Hall of Fame?

[racerman 0]

I'm not really sure why Capt. Kittinger has been nominated as an inductee to the Skydiving Hall of Fame. Can someone tell me of his contribution to SPORT PARACHUTING? To include him and ignore real contributors ie. Booth, Sherman, Jalbert or Snyder to name a few doesn't make sense

[mwabd1 0]

I was thinking the same thing when I read article in Parachutist.


I in no way want to take away from his accomplishments or ignore the fact that he still holds records for the highest and longest freefall.

.......I hereby reject your reality and instead choose to insert my own!

[chuckakers 426]

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I'm not really sure why Capt. Kittinger has been nominated as an inductee to the Skydiving Hall of Fame. Can someone tell me of his contribution to SPORT PARACHUTING? To include him and ignore real contributors ie. Booth, Sherman, Jalbert or Snyder to name a few doesn't make sense

Joe's jump might have been a military operation, but it was also the world's highest, fastest, and longest skydive in history, and one helluva balls-out jump!

Joe's skydiving records have stood for 50 years. You wanna hold that guy out of the Hall of Fame??

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[Jim_Hooper 4]

[racerman 0]

YES I DO !!! When there are many more individuals deserving of the honor. Every time you put on a rig, regardless of the manufacture, what kind of canopy release does it have? Is the container a single, hot knifed piece? Is your canopy a ram air? You can thank Booth, Sherman, Jalbert, and Snyder for those innovations. They have contributed more to SPORT PARACHUTING than a single high altitude test jump!

[riggerrob 643]

Sure!
But it will take USPA a while to get around to honoring Asquito, Booth, Buchmann (sp?), Chevrier, Cloth, Jalbert, LeMoigne, Loney, Quilter, Reid, Sherman, Snyder, Strong, etc.

[racerman 0]

The point I'm trying to make is his accomplisment had nothing to do with SKYDIVING!!! This is for the SKYDIVING HALL OF FAME not the Aviation Hall of Fame. If by the sole fact he made a high parachute jump than why not proceed his nomination with Art Starnes who did more for SKYDIVING than Kittinger!

[chuckakers 426]

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The point I'm trying to make is his accomplisment had nothing to do with SKYDIVING!!!

Maybe you missed the part where the K-man SKYDIVED from more than 102,000 feet. Other than THAT, you're right. His jump had NOTHING to do with skydiving. Nope - nothing at all.

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[mccurley 1]

While I admire the man for what he did, it was after all a scientific endevour.
I think to call it a skydive is not totally correct.

Skydiving is a sport and a recreational activity.
His jump was an exploration, mostly of equipment, and how to protect human bodies from extreme environments.

I do believe Booth, Snyder and others are far more deserving.
Of course if they are trying to garner public intrest and PR points Kittenger is by far the more recognizable to the general public and therefore more valuable!

Watch my video Fat Women
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRWkEky8GoI

[chuckakers 426]

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While I admire the man for what he did, it was after all a scientific endevour.
I think to call it a skydive is not totally correct.

Skydiving is a sport and a recreational activity.
His jump was an exploration, mostly of equipment, and how to protect human bodies from extreme environments.

Skydiving is a sport, but freefall jumps done for reasons other than sport are also skydives. It doesn't matter WHY Joe was up there, he was certainly skydiving.

What exactly do you want to call a jump from an aircraft in which the participant performs a freefall delay before manually deploying a parachute? Sure sounds like a skydive to me.

From the dictionary....

sky·dive [ sk dv ] (past sky·dived or sky·dove, past participle sky·dived or sky·dove [ sk dv ], present participle sky·div·ing, 3rd person present singular sky·dives)

Definition:

jump from airplane with parachute: to jump from an airplane and descend in free fall, sometimes performing acrobatic maneuvers, before pulling the ripcord of a parachute

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[mccurley 1]

As he used a droge for stability I'd call it falling.

Watch my video Fat Women
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRWkEky8GoI

[racerman 0]

The only reason he is included in a SPORT/SKYDIVING Hall of Fame is pure exposure plain and simple. To survive is qualification? As I said earlier why not Art Starnes?

[chuckakers 426]

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As he used a droge for stability I'd call it falling.

Actually he deployed the drogue from FREEFALL!!!!! If you leave an aircraft and freefall before deplying whatever it is you deploy, you have performed a SKYDIVE. You can say everything AFTER the deployment of the drogue was "droguefall", but I still contend that everything BEFORE that (which was more than the few seconds typical for a tandem) was a skydive.

Look, I get that this was a military operation for a specific purpose, but the fact that Joe jumped without the assistance of a static line makes his record-breaking jump a skydive, plain and simple.

What do you want to do, have a hall of fame that DOESN"T recognize the longest, highest, and fastest skydive IN HISTORY and the man who did it???

Splittin' hairs on verbage, aren't we???

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[mccurley 1]

No.
As per the OP and what I said before.
There are other people who are more deserving.
This is not to detract from his achievment.
More to the point that others have done so much more for the sport, and the people involved in the sport.

Watch my video Fat Women
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRWkEky8GoI

[chuckakers 426]

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No.
As per the OP and what I said before.
There are other people who are more deserving.
This is not to detract from his achievment.
More to the point that others have done so much more for the sport, and the people involved in the sport.

There's not really a "more deserving" to it. The museum can induct as many people as they want. Why not Joe for his contribution to SKYDIVING?

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[WGore 0]

I believe the drogue was static line deployed not manually deployed. I have a picture on my office wall showing Kittinger stepping out of the gondola and there is a line of some sort from the gondola to a pack on his butt below the parachute.
While it was an extremely gutzy jump it doesn't do anything that I can think of for Skydiving in general.

GUNFIRE, The sound of Freedom!

[chuckakers 426]

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I believe the drogue was static line deployed not manually deployed. I have a picture on my office wall showing Kittinger stepping out of the gondola and there is a line of some sort from the gondola to a pack on his butt below the parachute.
While it was an extremely gutzy jump it doesn't do anything that I can think of for Skydiving in general.

I don't think so. If memory serves me correctly, one of the dangers Joe encountered was when he "deployed the drogue too soon" and it wrapped around his neck because there wasn't enough air density to inflate it and pull it away from him. Then he started getting into some air with density and almost didn't get it off. I could be wrong, but I could swear I remember that.

As for his contribution to skydiving, that jump itself does nothing but set a record. However, Joe was a test jumper and, in my opinion, any parachute R&D activity is good for the sport. The technologies developed on one end of the industry often end up benfitting the other end.

I actually agree with others here that Joe probably should be in line behind a lot of skydiving greats. Hell, I haven't even heard anyone mention Tom Piras, Roger Nelson, or Ken Coleman and friends. They all certainly made significant contributions to skydiving, and they all actually jumped more than once in a while.

However from a purely historical perspective, the dude with the highest jump kinda needs to be in there, don't ya think?

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[RogerRamjet 0]

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Sure!
But it will take USPA a while to get around to honoring Asquito, Booth, Buchmann (sp?), Chevrier, Cloth, Jalbert, LeMoigne, Loney, Quilter, Reid, Sherman, Snyder, Strong, etc.

Your spelling for Buchmann is correct though I can't figure what he contributed that would be worthy of the hall of fame...

-----------------------
Roger "Ramjet" Clark
FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

[howardwhite 6]

For the record, USPA had nothing to do with the selections. Though the Museum office is currently located in USPA HQ and the Museum site is next door, they are separate entities.

HW

[NickDG 23]

>>Asquito
If you mean Hank, it's Asciutto. His full name is Henry Earl Asciutto.

Calling him "Earl" really pisses him off too, LOL!

NickD

[riggerrob 643]

Bill Buchmann is famous for designing the Eagle (see Poynter's Manual, Volume One, page 5.210).

Back in 1974, the Eagle was one of the first sport piggyback containers with a two-pin, through-loops reserve container that set the standard for most of decade.
After Mr. Buchmann sold the rights to Ted Strong, Mr. Strong evolved the Eagle into the Strong Dual Hawk Tandem that we are still using today.

Since the Eagle was designed at the same time, I was never clear on how much Eagle techonology was borrowed/plagarised by Bill Booth to design the Wonderhog.

On a related note, we know that Bill Booth had long telephone conversations with Troy Loney while designing the first Vector. Is it any wonder that the Vector I looks so much like a Centaurus Delta?

With all the plagarism, is it any wonder that so many skydiving containers look so similar, or are we just converging on the perfect design?

[RogerRamjet 0]

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Bill Buchmann is famous for designing the Eagle (see Poynter's Manual, Volume One, page 5.210).

Back in 1974, the Eagle was one of the first sport piggyback containers with a two-pin, through-loops reserve container that set the standard for most of decade.
After Mr. Buchmann sold the rights to Ted Strong, Mr. Strong evolved the Eagle into the Strong Dual Hawk Tandem that we are still using today.

Since the Eagle was designed at the same time, I was never clear on how much Eagle techonology was borrowed/plagarised by Bill Booth to design the Wonderhog.

On a related note, we know that Bill Booth had long telephone conversations with Troy Loney while designing the first Vector. Is it any wonder that the Vector I looks so much like a Centaurus Delta?

With all the plagarism, is it any wonder that so many skydiving containers look so similar, or are we just converging on the perfect design?

I worked for both of them. First Booth in 1974 for the original Wonderhogs (I built the first 100+ units) which had a two pin though loop system. I went to work for Buchmann in 1975 and his reserve container was also closed in the same fashion. Who was first and who copied whom I don't know. I can tell you that I never heard of the Eagle rigs until just before I left Booth's shop in 1975 so if Booth was using ideas from Buchmann, he certainly never said so out loud. Similarly, Buchmann never mentioned anything about the Wonderhog while I was working for him. One thing is for sure, the closure was the only thing they had in common as Booth's system was way more streamlined and relied entirely on plastics (even the ripcord in the early models).

-----------------------
Roger "Ramjet" Clark
FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

[Jim_Hooper 4]

Rog--nice to see someone who was there setting the record straight. Give 'em hell.

Hoop
SCR242, SCS90, NSCR26

[skypuppy 1]

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I believe the drogue was static line deployed not manually deployed. I have a picture on my office wall showing Kittinger stepping out of the gondola and there is a line of some sort from the gondola to a pack on his butt below the parachute.
While it was an extremely gutzy jump it doesn't do anything that I can think of for Skydiving in general.

I don't think so. If memory serves me correctly, one of the dangers Joe encountered was when he "deployed the drogue too soon" and it wrapped around his neck because there wasn't enough air density to inflate it and pull it away from him. Then he started getting into some air with density and almost didn't get it off. I could be wrong, but I could swear I remember that.

As for his contribution to skydiving, that jump itself does nothing but set a record. However, Joe was a test jumper and, in my opinion, any parachute R&D activity is good for the sport. The technologies developed on one end of the industry often end up benfitting the other end.

I actually agree with others here that Joe probably should be in line behind a lot of skydiving greats. Hell, I haven't even heard anyone mention Tom Piras, Roger Nelson, or Ken Coleman and friends. They all certainly made significant contributions to skydiving, and they all actually jumped more than once in a while.

However from a purely historical perspective, the dude with the highest jump kinda needs to be in there, don't ya think?

_______________________________________________
The drogue was actually deployed by a timer ( the main parachute was also deployed via an aad, by the way). The drogue came out early because K started to disconnect to jump and one of the connectors on his oxygen lines was frozen, so he took a few extra seconds to disconnect it before actually leaving, after already having started the timer.

So on his jump he actually did very little other than fall....

If 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

[jackwallace 3]

So what would be the criteria for the "Hall of Fame"?

Personally I think skydiver wise it should be a Hall of Infamy. Low pullers, bandit jumps, whoever invented the IGLOT, criminals (for jump money only), smugglers, thereIwasers.

A hell of a lot more interesting, than, who built what. "Not that there's anything wrong with that."

U only make 2 jumps: the first one for some weird reason and the last one that you lived through. The rest are just filler.
scr 316