RogerRamjet

I don't know if I had the same one or not, but the one sold at Z-Hills during one of the Turkey meets had that general layout. In fact the shape of the "clouds/letters" was a penis which most people missed until they finally get the letters worked out.... ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

Someone is bound to have a digital camera on his dropzone (or a friend or whatever). Take a shot of the packed rig showing the issue, then send an email (with the shot attached) containing the main and reserve models and sizes and ask for their opinion. Reponse from RWS is usually pretty good. ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

LOL! There is always that option. As I've said though, the PC isn't worn out and the kill line isn't too short etc (checked last night). Although it might be the best solution I don't really want to fork out for a new one at the moment being out of work. Dude, this is not something to address lightly. Have you considered the ramifications of a PC in tow? What will you do? Both recommended procedures for this have major risks (cutaway and pull silver, don't cutaway and pull silver). Read the thread that Ken pointed out, Bill Booth has great instructions for determining if your pilot chute is constructed correctly as well as kill line recommendations. You should not have any hesitation, that is why we invented the thing in the first place (I worked for Bill at the time and made the first hand deploy jumps), to eliminate hesitations. A PC in Tow is just a very long hesitation and not one I would like to have to deal with..... ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

Interesting thread.... I had the first production Wonderhog when I started building them for Booth in 1974. With my 26' Navy Conical reserve and 28' (round) C-9 cheopo 7TU, the rig weighed 23lbs. I never weighed it with the Strato Star/Navy Con combination I ended up with, but I figure it was within a pound or so of the cheapo. ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

Yeah, I remember jumping at Z-Hills (73-78) where a lot of jumps was 1000 and a real lot was 2000. Jeff Searles who owned the center at the time had 2000, I saw Pat Moore make his 2000th, and Hooper had around that many too. You were a legand then with 6000. It just didn't seem possible for someone to have that many in those days since they all took so long... So good to see you posting here, such great memories! ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

However, on another site I found something called a "Cooper Vane." Here is a photo: http://www2.tech.purdue.edu/At/Courses/AEML/airframeimages/coopervane.jpg I assume airflow keeps the door (which is lowered by gravity) from lowering in flight even if unlocked.... ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

Isn't that feature called a "Cooper Vane" or something? I think i remember reading that somewhere. It is actually called a "DB Cooper Lock." I found info on it here: http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:HLf4do7oelkJ:www.aaae.org/government/200_Regulatory_Affairs/260_ARFF_Certification/400_Aircraft_Familiarization/boeing727.ppt+boeing+727+stairs+lock&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1 If you scroll down, you will find a section called "Exits" that will contain the information. ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

I put a couple of dozen terminal jumps on a para-plane. It opened "briskly" to say the least, but I was never bruised or anything. Probably weighing only 135lbs helped. The most important thing to remember when packing the original plane or cloud (with the top rings and ropes) is packing it for the jump you intend to do. They have a sub-terminal and a terminal packing method and you sure don't want to mix them up. One causes a bag lock, the other broken ribs (or worse).... I'll let you guess which is which I jumped all the squares I could find back then, the foil, sled, plane, cloud... they called me Roger Ramiar for a while until the Strato-Star came out and then everyone jumped squares... ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

As I remember it, the stairs were damaged. In fact I believe they modifed the aircraft so that the stairs could not be deployed in flight after that (at least without some ground prep).... not because of the hijacking, but because of the resulting damage to the stairs. ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

We had an L-10E (and an L-18 Loadstar) at Z-Hills between 73 and 77 or so. I was on Jim Hooper's Ten High speed star team and we did nearly all our practice jumps from the L-10E. The story of that plane was that it was the sister ship to Amelia Earhart's plane as Lockheed built their planes two at a time back then. I have since heard this claim of other L-10Es, so who knows.... Then we got the C47 and the large door was a real spoiler. We actually did one jump with both doors off, but the pilot said the aircraft handled too "squirrelly" to fly it that way again. But we could get 8 jumpers across with both doors off! Even so the C47's forward door was larger than the DC-3's door. I liked the C47 quite a bit, but the real treat was to go over to Deland and jump thier DC-3 (Mister Douglas) with it's jump seats and 2 stage super charged engines, 8 track 8 speaker stereo system, and the insulation still on the walls to make it the quietest DC-3 (or any piston twin I jumped) I ever jumped from. ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

I had a couple paraplane jumps back in the early 70's. That one would malfunction about every 10 jumps. At least that was the rumor. It might have been close to one out of every 20 or thirty, but it did malfunction a lot. What a sight to see landed properly. This was the first square that I saw in the air. What a step up from the other canopies of that time period.....Steve1 I jumped a Sled about that time along with the Para-Plane and Cloud. I jumped every square that came to Z-Hills that I hadn't jumped before.. they called me Roger Ramair for a while, but Roger Ramjet stuck. It was really the Strato-Star that changed everything. I had a mal on my 28' cheapo on the weekend at Z-Hills and when I arrived home in Miami where I worked for Booth, he had just gotten in the first Strato-Star for a guy (the first production unit in the State I believe). The guy did not have the money to pick it up, so I talked Bill into selling it to me instead and ordering the other guy a new one. Bill and I packed the thing in the front yard with the not so great manual and a call to the manufacturer for some advice. What a canopy! Even with the rings and ropes (moved to the botton of the canopy now) it opened soft and on heading every time. When I eventually installed a slider on it, I think I had the perfect canopy (for the time). I believed then and really still do that a properly tuned, properly packed, slider equipped Strato-Star would open every time. I sold mine after 650 jumps, shortlined (6 ft) once, tuned twice. It still opened perfectly and on heading every time. About the same opening force as a Para Commander or slightly less. I wouldn't hesitate to jump one today.... ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

While your scaring everyone, you should have included that when packing an original Para-Plane or Cloud with the rings and ropes system, you had to pack for terminal or sub-terminal. Bad things happened when you took a sub-terminal reefed PP to terminal and nearly as bad things with you did a hop n pop with a terminal reefed PP..... I have about 30 jumps on a Para-Plane, no cutaways. ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

The 2nd gen Sentinel was better, but some jumpmasters were not trained as well as some others... I remember one calibrating the thing on jump run because he had forgotten to do it before take-off. As you might have guessed, the reserve fired not long after exit. The KAP-3 mentioned above was for the main I believe. A lot of RW jumpers would not jump with someone who had one because they had a reputation for firing high. Things have gotten a lot better... ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

What do you mean? I kept mine.... ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

Found a packing weight in the tail of a swift reserve once, had the riggers name on it. I walked outside (at Perris) the loft and gave it back to him. He was to say the least somwhat embarresed about that. Well known and well respected (still is) point of it all? It can happen to ANYONE. Talk to him privatly about it. Mick. I agree. Informing the owner is a touchy situation. You never know how someone might react. Here is a situation I had at the Thanksgiving meet in 1976 in Z-Hills. A young lady from Michigan came into the loft and asked for a repack of her SST rig (for those that don't know what that is, a piggy back that had a pop-top style reserve). After she left the loft, I opened the reserve with the fish scale as usual. Pull force was good. When the pilot chute shot up and then fell next to the rig, I noticed 4 temporary pins where still in place complete with red flags. The packing card revealed that the rigger was attending the meet. I brought the center's owner, Jeff Searles and the ASO, Jim Hooper into the loft and we discussed the situation. Jeff and Jim decided that informing the jumper might be traumatic so just had the rigger come in to see the rig. It is the first time I have ever seen someone literally turn white. He said he had been having nightmares about where those pins were and had been attempting to contact all those he had packed for. In those days, there were no cell phones, email, etc., so you had to find someone’s home phone number or address to contact them which might not even be possible. I asked him how this was even possible if he was counting his tools before beginning and counting them upon completion (the way Jeff Searles taught me)? He said he was never taught anything about that. I believe he left Z-Hills with a new set of rules for his repacks.... Did Jeff and Jim make the right decision? I don't know how to answer that, but I was sure glad they made it and not me. I do not know if they filed a report with the FAA or not... ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

I'm not sure I follow this line of reasoning. Let's say the reserve has to be used and also say that neither item interferes with the deployment. In the case of the Kleenex, it just flutters away. However, the packing weight is still descending at 176 ft/sec, what if it strikes the jumper? Either item wedged into a slider grommet hole could present issues..... ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

Thanks for that Mark! Do you happen to have a number, email address, or snail mail address for them? Have you and I jumped together? I don't place the name, but I'm better with faces (at least how they looked 25 years ago ). ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

3/8/76 is not long after I left Booth's operation to go to work for Buchmann. I built the first 100 or so Wonderhogs for Bill. I don't remember that we had a standard color pattern, just more of some colors than others (which effected delivery times). You could order pretty much whatever you liked back then. That date might be just after he moved to Deland from Miami where we started (In Pam Tayon's garage). It has capewells and a d-ring style reserve ripcord so that puts it right between the last of the capewell rigs and the first of the 3-ring systems as I recall. We used the orange PVC for reserve ripcord handles initially, first on the original plastic cables and later on standard steel ripcord cable with pins. I don't remember making any rigs with a D-Ring myself though we did make some with blast handles for the reserve. Bill should pick this baby up, real nostalgia here :) ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

Yup, One-shots. Sounds as though you liked them also. Every hung up cutaway I saw when I first started jumping was on Shot and a Halfs usually because of miss-adjusted catch hooks or no lubrication. One-shots had no catch. When the 3-ring came out, I really didn't see any great advantage over the one-shots (still don't except for the single handed operation), so I never changed my rigs over. As can be seen over the last couple of years incident reports, 3-rings can have some issues especially if not maintained regularly. One-shots could be buried in dirt and would still work, that's what I liked about them. Riser twists, extra tension from spinning, whatever, they still worked the same. Don't even think you could buy them now if you wanted them, but I'd be perfectly comfortable with them. Nothing against the 3-Ring, I've jumped them, cutaway with them and would jump them still, but I'd sure be on top of maintenance (which everyone should be anyway). I've seen the heavy webbing trick as well as sewing stiffener nylon to it, but they fell out of favor anyway (but may be making a comeback, hey?). ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

Whenever I read the History and trivia forum I think two things; I'm sad I'm far too young to have been around during skydiving's anything goes, bandit jump, hippy rebel phase, But I'm very glad I wasn't around during the whole experimental, death trap gear phase But who knows, maybe 20 years spoiled newbies will say the same stuff about my kit Since I made the first ever throw out jump, maybe I can add a comment or two. First, we put the pouch for the PC on the belly band simply because it was an area unused for anything else and offered an easy extraction route (pull directly to the side where you would release the PC in the first place). Once on, checking the routing of the bridle was rediculously easy to do and those who twisted it simply did not do a gear check. You just ran your finger along the bridle which was velcroed to the belly band from the container to the pouch. You simply couldn't do that if the band was twisted. In my opinion, collapsable pilot chutes are more dangerous than the belly band hand deploy (as it was originally called). I certainly agree that moving it was a good idea, but jumping with a twisted belly band was about the same as leaving temporary packing pins in to me, it was easily avoided.... As for the death trap gear phase... well, all I can say is you would not have been able to eject through the hole in the original Wonderhog, it just didn't have one. Look at the guy on the right in the url below, that is a Wonderhog (mine is too in the picture). Notice the back horizontal strap as well as the belly band which goes into the backpad. Not much room for getting out once that baby is on... Current rigs have evolved to include hip rings for articulation, very small containers which are much higher on the back and no back lateral strap. Very comfortable, but seemingly heading towards "death trap" territory to me http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/gallery/imageFolio.cgi?action=view&link=Personal_Galleries/RogerRamjet/Blast_from_the_Past&image=RogTraciGreg-2.jpg&img=&tt= BTW, I wouldn't hesitate to jump my original Wonderhog today, complete with One-Shot capewells, belly band throw-out and all.... ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

Ok, let's step into the way back machine and see if anyone can help me find these guys. 1) Louie Howell, pilot and jumper who worked at the Z-Hills commercial center around 74/75/76. Great guy, terrific pilot and jumper as well. I remember him learning to fly the Cessna 196 (a 195 with a 450hp engine instead of the standard 250hp). Jeff Searles who owned the center at the time said to him: "Take it out to the back runway and do some taxiing up and down the runway to get a feel for it. Take off is just a fast taxi." 2) Steve Fugleburg, maybe the fastest diver I've been in the air with along with Tony Patterson and Roger Nelson. Steve was 10th on Jim Hooper's Ten High Bunch ten man team while I was 4th and Jim Hooper was 9th. One day Jim has a team meeting and says "I'm switching positions with Roger because he is fast." This was great for my ego until we started practice and Steve burned me into the star for the next 3 months or so until I learned (from watching him) how to be really fast. If anyone knows of the whereabouts of either of these guys, I'd love to know about it! ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

Hmmm, never raced Carl in a dive, but that adds weight to something he said at the '75 Z-Hills turkey meet. He was showing slides he had taken the day before and one had a look back up at the DC-3 and a whole line of diving jumpers (one of them me). He pointed to me with a pointer (a stick held in the slide projecter's beam as there were no laser pointers yet) and said "just look at Roger if you want to know how to dive." Roger and me were a tie swooping large formations, one of the reasons we bonded so fast I think

The terms were interchangable at Z-Hills in the 70s, don't know about other areas though... ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

We taught covering the capewells at Z-Hills in 1973. I saw a guy (Giggles, can't remember his real name) go in there that same year with a capewell snag. Several errors in a row really. * He had a lineover on his Paracommander at an estimated 3500ft. * Cutaway and fell face to earth and pulled his front mounted belly wart. * Then punched the reserve container so hard he barrel rolled into the deploying pilot chute which hung up on the left open capewell. * Canopy continued to deploy into a horseshoe. * He struggled with the pilot chute and finally got it free. If he had just let go of it, he would be with us today. * He then threw the pilot chute directly forward through the suspension line groups. * the pilot chute ran up the groups and cought around one of them below the skirt making the horseshoe mal permanent. * He just kept spreading the line groups the rest of the way in. I have all these facts because someone happened to be filming him with a super-8 camera and telephoto lens at the time. After seeing that (my first burn in) and a few weeks later seeing two bag locked para-plane cutaways and reserve deployments, I decided to take my EPs serious and proceeded to do two intentional cutaways with 3 canopy rigs. Too bad that is so difficult these days because I can tell you that when I had my real mal, the cutaway and deployment of the reserve were not brand new to me.... ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

Easy there, from the sound of your posts it seemed like you shot the video. Anyway, no words needed, whoever shot it did not have enough seperation (also note that I said the jumper with the mal did not seperate before deployment either). Both should review the video and learn.... ----------------------- Roger "Ramjet" Clark FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519