What is this canopy? #9

[howardwhite 6]

These are screen grabs from a wonderful movie which I've just had digitized and am cleaning up for distribution.
I know who made the canopy, and about when, and I think I know what it is (or was to become) but there are some details I hadn't seen before.

HW

[jonstark 8]

It's kinda Hornet lookin' but I can't tell whether the bottom skin goes all the way back or just part way like the Hornet did. It also has what looks like a frap wrap which I don't remember the Hornet having. Maybe it is the earliest iteration of the idea?

BTW... Bill Coe tried for a long time to build a single surface canopy that had better performance than the Hornet. We were in the midst of the "wing wars" and everybody was trying to fall slower so a very light and tiny rig was desirable. Some rigs were relatively microscopic (compared to a Strato-Cloud/navy conical rig). Bill was convinced he could come up with something but had to concentrate on more marketable canopies to feed himself.

jon

[ryoder 1,590]

Volplane?

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[zoobrothertom 5]

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Volplane?

--------------------------------------------
Damn! I couldn't remember the word. Is it a Volpland?

____________________________________
I'm back in the USA!!

[darkwing 5]

I think Volplane too.

See images: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/70/178069886_f2fc15b8d2.jpg?v=0

and

http://www.pionnair-ge.com/spip1/IMG/jpg/Bohn-A-1970-09-22-Volplane.jpg

-- Jeff
My Skydiving History

[airtwardo 7]

Quote

I think Volplane too.

See images: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/70/178069886_f2fc15b8d2.jpg?v=0

and

http://www.pionnair-ge.com/spip1/IMG/jpg/Bohn-A-1970-09-22-Volplane.jpg

Don't think so...the Volplane had side stablizer pannels on the two end cells.

Looks like a ParaSled to me...3 line groups instead of 4.

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[howardwhite 6]

Here are another couple of grabs from the same movie.
I'm not suggesting they're the same canopy.
So, since people are homing in on this one, when was the movie made?

HW

[JerryBaumchen 1,450]

Hi ryoder,

Well I'm not ringing any bells just yet; but I think you have it.

Pioneer's problem was they were trying just about anything to get around Snyder's patent. That is why they built these semi-double surface canopies.

They finally settled on a Cloud copy that had the bottom skin ending about 6" before it would get to the tail. I forget the name of it but it was the canopy that Chuck Embury was marketing a lot.

JerryBaumchen

[ryoder 1,590]

Quote

Pioneer's problem was they were trying just about anything to get around Snyder's patent. That is why they built these semi-double surface canopies.

They finally settled on a Cloud copy that had the bottom skin ending about 6" before it would get to the tail. I forget the name of it but it was the canopy that Chuck Embury was marketing a lot.

You are referring to the Viking. And who can forget their blatant advertising slogan: "Flies like a cloud; Looks like a cloud on the horizon.". (Note that "cloud" was spelled in all lower-case.)

I think the 5-cell Kestral they were selling at the same time may also have had the narrow single-surface strip along the tail.

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[ryoder 1,590]

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Don't think so...the Volplane had side stabilizer panels on the two end cells.

Looks like a ParaSled to me...3 line groups instead of 4.

The Para-Sled had 5 cells, not 7;
It was fully double-surface, like modern canopies;
It had that odd flat-rigging with lines getting progressively longer toward the ends, so the wing was flat when viewed from front or back.
It had a split tail.
It used rings & ropes on top.

I don't see any of that in these pics.

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[PeteS 0]

i say .....Bumblebee!

[jimmytavino 16]

Quote

Here are another couple of grabs from the same movie.
I'm not suggesting they're the same canopy.
So, since people are homing in on this one, when was the movie made?

HW

sky capers???

made in the mid to late 60's ???

Boenish?



.......edited to retract this guess,
since the ram-airs
may not have even been included in Sky Capers..footage...

(were sport jumpers using such canopies??? say in 1967 or 1968,??? it always seemed to me, that the early 70's were the start of the era of the square. Many Many jumpers were using P C's right through the 70's as the squares came on... and it took the next decade as well, but by the end of the 80's the the change had been made )





jmy

[howardwhite 6]

And here are two more grabs from the same movie, of yet another canopy.
Also a couple of pictures of what I guess is approximately that same canopy, but possibly taken earlier. I don't know the dates on the canopy shots in the movie.

HW

[Faicon9493 141]

Quote

Quote

Pioneer's problem was they were trying just about anything to get around Snyder's patent. That is why they built these semi-double surface canopies.

They finally settled on a Cloud copy that had the bottom skin ending about 6" before it would get to the tail. I forget the name of it but it was the canopy that Chuck Embury was marketing a lot.

You are referring to the Viking. And who can forget their blatant advertising slogan: "Flies like a cloud; Looks like a cloud on the horizon.". (Note that "cloud" was spelled in all lower-case.)

I think the 5-cell Kestral they were selling at the same time may also have had the narrow single-surface strip along the tail.

I remember the Viking canopy. It was the first ram air canopy that I bought after getting off student status many years ago.

[howardwhite 6]

OK, to put this one to bed....
The shots are from a movie called "Another World," made for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) TV at Orange, MA in (I think) 1968 (it could have been early 1969).
It's beautifully done. Follows students through their first jump course, shows the Golden Knights doing a demo, and includes a longish segment on test jumping (from which these grabs were taken.) This segment features Max Knor, who defected from the Yugoslavian team at the '62 world meet and was a Pioneer engineer at the time. He's sitting with a blanket over his legs during the interview; as it turns out, he had broken both of them on a test jump.
The first shots were certainly what became the Volplane, though as noted, the Volplane as shipped did not have a wrap -- it had the hydraulic reefing system. Jim Reuter, then chief engineer at Pioneer, had developed the "Reuter wrap" for round reserves, and (I'm guessing) someone thought it might be a good idea for the Volplane.
I'm not sure what the red and white square is -- doesn't look like the Volplane. And the triangle thing was Pioneer's take on the Rogallo wing.
The movie itself is lots of fun; I showed it at the DZ over the weekend and people gasped at the canopies and the landings. The freefall video was done by Grant Perry (a Canadian skydiver) and is quite good; some of the airplane to airplane stuff of student exits is great.
When I figure out the copyright and other things, I hope to be able to offer it for sale to benefit the National Skydiving Museum.

HW

[piper17 1]

Howard,

Is this the movie that has Dave Churchill looking back over his shoulder saying "Outta Sight" or some such as the end? If so, I vaguely remember seeing that movie at Orange sometime in the mid-70s (which is why my recollection is "vague")

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

[howardwhite 6]

That is indeed the movie.
In the closing credits, Dave is prominently listed as "Supplier."
It was the late 60s. One can only speculate what he might have supplied.
It would be fun to have access to Pioneer's archives of test jump movies. Got any in your stash?

HW

[piper17 1]

No, I left with a number of rigs (four, as I remember) and fond memories of world travel and a lot of jumps but no movies.

Jim Reuter still works part-time at Pioneer so you might want to contact him if you have anything specific in mind.

Dave Churchill was an undertaker (as well as a supplier) when I first met him. Maybe the film makers didn't think that occupation was appropriate for a skydiving film.

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

[howardwhite 6]

Here's the Churchill credit.
I don't really need to talk with Jim Reuter, though come to think of it, I wonder if he'd sit through a video interview for eventual inclusion in the Skydiving Museum collection. I was just curious/dubious about the value of a wrap as an OSI for a square. (But I'm also dubious about the hydraulic reefing system, and I own one.)
At a very quick pass, the only 1968-vintage Golden Knight I recognize by name is Ray Duffy; it would be nice to get IDs on the rest of the team shown in the movie.

HW