peek 21 #1 July 6, 2009 Happy Birthday USA! (A good exhibition jump story.) I jumped with a local club into the Independence Day event of a local community. Everything went as planned except for the rain. (Two years ago we had the same conditions, but the rain bypassed the event by about a mile.) The ground crew called the pilot at the airport where we were waiting and told us that they received permission to do the jump a bit early to miss some rain coming our way. Everything looked like rain behind that, so there was to be no waiting around to be done. Like typical skydivers, we screwed around instead of hustling, so guess what happened? Me and the last guy out were shaking our heads as we left the airplane. Two seconds into freefall I felt the front of my thighs go from dry to soaked. After opening I had to lift my goggles up to look for the other jumpers. Everything went fine after that except I was the only person to not slip on the grass. It was still raining on us as we put our gear in the cars. My reserve is already dry, and I'll repack it sometime this week. I noted that there is a big difference in a rig that has been ScotchGuarded and one that has not. One of the jumpers borrowed a rig with an American Flag graphic. You know what they say about loaning gear! Oh well, we have enough riggers around. Not a big deal. I was laughing to myself all the way to the DZ, where we spread out the gear to dry. Funny thing is, this is not the wettest I have ever gotten on an exhibition jump. It's just the wettest in about 10 years. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JohnRich 4 #2 July 6, 2009 We had another good one from Skydive Houston into the local Waller High School football stadium where they were holding a "freedom festival". Seven experienced jumpers were picked. A plan was formulated, and the landing site was reviewed, with discussion of winds, directions, "outs", smoke, opening altitudes, and so on. The plan was to exit at 13,500', and build an RW round formation. The jumpers were a mix of folks that normally do belly-flying, head-down flying and wing-suit flying. But all have RW experience. The spot was perfect, and we exited, with a 2-way for base. Built the 7-way round quickly. As planned, two jumpers with smoke docked on opposite sides of the round. Then we spun the round to make a barber-pole effect with the trailing smoke. We broke-off and opened in stages, to stagger ourselves vertically. This was to assist in making a single-file line-up into the stadium, to avoid traffic congestion in the tight field. All seven landed inside the 40-yard lines, in front of a stage before the bleachers. The last jumper down came in with the American flag. Ground crew was on hand to catch the flag so it didn't touch the ground, and to ensure that wind flags were placed, and spectators kept clear. It couldn't have gone more perfect. It was a small-town demo, and the crowd wasn't very large, but we got some good PR with the mayor and other officials present, as well as the citizens, to see the professionalism and skill of the jumpers. Attached: aerial view of the demo stadium I'll bet there were a bunch of these all over the country as we celebrated our freedom. Instead of hearing about the rare ones that go bad, let's have some more stories of the ones that go good. Great idea, Gary! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
linebckr83 3 #3 July 6, 2009 We had a 2-plane group jump into a party put together by the Kansas Medical Center. All 8 jumps were hop n pops. Staggered openings and single filed landings. A couple of us hit the tarp, while everyone was extremely close to it. All great landings! The last jumper had the big flag (I forgot how big) And once he deployed it a biplane with smoke trailing circled around him 5 or 6 times. At about 1000 ft the national anthem started. Very cool moment. Towards the end, right when he landed, 3 of these biplanes with smoke performed a low fly over. Perfect timing! Definitely the coolest moment I've seen! All around great demo, and the crowd loved it."Are you coming to the party? Oh I'm coming, but I won't be there!" Flying Hellfish #828 Dudist #52 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Rick 67 #4 July 7, 2009 6 of us from Z-Hills jumped into Sparlkebration the Pasco County 4th of July festival. I do not know how many years this has been going on but this is my 3rd time jumping in there. We had great ground support, wind indicators and a good size landing area. I got to jump the flag this time Bill had streamers and everyone had nice stand up landings. We had some weather issues early in the day but it cleared up for the jump. Looking forward to next year. You can't be drunk all day if you don't start early! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skypuppy 1 #5 July 7, 2009 There's about 5 shots of the skyhawks from an airshow in Canada this weekend. Looks like they put on a good show. http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2009/07/06/10038831.htmlIf some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JohnRich 4 #6 July 8, 2009 Local news story and photo of the Skydive Houston demo jump in Waller, Texas. http://www.hcnonline.com/articles/2009/07/08/waller_county_news_citizen/news/fourth070909.txt Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
