beenthere

I remember that Brown Loadstar had come to Casa Grande for a boogie, (maybe Thanksgiving). It had come from or was headed to somewhere in Colorado. We were watching it from the ground, it was on jumprun, when it looked like it wobbled. I immediately knew what we had just seen was a stall. Earlier the year we experienced a stall in our Loadstar. We had gone up to 15,000 feet for BJ's birthday jump with a load of 20 jumpers. I was at the back 17th I think. When the floater started to climb out, the plane started to feel odd. I didn't recognize what was happening, but Jim Heydorn who was last in line yelled "GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT OF MY WAY" I'll never forget those words. Or the sounds the engines were making, full throttle while falling backwards As Heydorn was saying his words the tail was starting to drop. Far enough that we went weightless and started to float toward the rear of the plane. We floated weightlessly for a few seconds. Our weightless trip ended abruptly when we were pinned to the floor. Several jumpers were able to get out.The first 6 or 8 people including the floaters left the plane and went up in relation to the stalling aircraft. Rande Deluca had an amazing sequence of photos where there were 6-8 jumpers above the plane which was in a nose dive below the jumpers. I used to have one of those photos, and would love to get a copy of that moment. Several of us were still in the Loadstar while it was pointing straight down, and like I said were pinned to the floor. It started to recover and we were able to crawl along the cabin floor. Then when it returned to a nosedown position, we were pinned onto the floor again. My hand reached the door frame, and the more I pulled, the deeper the cuts were injuring my fingers. Our good fortune was there were two pilots flying that day. Randy "Roach"Kempf and Steve Graas. We started at 15,000 and they pulled us out of the dive at about 12,000 or so.I got out of the plane about 12,000and found BJ and Hod Sanders in a two way.I grabbed onto them and we flew our three wayto break off. I had got blood on HODs new jumpsuit from the cuts in my fingers. They saved our lives because there were two pilots in the cockpit. Randy said that he didn't have the strength to pull the plane out of the dive without the help of Steve Graas. From the on, They lowered the landing gear on those high loads which moved the CG forward. Also used some more flaps as well a higher jump run speed. A few years later when there was a Loadstall in Washington, and only about 7 or 8 jumpers were able to get out and I believe that 14 were killed. It brought back the same feelings that we went thgough. The sound of the screaming engines, the weightless before being pinned to the floor, and the helplessness of the situation. That's a bit of a long answer about the Brown Loadstar, but if anyone of the jumpers are around I would like to hear from anyone who survived those stalls, and especially if anyone has Rande Deluca's photos from that load at the Gulch we were on.

Here's the photo of Hod. I had always thought that this was the first one, but I also thought that Rande Deluca took the photo, now I'm thinking maybe it was Tony. Also thought it was over Casa Grande not Coolidge. Could be wrong about that too. Memories are a little foggy from back then.

Not Mirror Image, but Becky Livingstone, who lived in Pope Valley was one of the jumpers on the album.

There were two films, one called "Mirror Image 77" which ended with an up-down in-out produced by BJ and Rande. The film was premiered the night before the 77 Nationals. The second, "Rainbow Magic" from 1979 was filmed by Rande DeLuca and Phil Pastuhov also produced by BJ. Here are two frames from a poor quality VHS copy of the film "Rainbow Magic".

Two out of three ain't bad, color from Pope Valley. The matchbook cover was the "T" design.

Not that it really matters, but I checked an old logbook from the 79 meet and the entry was "cruiser/SF". In 79 Mirror Image jumped Cruise-Air mains and (SF) Safety Flyer? reserves in Chateauroux France. Trained in Pope Valley that year with Units/26 lopo's. The 81 M.I. team did use Swifts in the newly introduced Vectors at the World Meet. The mains had to be made twice because one of the panels was from the wrong template, and the pretty RW&B canopies turned out to be mostly blue because of a fabric shortage.

Not sure if anyone else mentioned it. Sky-hi Skydivers DeSoto KS. They flew a Stinson V77 Gullwing off a farm field runway. Closed around 1971.

If that was the glass nosed beach, I was on a load in Casa Grande which we ran out of fuel on take-off and never got in it again.

Many of previously listed AC including a couple of great rides in a Luftwaffe UH-1 at Warendorf, a couple out of a Confederate AF B-17, but what I found most interesting was the difference in the condition of CH-47's one maintained by Calif. Air National Guard in spotless condition compared to several CH-47's in Seoul Korea which had "oil slicks" on the ramp from leaking trans fluid. Also have to say, the cleanest air from ramp to freefall definately the MI-8.