skypuppy

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Everything posted by skypuppy

  1. Ancient jump stories flooding into memory ... Including that time when ... but no, I probably shouldn't mention that one in public. __________________________________________________ Ah come on, Skratch - we're not the public. This is all just a group of friends, here.... 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
  2. Jumping a demo into my buddy's buddy's back yard, never been there before but looked it over from the air... Back yard a bit tight but doable, county forest across the road with 80' high pine trees, houses all around... Made the mistake of letting a kid pack my 145 elliptical parachute before this jump while I relaxed and told war stories (the kid told me he knew how to do it)... Open up over the county forest to a spinning canopy - look up and notice the left steering line comes down from the tail AROUND THE LINE GROUPS and then to the riser... Not a situation that made me happy. I'm fairly low now and I really don't want to chop and ride my SAC into those trees... Managed to hold the canopy straight using opposite toggle, but to turn right I had to let UP on the toggle and turn 270 left, instead of 90 right... Looked around - buddy's back yard is out of the question, 5 or 6 houses down are two homes which seem to have adjoining back yards - set up and she;s down out of the way... One of the owner's comes to his back patio door in his bathrobe - I guess I interrupted a little afternoon delight... Asks "are you ok?" I nod a skip out fast down to buddy's for a beer... Everyone was wondering where I landed and why I didn't put it to the back yard like Frog who landed 1/2 way up a 20' spruce tree - 'Well, I just like to be safe' I said. 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
  3. where I decided I would land once realizing that I wasn't getting any penetration), where I landed. Speaking about penetration, a few years back my buddy was in the plane with this girl and followed her out when she jumped (this was in the years of round parachutes)... They landed way way out... My buddy walks over to the girl and she's sitting on the ground bawling her eyes, so he sits down beside her and starts comforting her... Tit leads to tat and buddy comes down with the worst case of poison ivy you ever seen - his member was the size of a salami... The girl was a little itchy too. 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
  4. Actually I don't know about Parachutist but there was one in the last Skydiving, and it was by Chuteless... 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
  5. A quick glance through the listing shows a skiing movie by someone named Shane McConkey??? Anything worth checking out in this movie??? This is usually an awesome collection of movies to watch... 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
  6. Except, in Toronto people go to bed with their front doors unlocked, and in Chicago people have multiple dead-bolts and have guns. Toronto largely doesn't worry about violence, Chicago does. __________________________________________________ As I said before, that's bullshit. I've lived within a couple of hours of Toronto for over 40 years, and I would never go to bed without checking that the door is locked. I don't remember a time, even in the 60's, when we wouldn't lock the doors... Moore staged that part of the film... 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
  7. Oh, that, and I put my bum on Tom Green). Better that than a dead raccoon, I guess... "We'll always have...." 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
  8. In fact, I'm not all about banning guns... we have guns here in Canada too.... We just don't shoot eachother nearly as much as you guys do. __________________________________________________ Interestingly enough, in the last week or so we had a father shot watching his tv with his 9 year old son in his own home by a bullet which came through the wall of his house from a block away.... And a 15 year old climbed out of his shower moments before a bullet ripped through the side of the house and into the shower stall, again from down the street... All this in country where handguns have been strictly registered and regulated since the 1930's... Note to self - CRIMINALS DON'T CARE ABOUT GUN LAWS!!! 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
  9. Not everyone in the world is as lucky as you are to live in a crime-free area. Don't judge the rest of the world based upon your own little microcosm. Huh? I thought that's what I said... 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
  10. Funny, I've spent 44 years within a couple of hours of Toronto and I can't remember not locking the door before going to bed ever... (unless I was drunk and got home late, and then I usually left it wide open)... 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
  11. I seem to remember falling out the side door of a van in a cloud of smoke after hearing a 20 minute call..... 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
  12. Actually that's Harry Ward... He had a suit made and started using it after hearing about Sohn's suit... He's probably using an Irvin parachute... He wrote a book (with Peter Hearn) called 'The Yorkshire Birdman'. He only made a few jumps on it before giving it up... Here's another pic of Reichelt before his jump... I have another but I have to dumb it down.... 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
  13. Sohn was one of the first, probably the most popular and relatively successful until his parachute caught on one of the wings, but their was at least one earlier... Franz Reichelt jumped from the lower level of the Eiffel Tower in 1912 using a suit made from metal and fabric, which was actually supposed to slow him down enough to land it... It didn't work... There were several others in the 30's, most took the 40's off due to WWII and then batwings came back in the 50's quite strongly.... It was said that jumping batwings was real dangerous, however it is my opinion that while jumping batwings was perhaps more dangerous than regular jumping in those days, regular jumping was still pretty dangerous... Remember, many jumpers didn't use altimeters and often didn't have reserves... Many would regularly open below a grand... A hesitation or low pull would kill you whether you wore batwings or not... 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
  14. skypuppy

    Experience

    I agree - someone with 500 jumps from a span and someone with 200 jumps from different objects would be much closer, but I might still give the edge to the 500-jump wonder... It depends on what he did on those 500 jumps tho', and what you want to learn from him... He might not be able to you any pointers on gaining access without being seen... 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
  15. Canopies aren't responsive until they're pressurized anyway. I don't believe this is always true - it would depend on among other things how you packed and for what altitude (or object)... In my opinion, a canopy will certainly still fly (or spin) backwards if you pull down 2 (or 1) toggle during deployment but before pressurization, especially on slider up jumps, which may be important in the case of high E jumps? If you're talking strictly slider down, I still don't believe you need full pressurization to turn a canopy, it just won't start flying forward as efficiently until it is... Just my belief... 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
  16. It's funny, I didn't start jumping for any reason, just worked all summer and then saw a poster at university advertising the course and figured I might as well do one, as I figured I hadn't really had a vacation all summer... I didn't know anything about skydiving at the time - in fact I'd seen 'Moonraker' earlier that summer and said to myself, 'man that;s all just impossible, you can't really do that...' Just planned on doing one, really, but during the course the instructor started saying how you could go on from static-line to freefall, so I thought maybe that would be neat... 8 jumps later there I was... After the first freefall I thought, ' you know, it would be sort of neat to do it right...' and 2 or 3 jumps later after being driven back from a bad spot (we were using rounds back then) my original first jump jumpmaster looked at me and said "Well, you might as well drop out of school now, you know you're going to sometime...' Couple of months later I bought his rig when he upgraded... As for BASE jumping, I had over 1000 jumps, was an instructor, PFF instructor, Rigger, CRW competitor and I really thought BASE was more about parachutes than about me - I mean it was about figuring out how to use the parachute to conquer the object, all I had to do was start it on its way... Like Carl said - 'The whole world's jumpable...' I know what he meant... 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
  17. Yeah and there are other times when you might not want to tell either... Yeah well like if you're going out to the bars and picking up chicks, then taking then over to the nearest 10-story building to show em how you can jump off with your skydiving rig, it's probably not good to tell your family... Or if you're hearing about bridges and then going to jump em without looking over the edge to actually see if they're more than 100 ' high, it's probably not a good idea to tell em'... Or if you like doing things to small animals - oh, well, that's another subject I guess..... 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
  18. A long time ago I was going to a seminar at a certain hotel in the big city and I thought it would be a great excuse to take my rig along and make a jump after the business meeting/dinner... I jumped incidently, in a suit and tie... I didn't really think too much of it so when I was talking to my mum I told her I was going to be at this meeting and I was taking my rig... It was only after I'd done the jump and been back a couple of days that I found out she had not been able to sleep the night I was there for worrying about me... After that I decided not to tell her when I was going to do a jump... In fact when I broke my hip I was able to hide it from the family for about 4-6 weeks, but eventually someone let it slip and then I was in trouble again... Sometimes you can't win... 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
  19. I did it once from a Cessna at 500' with Maverick in my pullout equipped Innovator rig (slider-up, in a bag) After about a 2sec delay I missed my handle the first time I reached!!! The ground was getting big by the time it opened... This was at a party. We were supposed to be getting out at 900' but we forgot the party was about 400 higher than the dz... Noticed we looked pretty low, but figured at 900' it would look low anyway.... After we went up to the owner and said, 'At a dollar per thousand feet - ok here's your 50 cents...' 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
  20. Hi Jim Just sent you a personal message... You know, most of these stunts can be done quite safely, many of the original jumps from airplanes were pull-offs, and guys like Cliff Winters were doing them from below 100' regularly at air shows... Done by professionals, there's no reason that jumps like these can't be performed safely, and sometimes they still are 'as movie stunts, etc.'... If they can be done safely for a movie, they can be done safely as an exhibition... It's only because USPA and FAA (and CSPA in Canada) decided to set up some arbitrary rules that it became 'not kosher' to do these. 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
  21. Here's what we used... Not sure if I liked it or not, but I drank it! For 50 liter batch 1 Liter Dark Malt 4.5 Liter Pale Malt 650 milligram Roasted Barley 250 mg. pale malted barley 225 mg crystal malt barley 1 kg. buckwheat honey 1 kg brown sugar 20 grams cloves 75 grams cinnamon lemon peel from 4 lemons orange peel from 4 oranges Bittering hops - 56g Willamette Aromatic hops 70 g Cascade 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
  22. Actually jumping from balloons this way could be quite inexpensive... Mnay of the early exhibition parachutists from the times before airplanes (and long after airplanes arrived on the scene) were so-called smoke jumpers - they used hot-air (smoke) filled balloons to ascend and then parachute down from them, usually static-line type jumps... This went on pretty much since the Civil War until the last official smoke jumper retired in the 1960's... Basically involved digging a pit, lighting a fire with some smoky fuel (often damp hay), so the smoke ran through a pipe to the open end of the balloon, which was initially suspended between two tall poles over the end of the pipe. Usually used a trapeze bar instead of a basket to save weight. When the balloon had enough hot air in it the jumper sat on the bar and the balloon was released... Typical smoke jumpers might drop off at a thousand feet or higher. Usually a weight was attached to the apex of the balloon so that when the jumper let go the apex dropped below the balloons skirt, letting the hot air out in a huge belch of black smoke, which added to the show. It also meant the balloon was closer and easier to recover... This way you could do it as a one man operation. Probably the biggest drawback to doing things this way was trying to get enough altitude to be sanctioned by USPA (or CSPA) - the original smoke jumpers would routinely go from around a grand, probably... Ataching picture of balloon at Calgary Exhibition in 1906 and jumper at Montreal in 1910. 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
  23. Can anyone explain in real simple terms ('cause I'm not very bright) how to make my links clicky? Your help would be appreciated... 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
  24. So where did 'Blue Skies, Red Eyes' come from??? 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
  25. Hmmmm...... Maybe my girlfriend's first jump (AFF). Then my other girlfriend/s first jump (AFF). Then my sister;s first jump (AFF)... But some of the most memorable are when you get caught short on altitude and everyone has to be right on their game to get it together. Like jumping into Billy-Bob's wedding one day and put a four-stack together from about 2200'... Or a successful 10-way hoop dive from 8000' due to low clouds... 12-way 'danger-dive' from 7-5 when the only thing you had to do to get on the dive wasn't to be any good, it was just to have jumped at our home dz... The key was just to put everyone in the right slot... Then there's the jumps in borrowed gear where someone landed on your back and at pull time you can't find the handle... Then as you're looking at your reserve ripcord in your hand, you can see your wearing a belly-band throwout.... (It had only been packed for an hour) 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