound up with it. I had a huge collection of t shirts from the sixties and seventies but they were all lost in an apartment fire in 1994. I still have about fifty issues of Parachutist, Sky Diver, and DZ USA from the sixties and seventies. DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

Had the ACL surgery six days ago. Stitches come out Friday. DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

Good thing I get volume discounts from my orthopedic surgeon. My first torn ACL occurred at Indiantown, FL around 1969. I didn't get it repaired until 1997 and then had two subsequent tune-ups. The only other jumping related injury (other than 3 sprained ankles) was a separation of the ribs at the Nationals in Talequah in 1975. When I turned 50 I took up skiing and snowboarding and have had broken ribs (led to pneumonia), broken foot, another torn ACL, and broken hand. Actually the last incident resulted from a UPD (UnPlannedDismount) from one of my unicycles. This past March I competed at the NASTAR Nationals with a brace on the torn ACL. Okemo Mountain did a nice wrapup of the event in their blog. The doctor has me taking Vitamin D now because the bones can't take the same sort of abuse they did in the past. "What a drag it is getting old......" DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

Wow Pat. I just realized we got our D licenses at the same time (probably the same day). DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

Lew was my instructor and jumpmaster on my very first jump at Orange on December 2, 1962. DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

Ditto for me in the mid sixties. Then after 431 sport jumps I went to Ft. Benning in the (hot) summer of 1968. By the time I got out of the Air Force I had logged 40+ more static line jumps. DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

Universal Sports just released the footage of the Race of Champions. Since it aired live I hadn't had a chance to view it before now. The course is steeper than it looks and banked right to left as evidenced by the struggle I had with heelside turns. Video DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

Yep. Used to be able to do that. Not a chance anymore! Mac and Pearl ran Riverview. That's where I got my Diamond Wings, Richard Bach took up jumping, and Mac lost a wheel strut. I didn't meet the Dobsons until Ski and Donna introduced me to them at an air show in New Hampshire in the late seventies. I had already hung it up by then. That same air show was the last time I ever saw Steve Snyder. DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!