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You got that right. I'm telling you only a complete idiot would spend a Million Bucks on a Cessna Caravan when Twin Beeches are just 30 Grand. I mean just look around, 98% of major DZ's fly Twin Beeches. Caravans are just rich kids toys and didn't that one in Georgia crash? Never gonna happen.

This Memorial Day weekend we honor our friend, Steve Kalvelage, who left us too soon last fall. Summarizing several tributes written after his passing: he was a great skydiving instructor partnering with Rich Sentner in the student instruction program at Pepperell, MA, jump pilot and air traffic controller, and by all accounts an excellent soldier, serving with the 10th, 11th, and 20th Special Forces Groups. Selected as the A/1/11th Soldier of the Year in 1980, his numerous deployments included Europe, Central and South America, and Afghanistan. Retiring after thirty years of service, he subsequently served as an NRA instructor in NH and FL, and worked for many years at Natick Labs for the DOD designing cold weather gear and parachutes for the U.S. Army. His many civilian-acquired skills as a skydiver, pilot, and air traffic controller made him one of the more knowledgeable members of the special forces community in the field of air operations. He adored his wife Alison, and was an incredible friend to so many others. We miss you Steve. Thank you for your service. Steve preparing a rubber boat for a C-130 water parachute drop off Steve, 4th from left, was a member of ODA-114, A/1/11th for many years. This photo was taken during a Flintlock mission in Europe in the late 1970s.

Ding ding! And we all enable it every time we reply to him.

That it's fiction?

By the way, these ladies do a great job explaining what I've seen happening too many times. I must admit I didn't always recognise it before I watched their talk.

Ed Vickery, the man who developed the Paracommander and was the first to land a ram air canopy spoke at our 2014 Bidwell reunion, as did Mike Todd. That's going to be a tough afternoon to beat with upcoming reunions. http://www.mywvhome.com/more/reunion2.html

Hey .. William Newell was my grandfather. His medals etc. are in Hendon Air Museum ... and "somewhere" I too have a magazine article and newspaper cuttings of his exploits and that of my grandmother who used to leap from balloons.

Hello. William Newell was my grandfather :)

Calthrop's fine parachute was NOT the first parachute. Calthrop banked 100 + years of previous parachute designs into this "Gauardian" contender. Brit. Clathrop's "Gaudarian" S/L parachute was one of the best low-speed rigs. Worked well. Enjoyed much Press and PR. Well favored by British Military, Decrepit horse Calvary sleepy sloth inerita was Supplanted by the high speed USA Type 'A' freefall rig. Leo Valentin's book "BIRDMAN" is available in English. 5-Stars. M. Valentin methods for freefall were adopted as the Training Syllabus / manual by France for Govt. Parachuting Schools in 1947.... That is the class J, Istel and R. Young carried back to the USA; we teach much of it yet today... Sorta (No PLFs, more-better info.... Basic ARCH-LOOK-PULL-Thousand...Yadda.). Book, en Francais: Borge & Viasonoff gifted me "Le Parachute" in '97. Excellent photos. Sparse words. Mystery: who is Pere Robert? : Not frères Robert! -Je demande, qui est-il ? Où est-ce qu'il a fait sauter ? Décrire ce qu'il a sauté ? (Translation: WTF??) Jumped spring-sprung canopy, tractor Tire Huge fugger Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

All posts from this guy are frauds. This Zing is a figment of imagination. The real Zing cleaned up and became despectable I will accept PMs not Bms if this fakir cares to respond off forum.

Thanks for the additional history. I hadn't really found much detail,even after reading through the pages of patents Peter posted. Calthrop appears to have had a wide range of interests that he dabbled in. Interesting stuff from the days of yesteryear. Zing Lurks

I found this on one of the news wires during my morning perusal of the news from around the world. I don't think I'd ever heard, or read, of this fellow, but apparently he does/did hold a patent in Britain and Canada for some type of aerial device ... I just couldn't find what the actual patent was for. Nonetheless, its an interesting story from an historical perspective. Anybody else know anything about this man? Town to honour parachute inventor By Edmund Tobin THE former home of the inventor of the modern parachute is to receive a heritage plaque from Loughton Town Council. Everard Richard Calthrop used to live at Goldings House, in Clay's Lane, Loughton. The house is currently up for sale with the town council keen to approach the future owner for permission to erect the award. Environment and heritage committee chairman Chris Pond said: "He did a lot of things. He was an engineer who built light railways in India but he's most remembered for inventing the parachute. He saved many lives and is a very worthy person for this plaque." 11:01am Tuesday 10th July 2007 I found this listed under stories from a newspaper listed as "your Local Guardian." Zing Lurks