TomSpoon

Hey Marc, How you doing up in New York? Asking about sabre openings is a good way to start a controversial thread. Thanks. It gave me a lot of new material for my compilation of "SabreWhack" stories. Go to the gear page and read my review of the sabre that everyone wrote for me. I'm off work now. Not jumping or flying and will probably have double discechtomy as a result of the chronic whiplash I had from jumping sabres years ago.For all you young and invincible jumpers out there who think it's OK to have an opening as violent as a car wreck every hundred jumps or so, Remember, Sooner or later the bills come due. Tom

On Saturday November 11th 1966 Clair Wimer D-1413 , John Corteau D-1271 & Bob McDonnell D-10 did a Santa demo jump at the Thruway Plaza in Cheektowaga NY. The plan was for Santa [Clair Wimer] and his helpers, [ John Corteau & Bob McDonnell] to land their PC’s in the parking lot, than be rushed into the store where the real store Santa (an elderly gent) would take over and make his entrance as if he'd made the jump. Clair, John & Bob would throw the Santa suits and their rigs into some gear bags and sneak out the back. At the time New York State law still made demo jumps illegal. Well, the cops came and thinking he was the jumper, rushed the elderly gent Santa Claus just as he made his entrance. As they tried to arrest him he started swinging his arms , swearing and yelling “Do I look like I’d jump out of a God Damn airplane !?”. All this happened right in front of all the kids. Many who began to cry. The cops went back and arrested Clair & Bob. The story made the news worldwide. The trial was a scream. The defense attorney asked the arresting officer to point out the man he saw descending under canopy in the santa suit. He couldn’t identify either Bob or Clair who were now in their street clothes. They were acquitted.

I've got about 500 jumps on mostly sabre 190s and 170's though Ive also jumped the 135 150 and 210. Ive had many hard openings, Three of which were severe enough to damage the canopy not to mention my body. People argue that the hard openings are due to packing technique. Whatever, The fact remains that this is a canopy that is capable of seriously injuring or even killing you if not packed perfectly.Is that the canopy you want? Some quotes from this page. Listen to yourselves people: “Openings were problematic at first,” “A lot of people complain of hard openings,” “Lots of u guys out there r trying to blame your hard Sabre openings on the pack job...” I have approximately 1,100 total jumps on sabre 150's and sabre 135's and have experienced a handful of rather brisk openings and 2 of them were excruciating and kept me from jumping for the rest of the day.” “Openings are not so great. In my opinion it would be one thing if it opened hard all the time or soft all the time but it does not. Some openings are good others are not” “Pack carefully, handle the wraped up slider as you would an atomic bomb - as thats what it is! Let the thing slip everywhere then shove in the bag; You will be sorry..” “but about 75% of the time, I get these opening that make me flinch and tighten up every muscle in my body in fear of the opening. Most Sunday nights, when I am driving home, my neck hurts like I was in a car accident, and I have bruises on the insides of my legs that just shouldn't be there... I have tried everything- rolling the nose 4-4, tight rolling the nose together, tight rolling the tail, stowing my lines tight, etc... Nothing helps, don't know what to say about the opening, but I can't wait until I get my PISA Hornet...” “Openings have been brisk, but I've never been slammed (although I lent my rig to a friend and she said she was).” “I've had a very bad opening about every two or three. No matter what I did, tens of rolls everywere or no rolls, spend 1 hour and a half packing it,use the tighest rubber bands ever, it used to hit me.” “I had an instant canopy that knocked the wind from my body. I was in such pain that all I wanted to do was land. After landing discovered the leg straps had grazed the skin from my inner thighs. The next day I was barely able to stand and the black bruising around my thighs meant I looked like I was still wearing my harness.” “I was wacked so hard that I had a compression fracture of T6 and a cracked T12 along with a neck sprain. “in my 90 jumps on it, I had 3 soft openings. This thing was killing me. I had it relined by PD as soon as I bought it and no matter who's advice I took or what I did, I was constantly seeing stars. I tried rolling the nose tightly all to one side and going to the back, I tried nothing with the nose, I tried splitting the nose, I rolled the tail unbelievably tight and still the openings stunk. After an opening where the slider came down fast enough to rip the rubber stops and put a rip in the slider and wrap itself around my face, so all I saw was the orange slider (nice backdrop for the stars), I got rid of it and bought a spectre 150, and will never look back.” “I have had one extremely hard opening that about broke me in half,” ”Most of the openings on Sabres are ok, but it's those slammers! One in every 70 or so jumps, no matter how carefully you've packed, even if you've packed exactly the same as the last 70 pack jobs they can bite. I had one opening on my Sabre 135 that was so hard I thought I had broken a rib! . I could give you plenty of examples of experiences friends of mine have had with bad Sabre openings... by and large the openings on the Sabre are fine but when they bite they're nasty!” “Used to fly a Sabre, and the openings where so bad I had no intentions of ever buying another one” “I jumped my 170 Sabre for about 40 times until I realized that my neck could handle about 50 more openings.” “harder than the saber i used to fly and that spanked me on a regular basis.” “This was welcome from the ever surprising Sabre slam that comes when you least expect it. “

Wow, It seems a lot of these dreams have a common thread. Landing safely without a chute, going in and not dying, friends bouncing and then getting up, no one getting hurt. It's interesting that injury or death is not an option to the unconscious mind when dreaming about skydiving.

We have had a swoop ditch here at Skydive City for several years. It was recently made three times as wide by our own on sight engineer/skydiver Steve Motski. "Lake Motski" as it has been christened is now a genuine swoop pond. It's a good thing they widened it because as narrow as it was before , someone could have broken their neck. Oh wait, Someone did break their neck.

My hat is off to Cheryl. If she had balls. I'm sure they would be big brass ones.

Anyone who made their first jump before about 1982 will realize that the portrait of parachuting in Fandango is very realistic. That's what makes it soooo funny.

Hmmm....I always thought the Skyvan was over 12,500...maybe there are some variants of it that are, but the original is not.. Then again, maybe I'm just mixing it up with the specs on other models of Shorts aircraft. I'll have to ask at Deland next time I'm there and talk to the Skyvan pilots. Mike Aviator is right about light a/c and single engine climb. The only requirement for an aircraft under 12,500 lbs certifcated under far 23 is that it maintain directional cotrol. The mx requirements for aircraft operated under Far 121/119-Scheduled airlines and 135-Air taxi are more stringent than far 91 under which jump planes are flown. One example, TBO's[time before overhaul] on components like engines and props are not binding for 91 operators as they are for the airlines and charter guys. As far as engines not making their rated power as they age. It is my understanding that all aircraft engines are required to produce their published takeoff torque or they are broken. Referance Far 91. 7 [aircraft airorthiness] Tom

Is this a new certificate or rating? "engine failure-on-board=with-skydivers kind of pilot" What is "BTFU" ?

Maintenance? Who needs maintenance? We're skydiving for Christs' sake. Sport death remember? A dangerous old airplane and an inexperienced testosterone poisoned pilot just add to the thrill. Hey ,when the grim reaper comes calling their ain't nothing your gonna do about it.

[ Sabre - doesn't open hard if you know how to pack. Spectre - okay, opens great Stiletto - opens on heading if you can pull stable. Are you implying that I don't know how to pack? Sure I do . I drop my gear at the packing concession. Pay them 5 dollars and I'm packed. Still working on pulling stable though.

In a "quick nutshell" Sabre- opens hard Spectre-opens soft Stilleto-opens in a spin

I inherited a lot of old pictures from my club Frontier Skydivers of Western New York. Ive posted some here. http://home.earthlink.net/~tspoond328/

The DC3 that was parked at Xenia until a few years ago was N66W, Formerly The Bird Machine than renamed The Legend.