scytale

It would be interesting to know how many skydives were made at Lodi for the same time period. I spent many years skydiving regularly at Lodi and I remember 2 Twin Otter sized aircraft going back to back both weekend days from early Spring to Fall several summers in a row. I remember a few summers where there were more than 100 tandems on Saturday and another 100+ on Sunday. Thats alot of skydives and alot of tandems. I have my own reservations about how Dause ran Lodi, but statistically I don’t know if it would stand out. As far as tandems go, I can only think of the 2016 accident noted above and one where the tandem instructor had a premature opening out the door resulting in a main/reserve entanglement. Instructor was seriously injured and the passenger died sometime later on the operating table in his home country (Austria?). Any way, that makes maybe 2 fatal tandems while in same time frame surrounding Norcal DZ’s had how many?

In all the years I’ve been going to big-way events, record attempts, boogies, whatever, Nick was one of the special few that when you saw him on the DZ, you thought “cool! Nick is here” and you hoped he was on your plane.

Can’t speak to tandems, but packers can only charge $5 for fun jumpers. These are the “Bill Says Rules”. If a packer charges more, and some have, Bill kicks them off the DZ when he finds out. There is nothing to keep a jumper from tipping his/her packer and most do.

QuoteYour best bet is the B24 from Collings Foundation. I have jumped it via the bomb bay, but I gotta warn you, it is a very "snaggy" enviroment inside. Everything is sharp and pointy. I have spent about 3 hours flying around in a B17 and it is worse. It's just as snaggy and about 1/2 the room. It's not impossible, just not easy. You can probably forget about the B25. It's about 1/3 the size inside as a B17. There is no access between the forward and aft compartments nor is there access to the bomb bay inflight. Again, not impossible, but more difficult. Guys "bailed out" of these planes all the time, but generaly it was a dire situation and better than burning alive.

For the last CRW record, the organizers had plastic rectangles that had the name of the participants on them. I think they were actually key chains that had the rings removed. Magnets were glued to the backs and canopy sizes were assigned different colors. It made planning, slot switching, and formation engineering alot easier.

One thing you can bet on is that the Man has put holds, freezes, and restrictions on every dime and asset they can find. So it does not matter how much money they had before the bust, They may have access to precious little of it now.

Please, if anyone tries this, get it on video. I'm sure it would be entertaining to watch

When I feel the need to zip tie my reserve handle, I use a 14 inch long, hot pink, zip tie. I don't cut the tail off on purpose. It is very difficulult to miss once you get to your destination DZ.