jonstark

Quotewow, I can't beleive BASE jumpers kill hundreds of birds a week!? WTF? How? The noise of opening scares them to death? ----------------------------------------- If the party leaves a rope dangling into the cave the birds hit it on their way out in the morning. They have to climb out in a slowly ascending spiral. They swirl out of the cave in such a huge torrent in the very early morning and can't see the rope hanging there. I would imagine that a rope left hanging for the morning swarm might indeed kill 50-100 birds. Cavers and BASErs alike must be aware of this hazard and be sensative to the birds' need for clear airspace during the morning. jon In the evening the birds go back in in a different manner and seem to miss the rope. They just dive in and their flight path is steeper then when they have to circle climb in the AM.

I actually spent about 4 summers helping restore a Lockheed 10A. Any Lockheed 10 person would yell at you that it's not an L-10, it's a Lockheed 10! Lockheed never called it L-10. I probably know the Lockheed 10A better than I know any other plane because I've been inside it everywhere from inside the nose (to work on the back of the instrument panel) all the way to the tip of the tail (to clean out 60+ years of crap). This particular one is 4 serial numbers from Amelia Earhart's. Originally the VIP transport for the Secretary of the Navy in about 1935. Dave Please forgive my ignorance. I'm not a "Lockheed person". Was the airplane on the Skies Call cover a Lockheed Electra or not?

It barely carried 12 jumpers to altitude. It was know as a Lockheed L-10 Electra. I jumped this a/c out of Barnwell South Carolina many many times. It was operated by Bobby Frierson at his Vikings of Denmark DZ. It was a little slower and smaller than the more common Beech 18. (This one in particular was reputed to be the next serial number built after Amelia Earharts ill-fated a/c which disappeared in the South Pacific.) Bobby put all kinds of handles on the a/c and we had a ball climnbing all over it. The videos, or shall I say Super 8 and 15mm movies, were a lot of fun. On one of the exits a jumper ran along the roof only to fall off the opposite side just short of the horizontal. The Lockheed Lodestar carried 30 jumpers and was powered by much larger engines, depending on modification status. The nose was totally different, not as blunt and much longer. It was a much more powerful and roomy a/c and very fast in cruise. I have an old dislocation injury from being slammed into the top of the door during exit because the floor fell out form underneath our feet momentarily.

Yes, Phil from Guam... Got an e-mail for him? thx, jon

You guys sure about that? As I recall they used Bobby Frierson's Lockheed 10E Electra for many of these shots. That's a bunch of Atlanta jumperrs there, Phil and Tanya McCormick, etc. Jon

Make sure you get lots of video! (The guys from the darwin awards really like that.)

Do you need a round Nick? jon

More affectionately referred to as Slug-Ass by the boogie circuit in the 80's. I have never before or after been more scared in an a/c (and I've flown in African wars) as when we lost an engine on take-off in Deland and the pilot took it the long way around town at about 300 feet, turning into the dead engine with the remaining one at full throttle. jon

I might be thought of as late first generation. I started in Feb 82 with another friend who had one base jump under his belt. We just figured if it was being done we could do it as well. We survived about 30 jumps. I remember meeting Carl, Jean, Phil, and others. We were all astounded when Phil made his 100th!!! I took the next 18 years off with BAS. On my return I was glad to see what a mature sport it had become. You can imagine there were many that went the way of me and my cohort. We knew little but tried it anyway. BTW we helped MadDog M do his first. THAT is another story!!! jon

Let them come. I bet I can still impress just about all of them with the way my knees knock at the exit point. jon

Have you done the pendulum off the "big stone" that is done by rapping off a short fixed line to the left of the anchor? There is something so primally wrong about rapping off the end of any rope that it adds tremendously to the rush of a full ropelength penji at 3K above the valley. jon

Remember calling out... " A little tension over here!?" Great way for a student to get acquainted with the sport and those involved. Too bad it isn't quite as necessary to interact with all levels of jumpers as a student now... jon

ghoulidge

I was the first to get to the body of a Blue Angel... ------------------------------------------- What do you mean Bill?

What was and who were "Snoots Are For Toots"? Autographed photograph of King Farouq to the winner.

Where should I post my Reactor? It has very few jumps (20?) but comes with my tertiary canopy which is probably only good for water jumps by now unless you're about 100#. thx, Jon

I have a 5% bail rate. I have climbed and hiked down from A,S,E all without shame. As to whether you should quit, only you can answer that one grasshopper. You are in one helluva predicament when you step off and if you aint all there mentally you shouldn't be there physically.

Does anyone know if the Andrew Keech that just flew transcontinent in an autogyro (breaking the previous record) is the same one who was a reknowned freefall photographer in the 70's?

I jumped a Strato-Star for about two years and 500 jumps. Used rings and ropes for about three jumps then this slider thingy came out. Mine came equipt with one. I replaced it with a Strato-Flyer and used that one for another 500 jumps as well as for my first five BASE jumps. I used my Star for CRW with my DZO partner Robert Kempf. He used to have a Star as well but he outweighed me by 30 pounds. We used to run into each other and hang on for dear life. Called that CREW ha ha. Once he got a Cloud we were perfectly matched and could dock in seconds. Made my first canopy hook-up under my S-Star too. It was with Lew Sanborn and was his first too. He was under a Cloud and bottom docked me. My jump number 133, April 77.

I remember a couple of Z-Hills meets that were flown by DC-3s and Lodestars. In the evening we would all wait in anticipation of the buzz job. Awesome to have two or three of these firebreathing, barking, flamethrowing a/c go by in fromation at dusk. The entire DZ would erupt in cheers!!! jon

Personally, I'm a big believer in the "skydiving teens" concept. That's the idea that after some modest amount of time in sport and experience, one tends to get cocky and overconfident. It's generally considered to be a particularly dangerous phase of anyones skydiving career. -------------------------------------------------------- Good point. Think about this too... The skydiving "teens" used to be at about 400 jumps. Now I'd have to say that the new number is FAR lower. I'd be unable to state where it actually is today as I no longer hang out at any DZ but I'd guess it's around 100 jumps that your newby gets pretty darn bold. They are buying inappropriately sized gear, blowing by break-off altitude, relying on their Cypres', hooking themselves in, etc. The teen nowadays no longer has the advantage of many weekends at the DZ collecting or absorbing the corporate knowledge and experience and wisdom (taken with a grain of salt) that they could. Skydiving is not the sport it once was requiring the time dedication to be safe. It has become a recreational activity and is being taken pretty casually. Remember that the "teens" is not a number but an attitude. It usually goes away with a few helpings of humble pie or a good scare. The skydiver past the teens is more likely to be responsive to admonitions of caution and awareness. The pre-teen is less likely to take these advices to heart unless made in a plane of reference with which he has some reality. If you were to rate base jump sites by the climbers system with the difficulty and risks spelled out to the teen who came from climbing it would sink in. Without reality, just the thought of black death or making reference to bad juju the teen can easily disregard. I'm bullet proof and fearless without reallly knowing how bad it can really get. Didn't get much of anywhere with this but it's worth considering that anybody with the teaching and communication skills working with a student with a shared reality set could probably BASE jump with no skydives. Ask some of the big wall heavies in YO. They have done it with the right mentor. jon

I will have to disagree. The Beech 18 was and is a very good flying machine. Stable, responsive and powerfull. Yes on the ground they required a little more skill then the average pilot possessed, but in the air it is quite pleasant to fly. --------------------------------------------- Right on AirCav. I have many many jumps out of them and almost as many fond memories. Their kiss of death was a spar beef-up which was pretty onerous and caused a few to disappear. Once complied with the wing was fine. Bobby Frierson in Barnwell, SC had a Lockheed Electra which was just about the same as an early Beech-18 with a low cabin. It's the one featured in Andy Keeches book with the jumpers all over the wing and fuselage. I got to climb all over that a/c of Bobby's and it was steady as a rock. Anybody to ever fly one will tell you a Beech 18 handles like a sports car. On ground handling, all us taildragger jocks will tell you the same thing; Rudder skills or maintenance bills. jon

My first ten BASE jumps were on a Strato Flyer then a Kestral. I was only about 145# at that time. Not too much data but all the openings were perfectly on heading.

I would be willing to bet that Doopie never married. He sure is a character!!!

On jump #51, a thirty second RW delay, I pulled and looked over my right shoulder to watch the pilot chute go. I had my shoulder dipped so severely that my 28' got all balled up in a knot. I had too few jumps to jump a PC so hadn't had the cutaway training that went along with that. I instinctively knew that to fire my reserve off into that fast falling mess would be disasterous. At an estimated 2000' I cut away on double shots (uncover, squeeze/pull) and went for the reserve. Now that I had an empty container it flopped all the way over to my right side to where I had no pull strength. I kept struggling and pulling and tumbling with the effort until I got a glimpse of the ground. I finally grabbed the reserve container with my left hand and pulled with the right and got it open. I then had to grab the fabric and pitch it as quickly as possible. Unbeknownst to me people on the DZ were turning away to avoid seeing me "go-in". I got line stretch and put footprintss on the top of my Bell helmet then had about 15 seconds under the reserve, an unmodified, 24" flat TWILL. Oh yeah there were high tension lines that I had to slip over too. It was one of the few times I have experienced everything in intensely slow motion. Every sound, sensation, the metalic taste in my mouth and tingling behind my jaw are as real today as thirty years ago. Gotta figure I was about 2 seconds from that years fatality list. Haven't had to cutaway since! Shoulda once but that's another story... jon