wartload

If Skybill can't come up with one, I've got what I'm pretty sure is a B4 ripcord sitting here in front of me ... odd what stuff turns up in the basement gear bags! Send the measurements to me if you think you need this one.

We tried to tye-dye (in the bathtub) my original cheap-o red, but it ended up coming out pink. We called it "The Pink Panther" and jumped it anyway. May still have it ... have to see what's in that other container!

A great deal depends upon the re$ource$ that you have available to you and what your long-range plans are. Unless daddy's really rich, and assuming that someone's planning a career that will require a graduate degree, I'd suggest that they go to a good local (state tuition) undergraduate school, take the tough courses that prep for the field of interest, and work like a horse to get a high GPA ... then a really good grad school is more likely to be interested in the candidate (and more likely to come up with funding). I've seen some very smart people go to very rigorous undergrad schools that chewed them up and spit them out with a degree in their backpack ... they had the degree, but were burnt out, too.

Little trees? Just making a stab at it.

... except how to spell "professor".

Wingy ... First, I didn't know that you live in India. Second, maybe if you can't handle dealing with the ignorant and confused, you are in the wrong job? No offense intended, but we all find ourselves in situations where we need help, but don't "speak the language" of those who are the "pros" at that workplace. For example, I haven't a clue what all the billing codes for Blue Cross mean. Does that mean that I shouldn't have insurance, or only that I should let myself be controlled by those who do? Think about it.

What's it going to be rated? Any idea?

Where's a long-armed pro bowler when you need one?

That's the sort of attitude and performance that helped them earn those stars!

Nick ... that's absolutely spectacular!

First, if a military rotorcraft isn't leaking hydraulic fluid, that usually means that it's OUT of fluid. As for "skids for kids" after jumping mostly little cramped planes, sitting in the open doorway with feet on the skids and watching the world fall away was quite a treat!

That's interesting. Bacardi was made in Santiago de Cuba back in the pre-Castro days, but then moved their operation to Puerto Rico after the Batista regime fell. Are you sure that it was made in Cuba, as opposed to just being advertised as Cuban-style rum? Now I'm wondering if Bacardi has moved back to Cuba, or if you had the freaking incredible good fortune to stumble across a bottle that's been sitting around in storage since the 1950s! (If the latter, let's talk about getting more!!!! No wonder it would be smooth!)

Crap ... after reading this one, I'm thinking about deleting mine!

Nice Oregon Ducks lanyard.

Whew! And I thought it was just cuz I'm old!

Just curious about this ... my own were Black Horse UH1s and a CH-53 (I think that was the designation of the Navy's minesweeper config) in 1976.

If he's where I think he was (is that the point with the Hawai'ian temple below?), there usually was a good breeze coming off the ocean, so he'd be blown back toward the runway. The bay side of the runway was usually nice and calm ... not many big sharks, either ... but the ocean side could often be rough, with bad currents and big stuff with teeth. Perhaps even more dangerous, the base CO's house was on a bluff at that end of the runway (one of the most beautiful homesites on earth!).

efs4ever's jump made me think of a similar one of my own that, although perhaps not the one with the most severe danger potential, was the one where I got hurt the worst. I was at a Charlotte (Midland) NC club. The weather had been suckish for weeks, and everyone was suffering from the skyhornies. We got an unexpectedly clear morning, so several people showed up early. We put a load together, made a pass to toss a WDI, and it just sort of disappeared into the distance. We figured that we'd climb to altitude, "go long" upwind, and see what happened. I'm certain that it was an all-round jump, since that's about the time that I saw my first square, a Parasled. Some of us had cheap-os, though, and some PCs. Once we got to altitude, the agreed upon "spot" was the dividing line between a massive, dark, cloud bank and clear sky. It was like jumping past the edge of God's dining room table. We all opened a bit higher than normal, and were glad we did so. Once under canopy, three things were immediately obvious: 1) we were long; 2) the wind was blowing like hell (zipping over the trees below); 3) the only option was to run for the DZ, because there wasn't anything below us but trees. What we had to do was clear the woods, get over a 2-lane country highway, clear some powerlines, and we'd be on the airport property. The guys with the PCs, and one of the cheapos that opened a bit higher than me, barely made it over the powerlines. I was literally holding my legs up, so that the pine trees wouldn't hit my ass. I knew I could clear the trees, but not the powerlines. No problem ... I could hook somewhat into the wind and land on the road, which I started to do ... only to see that there was a car coming in that lane. SH**!! I avoided the car, but landed in the far lane, crabbing. I did one of the best (and one of the only) PLFs of my life, but still slammed into the road (the altimeter mount on my chest reserve got bent up). My canopy kept inflated, dragging me off the road and into the ditch, then flopped over the power lines. I grabbed one of the suspension lines (made a lucky guess at which one), pulled it in enough to collapse the canopy, so that it slipped under the wires, then cut away one side as it started to reinflate. Then I realized how sore I was, and that one elbow was bleeding. One of the guys drove me to the local emergency room, where a doc sewed me up. In the course of the suturing, we talked about how I got hurt. Turns out that he was a former Army MD who had been attached to an airborne unit, so he also signed my logbook.

Not a dork at all. I've met literally dozens (or more) politicians, actors, and others in the limelight and, with the exception of the books of authors whom I've known personally, haven't asked for an autograph since I met Louis Armstrong about 1960. I'd ask Lew Sanborn to sign my logbook, too.

Hey, Nick. If that's the end of the runway that I think it is (ocean side), about 12 years before your first jump I lived not too far from where you made that jump.

They tried to take a picture of mine, but the photographer couldn't keep his head under the fabric hood of the wooden camera in that much prop wash.

I don't know about the majority of light-plane crashes being caused by running out of fuel, but that's one of the main causes, for sure. This report said that the engine "seized up", which, if true, suggests that it could have managed to blow out all of the oil somehow, or it otherwise had a major mechanical failure. To be honest with you, whomever was expecting a fireball sounds pretty inexperienced. If you've got a light plane and a pasture of any size at all, one of the last concerns is that the thing is gonna burst into flames.

Glad you enjoyed your jump on the "old" gear! You might enjoy taking a look in the History/Trivia area and find the thread on how piggyback rigs came to be. One of the postings shows the rig that I thought, at the time, was the latest and greatest. The thread also covers Jesus Strings, ripcord stops, gravel guards, the first reserve static lines, etc..

It lets you know where your balls are ... or were.

Interesting choice of terms, considering the nature of the assignment.