kkeenan

How, exactly, would you propose to give the reserve risers to one person and the harness / container to another ? My reserve risers are made as part of the harness and can not be separated. Reserve comes with links/slinks only. Kevin K. _____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ?

Even with your relative inexperience and young age, you should realize that, in the long run, very few absolute statements turn out to be true. It seems that you are bothered by the possibility that something or someone outside of your control can cause your flawless ass to be killed while skydiving. It's really not a matter of opinion. Anyone who has been around long enough can point out several instances of this. If you want to tell your Mom that you will never get hurt because you always do everything right, that's fine. But if you truly believe that, then you are a fool. Kevin Keenan _____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ?

Called a "Zero-Delay Lanyard". The snap attached to the manual ripcord, as another poster said. This was attached whenever operating below 10K', and essentially tied the ripcord to the AAD arming know, which in turn was attached to the ejection seat. Above 10k', seperating from the seat following ejection would arm the AAD. When operating below 10k', seperating from the seat (lanyard attached) would also pull the ripcord, causing immediate deployment of the parachute. Kevin K. Former Tailgunner B-52 D, F, and G models _____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ?

I'm starting to know what those friends are feeling.... Just kidding. It's hard to contain oneself when you first start jumping. The advice here has been good about dealing with the practical aspects. My opinion is that wuffos are intimidated by jumpers' descriptions of their mastery of the Forces of Nature and their Superhuman abilities. Time will tell if you are to be a long-term jumper or a tourist passing through. Kevin K. _____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ?

Michael was the most consistently good-natured person I think I've ever met at a DZ. He seemed to never have a bad or downbeat thing to say, no matter how long a weather hold, maintenance delay, etc. Michael encouraged me through World Team tryouts and frustrations with nothing but the most positive of attitudes. He just seemed to be a purely nice guy. I showed up one morning at Skydive Dallas to jump and didn't have my logbook. They asked me if I knew anyone who jumped there and could vouch for me. I gave them Michael's name and they called his cell phone. It turns out he was in Hawaii on business and it was about 4:00 AM. He cracked a few jokes and told them to let me jump. I can't imagine being in such a good mood after being awakened at 0400. I'll miss you, Michael. I'm sad that we will never jump together again. Blu Skies, Brother, Kevin

I was going to wish you a Happy Birthday, but it looks like you have enough already. Any more, and you'll start feeling old. I wouldn't want to be responsible for that. Kevin K. _____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ?

It's sort of a case of; "If you have to ask, you don't have the experience." Newer folks don't like to hear this, but it is impossible to simply list a bunch of problems and identify those that can be worked out and those that can't. Experience will teach you what you yourself are capable of. One person may be able to resolve a problem in the air, while another, with the same problem, may not have the time. At your experience level, I would say that line twists or a brake fire can probably be fixed at altitude - they're not big problems and are easily fixed. Anything else - If you can't land it, chop it. Kevin K. _____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ?

Reported, but with very little detail. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3539504;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread _____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ?

"Skydiver's Brush with Death" from the front page of my local paper. http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20090613/NEWS01/906130312/Facing-long-recovery--skydiver-won-t-sweat-small-stuff&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL _____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ?

Usual practice is to add a connector link to the rear to increase drive / sink rate of the canopy. I would suggest that you use this method, as the links are a standard size and known strength. If you are going to use something else, try to make it about the same length as a standard connector link. Make sure that you are adding the same length to each side. I would suggest that you be very careful if you exceed the length of a standard link, as the rate of descent may give you trouble with landings. NOTE: Please have a CRW-knowledgable person - preferably a rigger - check over what you have done prior to jumping it. It is possible to add too much and produce an uncontrollable canopy or possibly an unsurvivable landing. Kevin K. _____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ?

Here's an e-mail written by the pilot of the recent trip made by the NASA Shuttle Carry Aircraft (SCA) to transport the orbiter Atlantis from Edwards AFB CA to Kennedy Space Center, FL. Kevin K. ------------- NASA 747 pilot shares experience carrying the space shuttle Read the detailed experience of the NASA pilot who flew the 747 carrying the space shuttle ATLANTIS back to the KENNEDY SPACE CENTER. A bit lengthy, but trust me... worth every second reading! You will feel that you were there!!! Very good narrative of what it was like! "FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION", Gene Kranz, APOLLO-13 "....it's all imbedded in the software!" From: Triple Nickel Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 9:34 PM Subject: (JSCAS ) Shuttle Carry Well, it's been 48 hours since I landed the 747 with the shuttle Atlantis on top and I am still buzzing from the experience. I have to say that my whole mind, body and soul went into the professional mode just before engine start in Mississippi, and stayed there, where it all needed to be, until well after the flight...in fact, I am not sure if it is all back to normal as I type this email. The experience was surreal. Seeing that "thing" on top of an already overly huge aircraft boggles my mind. The whole mission from takeoff to engine shutdown was unlike anything I had ever done. It was like a dream...someone else's dream. We took off from Columbus AFB on their 12,000 foot runway, of which I used 11,999 1/2 feet to get the wheels off the ground. We were at 3,500 feet left to go of the runway, throttles full power, nose wheels still hugging the ground, copilot calling out decision speeds, the weight of Atlantis now screaming through my fingers clinched tightly on the controls, tires heating up to their near maximum temperature from the speed and the weight, and not yet at rotation speed, the speed at which I would be pulling on the controls to get the nose to rise. I just could not wait, and I mean I COULD NOT WAIT, and started pulling early. If I had waited until rotation speed, we would not have rotated enough to get airborne by the end of the runway. So I pulled on the controls early and started our rotation to the takeoff attitude. The wheels finally lifted off as we passed over the stripe marking the end of the runway and my next hurdle (physically) was a line of trees 1,000 feet off the departure end of Runway 16. All I knew was we were flying and so I directed the gear to be retracted and the flaps to be moved from Flaps 20 to Flaps 10 as I pulled even harder on the controls. I must say, those trees were beginning to look a lot like those brushes in the drive through car washes so I pulled even harder yet! I think I saw a bird just fold its wings and fall out of a tree as if to say "Oh just take me". Okay, we cleared the trees, duh, but it was way too close for my laundry. As we started to actually climb, at only 100 feet per minute, I smelled something that reminded me of touring the Heineken Brewery in Europe...I said "is that a skunk I smell?" and the veterans of shuttle carrying looked at me and smiled and said "Tires"! I said "TIRES??? OURS???" They smiled and shook their heads as if to call their Captain an amateur...okay, at that point I was. The tires were so hot you could smell them in the cockpit. My mind could not get over, from this point on, that this was something I had never experienced. Where's your mom when you REALLY need her? The flight down to Florida was an eternity. We cruised at 250 knots indicated, giving us about 315 knots of ground speed at 15,000'. The miles didn't click by like I am use to them clicking by in a fighter jet at MACH .94. We were burning fuel at a rate of 40,000 pounds per hour or 130 pounds per mile, or one gallon every length of the fuselage. The vibration in the cockpit was mild, compared to down below and to the rear of the fuselage where it reminded me of that football game I had as a child where you turned it on and the players vibrated around the board. I felt like if I had plastic clips on my boots I could have vibrated to any spot in the fuselage I wanted to go without moving my legs...and the noise was deafening. The 747 flies with its nose 5 degrees up in the air to stay level, and when you bank, it feels like the shuttle is trying to say "hey, let's roll completely over on our back"..not a good thing I kept telling myself. SO I limited my bank angle to 15 degrees and even though a 180 degree course change took a full zip code to complete, it was the safe way to turn this monster. Airliners and even a flight of two F-16s deviated from their flight plans to catch a glimpse of us along the way. We dodged what was in reality very few clouds and storms, despite what everyone thought, and arrived in Florida with 51,000 pounds of fuel too much to land with. We can't land heavier than 600,000 pounds total weight and so we had to do something with that fuel. I had an idea...let's fly low and slow and show this beast off to all the taxpayers in Florida lucky enough to be outside on that Tuesday afternoon. So at Ormond Beach we let down to 1,000 feet above the ground/water and flew just east of the beach out over the water. Then, once we reached the NASA airspace of the Kennedy Space Center, we cut over to the Banana/Indian Rivers and flew down the middle of them to show the people of Titusville, Port St.Johns and Melbourne just what a 747 with a shuttle on it looked like. We stayed at 1,000 feet and since we were dragging our flaps at "Flaps 5", our speed was down to around 190 to 210 knots. We could see traffic stopping in the middle of roads to take a look. We heard later that a Little League Baseball game stop to look and everyone cheered as we became their 7th inning stretch. Oh say can you see... After reaching Vero Beach, we turned north to follow the coast line back up to the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF). There was not one person laying on the beach...they were all standing and waving! "What a sight" I thought...and figured they were thinking the same thing. All this time I was bugging the engineers, all three of them, to re-compute our fuel and tell me when it was time to land. They kept saying "Not yet Triple, keep showing this thing off" which was not a bad thing to be doing. However, all this time the thought that the landing, the muscling of this 600,000 pound beast, was getting closer and closer to my reality. I was pumped up! We got back to the SLF and were still 10,000 pounds too heavy to land so I said I was going to do a low approach over the SLF going the opposite direction of landing traffic that day. So at 300 feet, we flew down the runway, rocking our wings like a whale rolling on its side to say "hello" to the people looking on! One turn out of traffic and back to the runway to land...still 3,000 pounds over gross weight limit. But the engineers agreed that if the landing were smooth, there would be no problem. "Oh thanks guys, a little extra pressure is just what I needed!" So we landed at 603,000 pounds and very smoothly if I have to say so myself. The landing was so totally controlled and on speed, that it was fun. There were a few surprises that I dealt with, like the 747 falls like a rock with the orbiter on it if you pull the throttles off at the "normal" point in a landing and secondly, if you thought you could hold the nose off the ground after the mains touch down, think again...IT IS COMING DOWN!!! So I "flew it down" to the ground and saved what I have seen in videos of a nose slap after landing. Bob's video supports this! :8-) Then I turned on my phone after coming to a full stop only to find 50 bazillion emails and phone messages from all of you who were so super to be watching and cheering us on! What a treat, I can't thank y'all enough. For those who watched, you wondered why we sat there so long. Well, the shuttle had very hazardous chemicals on board and we had to be "sniffed" to determine if any had leaked or were leaking. They checked for Monomethylhydrazine (N2H4 for Charlie Hudson) and nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4). Even though we were "clean", it took way too long for them to tow us in to the mate-demate area. Sorry for those who stuck it out and even waited until we exited the jet. I am sure I will wake up in the middle of the night here soon, screaming and standing straight up dripping wet with sweat from the realization of what had happened. It was a thrill of a lifetime. Again I want to thank everyone for your interest and support. It felt good to bring Atlantis home in one piece after she had worked so hard getting to the Hubble Space Telescope and back. Triple Nickel NASA Pilot

I think this is the basic fallacy of the "self-test" units. If the basic testing parameters are off, how can you trust it to tell you when it is malfunctioning? That is the point of bench testing a unit against set laboratory standards rather than internal parameters. Of course, many people don't think of this, they want the lowest price and a green light that says "GO". Kevin K. _____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ?

Phantom was one of a kind, and will really be missed. I remember him wearing a pistol on his belt every July 4th, to celebrate Independence Day. Kevin

Crushed larnyx, as I recall, but you're right, hard-mounted stuff like that can cause injury. _____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ?

Could it be all those Safety Meetings...? _____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ?

That qualifies !

I take great pleasure in announcing to the World, and in particular to the CRWDogs of the World, the upcoming marriage of veteran CRWDog Dave Hillebrandt and the lovely and talented Ms. Dawn McClendon. The wedding will take place on May 3, 2009. Please join me in wishing joy and happiness to this wonderful couple. Yours truly will be serving as best man in support of my friend Dave. A long tradition exist of tying shoes to a new couple's car as they drive away from the wedding. this represents the formation of a new family unit. Shoes also play a big part in CRW. Everyone seems to have a story or two about losing a shoe here or there. This led me to think of a great way to give this new couple a good send-off. I know that CRWDogs from far away will be unable to come for the wedding, but if everyone who has a spare, unmatched shoe, left over from a memorable CRW wrap, will send it to me, along with a pull-up cord, these will be tied to the happy couple's car as they drive off to their honeymoon. If you are a CRW Pup who still has all shoes, send one anyway, and then tell your friends a great CRW story to explain the missing shoe. Anyway, I think this would be a great way for the CRW community to show their love and support for Dawn and Dave. All shoes for this project, as well as anything else for the happy couple can be sent to me at: Kevin Keenan 1825 Milton St. Titusville FL 32780 USA P.S. If a shoe is particularly smelly, please seal it in a plastic bag, which will only be opened in the exhaust fumes behind the car. Kevin

I've heard of a Stiletto with over 6k jumps that comes to PD for a reline every couple of years. Kevin K. _____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ?

In my opinion, it is a bad idea. Doing unnessary stuff just to keep your EPs the same is foolish. If you can not think your way through different procedures for different problems, you will eventually do the wrong thing. Kevin k. _____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ?

Best Scenery & View - Skydive Sebastian Fla. Best Skydiving Vibe - Skydive City, Zephyrhills Fla. High Overall Skills - Skydive DeLand Fla. Skydive AZ, Eloy AZ Skydive Perris Valley CA _____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ?

The only real scenario is one in which they can't make it to a runway. Analysis has shown that open water ditching or off-runway landing are both unsurvivable. So if there is a reentry problem that leaves them out of gliding range of a good runway, then they trim it to 200 kts. and yell, "Door". Kevin k. _____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ?

I think he was jus in a bad mood because he couldn't axe more people. _____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ?

Approx. 200 kt (230 mph). http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/sts_egress.html Kevin K. _____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ?

Crack organizer Tim Webb and a staff of World-Class plane captains led a team of seasoned big-way vets to a POPS Florida State record 84-way on Saturday at DeLand. Carey Peck, Carl Daugherty, and Larry Elmore were some of the captains. Lots of out-of-state POPS joined the Florida POPS, who came from all over the state. Results of the first couple of jumps on Friday were sporadic. The third jump showed marked improvement, and the forth, and final jump was close enough to completion to give everyone a good feeling about the following day's chances. Luckily, the clean-living skidivers were bright-eyed and ready for the first load on Saturday morning. That one wasn't complete, but it was pretty good, and it woke everyone up. With freshened spirits, the completion came on the second dive. Many thanks to hosts, Bob Hallet and Mike Johnston of Skydive DeLand, who made sure that all ran smoothly. Photos soon (hopefully) in your national skydiving publication. (Sadly, not the one published in DeLand.) Kevin Keenan _____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ?

It seems like that would make you nervous about using packers. Don't you think that knowing you will be the one to deal with the results will make you less likely to make that mistake ? If you go through a few packjobs with someone watching, you should be good to go. But if you're only looking for excuses to get out of packing, you'll just keep finding new ones. Kevin K. _____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ?