Lake City, Florida - Allen Tuggle -- Press Clips

[quade 4]

http://www.lakecityreporter.com/articles/2004/03/07/sports/top_story/sports01.txt

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Man of 1,000 jumps
By MARIO SARMENTO msarmento@lakecityreporter.com

When you've made as many jumps as Lake City's Allen Tuggle has, you know a thing or two about the myths surrounding the sport of skydiving.

"A lot of people think that skydivers are extreme risk-takers," he said. "They think that skydivers try to cheat death and that sort of thing. Skydiving, it is an adrenaline sport, but it's also a sport that requires practice and precision to be good at it."

Contrary to popular belief (fueled by movies and television), parachutes do not fail the first time a skydiver pulls on the rip cord.

"If that were true, skydiving would be a far less popular sport," Tuggle joked. In fact, Tuggle, who says he has made more than 1,200 jumps over the course of his life, can count only two times when his primary chute did not open properly.

"One time, there was an equipment error, we had hooked the parachute up backwards so when we opened it up, it was flying the opposite way," Tuggle said. "I could have landed. It was fully opened. I chose to cut it away." In that situation, Tuggle said his life was not in danger. But the second time his primary chute didn't open, Tuggle did come a step closer to death.

"The last reserve parachute was under a chute that would not have saved my life," he said. "It was an entanglement. It did not open up, just one end of it actually opened. So I cut that one away. So really, only one time to save my life."

By the same token, Tuggle knows others who have made more jumps than he has who have never had to use the reserve parachute.

Tuggle said his skydiving experience began on a lark, when he was dared by a brother-in-law 24 years ago to jump out of an airplane. The brother-in-law didn't continue jumping, but by 1983 Tuggle was jumping regularly.

"It just was overwhelming, but there was a good bit of fear in the first few jumps, the first five, six or eight jumps, didn't know whether or not I was going to live through it," Tuggle said. One would think that Tuggle would have quit right there, but for him, the excitement of jumping overcame his fear, and that led him to continue.

"Once you get a certain number of jumps, you realize, yes the airplane's going to get down, the parachute is going to open properly, and you're going to live through it," he said. "So the fear goes away, and the enjoyment continues to build."

And as the years have passed, Tuggle has witnessed fantastic technological advancements in his sport, making it even safer than when he first began.

"The parachutes that we use now are much like a wing on an airplane," he said. "They're not the old, round style of parachutes. They actually develop lift as they fly. They have a forward speed of about 30-35 miles per hour, and they also land without crashing us to the ground. We can actually tip-toe onto the ground."

This change in parachute style has led to changes in footwear. Whereas Tuggle started out at a time when skydivers only wore "Army-issued jump boots", he said it's now common to see divers wearing "flip-flops" or sometimes even going barefoot.

The reserve parachute, which was once strapped onto a diver's belly, is now housed in a separate compartment in the same backpack the primary chute is located in.

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Like all beginners, Tuggle started out in a training course in the morning, and by the afternoon he made his first jump. After that, he made a series of practice jumps that culminated in him no longer having to use a "static line", which is a line that is attached to an airplane that automatically opens your chute when you are disconnected. Tuggle progressed to the point where he could rely on himself to open the chute, using an altimeter attached to his chest strap that signals him when it is time to pull his rip cord.

In the early days (before he had children), Tuggle would go skydiving every weekend. He said he once competed in four-way skydiving team competitions where "people tried to build as many predetermined formations in the air given a certain amount of time." He also took part in accuracy competitions, where divers would try to land as close as possible to a particular spot on the ground.

Tuggle also helped train newcomers by doing tandem jumps with them, in which an experienced diver like Tuggle would be attached by a harness to the inexperienced diver. Tuggle would take care of opening the chute for both of them, while the other skydiver just relaxed and enjoyed the freefall.

Today Tuggle, his good friend Jay Vass and two other skydivers from Tallahassee form the Grounds the Limit team, which competes in exhibitions and will be performing in the skydiving portion of the Lake City Air Show on May 8 and 9.

The group's name comes from what Tuggle says is the true limit for skydivers, the ground. "When you're in the air, you're not really restricted," Tuggle said. "You have a time constriction, but nothing else. You are free."

Tuggle has dove before events such as high school football games, where he has delivered the game ball to referees before kickoff. But he said his most nerve-racking jump came prior to a swim meet when he and Vass jumped onto the deck next to the pool.

"That was a challenge because the landing zone was very small, over the top of a chain-link fence," he said.

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Tuggle has jumped from as high as 20,000 feet, and he estimates that freefall at a jump from 12,000 feet to the ground takes 60 seconds.

Despite the relative safety of his sport, skydiving is still a sport, which means injuries do occur. Tuggle said he's seen a few of them result when thrill-seeking skydivers use the gliding ability of the chutes to try to make hard turns before they hit the ground.

"If you don't come out of that turn in time, it's just going to drive you," Tuggle said. "I mean, you're landing at 60 miles an hour, so you have to flatten out and get out of the dive. That timing is critical."

Other injuries occur when divers collide while they're in freefall.

Tuggle's worst injury came when he tried to grab a canopy at 10,000 feet, which resulted in a tear in his bicep muscle.

"I reached over and grabbed the nose of a canopy that was coming to me, and it continued to go behind me, and I reached for it and it just tore it all off," he said.

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Tuggle said his wife Liz understands his love for the sport and even attempted a tandem jump a few years back.

"She said that was plenty," he said. "She didn't need to go back."

Now, with his eighteen-year-old daughter Whitney at the age when she can skydive, and with a 14-year old son named Eli who's very interested, Tuggle can see the day when he'll attempt a dive with his children.

"Yes, I would definitely go on the jump with them," he said. "And I definitely believe they will make that jump."

Nowadays, besides being the owner of N&W Drycleaners, which Tuggle has been since 1978, his passion for skydiving has manifested itself into a love of flying. Tuggle owns a plane, and he said his son is already "an excellent pilot."

Tuggle said that time has diminished some of his love of skydiving, but he'll still find opportunities to take part in the sport that has dominated so much of his free time.

"It is a sport that does something that none of these other sports do," he said. "It is more of an adrenaline rush sport. So I think skydiving probably has been the most interesting sport that I've been involved in."

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[n2skdvn 0]

ill have to try and get ahold of him when i go to see my mom this weekend.(I grew up in lake city)hope she got that issue if not ill have my mom get one.

if my calculations are correct SLINKY + ESCULATOR = EVERLASTING FUN
my site

[crutch 0]

Hey, I use to be partners with those guys. I will have to give them a call.

blue skies,

art