Zing

So ... that's what happened to that damn Skyvan. Zing Lurks

Good thing you don't need flaps ... cause it doesn't look you've got any on that flying machine. Zing Lurks

As a pilot who has flown both the 40-plus year old airplanes, and the brand new ones, I'd call your logic for using that criteria as justification for wearing or not wearing your helmet seriously flawed. Death lurks off the end of the runway on every take off. Zing Lurks

Then ... How much ground could a groundhog grind if a groundhog could grind ground? Zing Lurks

I think this was the same year WHO (Bill Ottley) made a nude jump, but his buddies turned his main around backwards without telling him. He opened, decided landing backwards without clothes was not a good thing and cutaway. After he landed under his spare, I remember Ottley walking past the area we were packing in with his reserve wrapped around him like a silk toga whilst loudly cursing his "friends." Zing Lurks

That WFFC forced Jim Blumenthal to sell his DC-4. Despite his request that jumpers stay seated and belted in during the take-off, some vidiot decided to go for a stroll around the cabin and cockpit. Somehow, Jim never found out how, some video of this guy walking around during the take-off made it on local television. When Jim got home to his base in Kingman, Arizona, there was a telegram waiting for him from his insurance company advising him that his insurance was canceled and the company, the only one that would write a policy for the kinds of flying Jim was doing, declined to discuss re-instating the insurance. Jim was forced to sell the airplane because he couldn't operate without insurance. He still has the C-123, but he won't consider hauling sport jumpers ever again. As a historical note, Jim's DC-4 was the one Dwight D. Eisenhower used as his personal transport during his final years in the US Army high command. Zing Lurks

I think I know the author of that letter. It was fun to jump that DC-4. Zing Lurks

Okay ... I'm confessing. I put those bones there getting rid of the bodies, hoping no one would would ever find them. Geez, wait'll they find the other stuff I buried. Them scientist folks are REALLY gonna be pissed off about that. Zing Lurks

Lisa ... I've had a number of snakes, so I'm speaking from experiences similiar to what you've got going with a snake not eating for a few months. What's the temperature in the snakes terrarium? Being cold-blooded, a temperature change of just a few degrees, like when the seasons change and the house is 2 or 3 degrees cooler than it was three months ago, can affect the snakes feeding routine. Try warming the snake's terrarium up 3 to 5 degrees, and see if its appetite doesn't improve. The fact that the snake tolerates "cuddling" with potential prey suggests the snake desires additional warmth more than it desires a meal. Additionally, is that snake a captive-bred, or a wild-caught? Despite it not being as cold as it might get in the wild, it is the time of year (winter) when that snake would be hibernating and wouldn't be eating. As long as the snake has had access to water, three or four months without a meal for a snake that size is not life-threatening ... yet. Zing Lurks

"NOW you tell me... I've got a Strong Starmaker reserve converted for use as a intentional cutaway... Hop-n-pop from an Otter and there was INSTANT canopy. TSO says they need 3 seconds... not sure why, the other 2.5 seconds were unnecessary..." Try polling a number a bunch of jumpers with lots of jumps on both rounds and squares. I think you'll find that most everyone of them will be able to tell you tales of rounds and squares that have slammed open, and similiar tales of snively openings on both types of canopies. I've been tagged so hard I saw stars by both, and had snivels so long I either did cutaway, or was about to when it opened. Zing Lurks

Nonsense! Opening altitudes have changed. People pull at much higher altitudes now than 30, 20, or even as few as ten years ago. Pull at two grand at most drop zones today, and you'll hear about it from management. As far as those "fast opening rounds," well, there was the Starlite and the Piglet I with reputations for slamming open, but in my experience, there is not a huge difference in opening times between rounds and squares. The advantage to changing from rounds to squares was based on softer landings and, theoretically, more reliable openings. Zing Lurks

What was the date for the ad, Howard? I know a couple jumpers, including myself, who made a set of "Death Gloves" at home in the 70s ... so named because the inserts between the fingers made fumbling for ripcords, Capewells and other stuff a bit more difficult, but they do work. Zing Lurks

Nope, there have been drivers like that since the automobile was invented. Zing Lurks

Would you rather find out you don't have a girlfriend anymore, along with the all the drama of getting dumped by a bored ex in the middle of a skydiving boogie, or wait until you get home? Zing Lurks

Yepper ... its buffalo herd theory ... at the rate I'm going, I'll be a fuckin genius soon! Zing Lurks

I was there too, and I'll never forget the sound of their impact on that roof. I was packing about 50 feet away and saw the entanglement happen. It was a surprise that they both walked away from it. Zing Lurks

I spent the first five years of my life in a neighborhood of a large Pennsylvania city where the use of an ethnic slur might get you a knife in the ribs. Then my family moved to a small town in North Dakota called Wahpeton, mostly populated by Norwegians, Swedes and Germans. The name for the high school sports teams ... the Wahpeton Wops ... and the team cheer for the mighty wops... Go Wops, Go! Alas, in the these times of political correctness, those teams are now the Huskies, but I've managed to save a few souveniers from the days of the Wops. In fact, a fellow member of a bowling team I was on in SoCal twelve years ago, who is of Italian descent, was so tickled by the story of the Wahpeton Wops, that I gave him a team jacket from my high school with a large Wahpeton Wops patch on the front and purple and gold letters across the back proclaiming the town the home of "The Mighty Wops ... Go Wops Go." He wore that jacket proudly and when Joe died, he requested that the team jacket be placed in his casket. Gone, but not forgotten. Zing Lurks

Its them skinny legs of his, I tell you. Zing Lurks

True story ... years ago, I put a friend's girlfriend out on her first hop-n-pop after her SL and DRCP jumps. I had the pilot crank a climbing 180 after she jumped, then I got out about 20 seconds after her. As I fell past her open canopy, off to the side, I yelled, "HOW DIDJA LIKE THAT?" Then I pulled, landed, and forgot all about hollering at her as we packed up and got ready for another load. Later that night at a local bar she told the bunch around the table that she heard God's voice on her jump. She never saw me go by her canopy, but she heard me loud and clear. Zing Lurks

If you want to know what spending a weekend at a skydiving boogie feels like you need merely take all your money out of the bank and burn it. Then snort the ashes into your nose and mouth, throw yourself down the stairs a couple times and then drink until you pass out in the yard in a pile of dirty clothes. You'll feel just like you spent the weekend boogieing, without all the hassle of traveling to a dropzone and doing that skydivin' and partying stuff. Zing Lurks

Consider yourself fortunate that you got something for nothing from USPA. I bought a lifetime membership to the orginization in 1974. Imagine my surprise when it expired in 1975. Despite being a member on and off over the years, each time I've re-upped they tell me I have no licenses or ratings, but that's not what it says on the official-type USPA cards for the licenses I have in my possession. If that wasn't insult enough, despite the fact that in the past I had a few articles printed in Parachutist and raised a few bucks for the US Team at Ghoulidge Boogies, the bastards spelled my name incorrectly in the January issue. I ain't impressed! Zing Lurks

No guts, no glory Zing Lurks

Its them skinny legs. Zing Lurks

I can't belive I forgot to mention the PAC pilot Brent. He really tore up the sky with the Deland PAC and did 30 loads in one hour during one of his two-hour stints. I was refueling the Porter between my turns in the rotation somewhere past midnight when an older fellow walked up and we started talking. He told me he'd been there most of the day watching the airshow and said that it reminded him of his time in the Navy during WWII. Turns out, he was part of an anti-aircraft gun crew in the Pacific and his ship was sunk by a Kamikaze plane. A few months later, he was on a second ship that was hit by a Japanese plane. Sort of puts things in a different perspective. Nobody was shooting at us. Zing Lurks

I think I flew that Porter about 5.5 hours and managed to just barely average 27 loads per hour, while the PACs were easily doing 28 and, once or twice, averaged 29 loads per hour. The PACs flew two-hour stints and the Porter flew one-hour turns because I couldn't carry enough fuel to fly longer. I hadn't flown like that in three years, since Jay's last record at Elsinore, and MarkMark and Bill, the PAC pilots had never done it. It took each of us a few loads to get the drill down so we could smooth and fast. Ken, the Skydive Pennsylvania pilot who flew the polka-dot porter down to Greensburg gave it his best shot, but we had too much fuel on board at first, he was struggling to get to the 2 min. 20 sec. turn times in. The nature of the flying was something he felt was a bit out of his experience. He's a hell of good pilot in his own right, and made what he considered the best call, in my opinion. It wasn't something for the faint-at-heart. The folks that really had it rough were the safety crew guys who hung on tight in the back and rode the airplanes down 641 times and never squaked about it once. Zing Lurks