RogerRamjet

I have a lot of C9 jumps, but mine was solid white. I had a pull down centerline (borrowed the idea from Dan Steiger) and 7TU in it and it flew well for what it was. Burned it up with a lineover one day and moved to a Strato Star. You don't get canopies for those prices anymore ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

Ok, I looked at the application on the Freak Brother web site. It says: There must be 75% Freak Brothers on the load." So, if you can do a 4 way with 3 Freak Brothers, you can get a number. I can see that this might be difficult at a small DZ if your members aren't getting out to some boogies or other large skydiver gatherings. ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

You what's kinda funny? I don't really have a clue what the actual requirements are. I met Roger and Carl at Hinkley in the '70s and started jumping with them. I believe I was assigned a Freak Brother number during that time, but I didn't know it until years later. When Roger or Carl called me a Freak Brother, I thought they meant that I looked more like them than the other local jumpers (most had military style crew cuts or were at least clean cut compared to us long hairs). Doesn't the Freak Brother web site have the requirements listed? ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

You've been in the sport 30 years and you're not one??? ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

I was not given a choice, but I like mine (MIL). ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

Around jump #350. It was a line-over on a 28' round (cheapo). Stood up my round 26' Navy Conical. 650 square jumps after that with no mals. Before that, I did two intentional cutaways with a three chute rig (too bad that's so hard to find today, it made the real thing much easier for me). ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

F102 Delta Dagger in the background. B17, what is all the gridwork out front for? Were they catching balloons with the thing or is it mounting for cameras or what? ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

An SCR at 45 jumps! Congrats! ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

It's scary how many of those names I've jumped with (all but two I think)... I started in Z-Hills in '73 and was told there had been only one fatality there and it was nineteen sixty something (I thought 68, but everyone has thrown out a different date, so who knows). I know there were no casts made or parties for Giggles in '73 or Lou Jecker and Sabrina in '75. I don't think that was ever a Z-Hills tradition. ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

I was 20. Would have started at 19, but the legal age in Florida in 1973 was 21... Until July 1st that is when they lowered it to 18. Made my first jump that same day. ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

Are you also known as PattyWontSplat? Get that SCR or SCS yet? ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

Hi Steve, That is sad news indeed I too jumped with Ruth (Lanier in those days of course). A sweet lady for sure. I just talked with her on the phone several months ago about the Keys Boogie at Marathon and had no clue she was ill. Sorry to hear this and condolences to Lou. ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

And what incredible "Magic" happened there too! ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

BJ, long time (very long time) no see! If you've come out of the woodwork for this, Jim is really onto something

Jim, glad you did this! Talk to you soon... ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

Attachment can be found in this thread: http://www.dropzone.com/forum/Skydiving_C1/Skydiving_History_%26_Trivia_F21/Try_again_P2842328/ ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

Might as well add my two cents.... 1) I'm sure you heard the saying that if you jump long enough, you will know (or see) someone who went in. 2) If you choose to continue, it WILL happen again. 3) This sport is dangerous, period. You have to reconcile the wonder, freedom, and camaraderie of the sport against the very real dark side. I agree with those who went right back up and made a jump, it's the best way to get past seeing a fatality IMO. I do not agree that you have the same risks in everything else you do. Somewhere around here is a thread on the "driving to the drop zone is more dangerous than the jumping" myth. Most who responded to that thread had not known anyone who died driving and if they had been in the sport more than 5 years usually knew one or more jumpers who died. In 7 years active, I knew 5. Since then (27 years), way into double digits. I am 54 years old and have not known a single person killed driving. I saw my first fatality at Z-Hills in 1973 and I knew the person. I had just under 200 jumps and Z-Hills had not had a fatality since the mid sixties, so I was lulled into a false sense of safety. I went up on the next load because I wanted to continue and it seemed such an isolated incident (and entirely the jumpers fault). Two year later at the 75 Turkey meet, we had two fatalities 40 minutes apart and I knew both of them, one (Lou Jecker) very well. Ok, this shocked me into thinking maybe I should quite or this might catch up with me. Here is how I rationalized what happened and why I continued. First, Lou always pulled low and many including myself and Roger Nelson had talked with him about it. He went in after a low pull, high speed mal, and inflating reserve on impact. I knew he would die eventually. Sabrina, the other fatality that day, had a mal, cut away, and could not pull her reserve due to improper tacking of the reserve housing (bad design really). By this time, I was building gear for Bill booth so I had a pretty good idea of why she died. Simply put, I felt these things were within my control and with some reasonable forethought on my part, I should not die this way. Now on to the present. When those fatalities were happening, you could nearly always see the reasons and learn from and hopefully avoid doing the same thing. Today there are more variables that are out of your control mostly due to fast canopies and people with those fast canopies swooping in traffic. Roger Nelson was killed this way and I was once again shocked. He was one of the most aware people I have ever been in the air with. He also preached head on a swivel at all times to everyone he could. He was still taken out. Here I am, 27 years after my last jump (# 1000) about to make a few more and struggling with essentially the same issues you are. What will I do? I will have to mentally overcome the layoff and other fears to get out of the plane for that AFF jump. I will be on a large slow canopy and will intentionally land away from the traffic area. In other words, I will as I did before, mitigate to the best of my ability the things I know can kill me. If the Blue Sky side of the sport is so good, part of that might be that there is a Black Death side of the sport. The "trick" if there is one, is to always be aware that it's there and do your dive as safely as possible for you. For you to get back on the horse as it were, I might recommend a solo dive to start with. It will keep the pressure to a minimum and remind you of just how good it feels up there... ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

Yeah, the poptop was centerpull with the pins behind as you describe. However in the context of the bent pins/cones (rotating or not), it should be noted that the poptop had loops rather than pins. I really liked my poptop compared to the belly wart I had prior, but the Wonderhog blew all that stuff right off my back (and front) when I saw Bill's prototype in Deland one day I went to work for him two weeks later and one of the first Wonderhogs I built was for ME ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

74 or 75??? I must know you... PM me if you don't want to broadcast your name. I have a few jumps with BJ also. He wasn't so famous yet, but a good jumper to say the least. I jumped with Roger and Carl Nelson and may have a jump with them and my brother Ted at the same time, so 4 brothers, but two pair rather than family. I don't think Ted and I were on the jump you mention, but we could have been. I do not have my logs from then (stolen with my riggers kit), so I can't check that way. I very well may have just forgotten too. Jim Hooper hooked me up with a guy who sent me a shot of a 21 man night star at Z-Hills. I didn't remember it at all, but Jim said my name was down in his log book as a participant. When I received the shot, sure enough there I was and still can't remember the jump If you find your logs, please post back here. ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

Update....pic attached Very nice, I wish I had a shot like that with my brothers. All 4 of us have jumped, but not all at the same time. I have a number of jumps with one of them, but none with the other two who did not continue long enough for RW. ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

>Yes, he is. I 2nd that! Thanks to this thread, I also hooked back up with Andy. Haven't talked with him in 30 years. Got to love this website! ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

Nothing is wrong with that. Where is the problem if you just carry on just switch on on the ground? when i do a cross country i have it switched on before i land. If i need my phone in an emoergcy I dont want it to be off. but it wont be near my risers until i use it anyways One thing you might want to consider is how much RFI a phone puts out both when it transmits and when it receives. I would not have the phone on if you also wear a cypress or other AAD. I am a rated tournament driver for waterskiing and I can tell you that on several occasions, an incoming call has triggered the electronic timing system in the boat. I now require the other two members of the boat crew to turn off their cells if they have them. If there is enough RFI for that from an incoming call, who knows what effect there might be on an AAD? Note: I don't know the answer, but sure wouldn't want to find out in freefall in close proximity to my buddies... ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

All the low pull "artists" I knew except one went in eventually. The last one I knew personally was Lou Jecker at the 75 Turkey meet. The one that didn't go in, Billy Revis, died when he took off in the fog in a plane with no instrument lighting at night with only a flashlight. He turned upsidedown and crashed in the garbage dump not for from the Z-Hills runway he left from. About a year earlier, he told me he wouldn't make 25; he didn't. ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

The price for the original was $250.00. The 3-Ring Circus kind of came from me. Bill didn't know what to call his rings and there were three and my brother was in Ringling Brothers at the time, so I said 3-Ring Circus whenever I was asked what it was to be called. I left Bill's operation before he actually released the system though, so did not know it was ever advertised that way... I would bet he changed it to "3-Ring Release" in his own ads for exactly the reasons given here (Circus does not really exude safety). Now it's 2007 and I haven't jumped in 27 years (trying to fix that), my brother isn't in the Circus anymore, but... Bill is still making the sport better and safer everytime I turn around, damn! ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

"Remember" is not a word I use much these days, unless preceded by "don't." "Look up," however, works well. 10-way - Spaced Rangers 8-way Sequential - APT 16-way Sequential - V D Clinic 20-way - Spaced Rangers My team was "Lemmings." For some reason, we are not on the list of more than 100 teams, possibly because we did not complete all rounds. We went up one time with nine people because the tenth was an amputee and had misplaced his leg. Another note, from Spotter Magazine: "(Thursday) at 11 o'clock things come to a grindng halt when Slots team members Charlie McGurr and Carl Dougherty have a canopy collision 150 feet off the deck and come spiraling down to dent the tin roof of the administration building. "Both were flying squares but were not attempting canopy relative work. They were both lucky that tin roof was there, because there was concrete underneath." I vividly remember the sound. HW Do you have a similar list from the 75 meet? I'd love to see it, especially the team names since I don't remember our team having a name that year. I was on Hooper's Ten High Bunch (4th place). Deland 16 man (way) team (1st place). Deland 20 man (way) team (1st place). BTW, Carl Daugherty (note the spelling) was on both the 16 and 20 Deland teams (and the winning 10 man team) that year as well. I am planning a few jumps after a 27 year layoff and he is going to do my re-cert training and AFF jump with me. Last time I jumped with him, I had close to 1000 jumps and he had close to 2000. Now, I have 1000 jumps and he has close to 17,000 Two other notes of my history with Carl. I was on final approach to a formation in Deland one day when Carl collided with me, taking out his two front teeth and leaving two perfect teeth marks in my motorcycle helmet. Another jumper on the dive saw the collision and hung out until he was sure we were both conscious (no AAD's in those days). Later in 1974, he and I were in the first ever 16 man diamond over Deland. It will be exciting to say the least to see him in freefall again after all this time