Jim_Hooper

My Fate series that appeared in Parachutist last year is now on Bill's web site in a somewhat less politically correct edition. If there's anything there you'd like me to expand on for your piece, email me directly. Hoop SCR242 SCS90 NSCR26

I guess not remembering must mean I was there. (I was, wasn't I?) Hoop

Can't remember who sent me this, but a snap of Gencarrelle coaching Beanpole with Dana on his shoulders and my girlfriend Sara on top. Probably not the same year but not far from where Mike's landing his Stratostar at Z'hills. Hoop

Believe me, Beanpole was one hot skydiver back in the day. And the first to do a tandem - with his disabled stepson Kirk as the passenger. Please pass on my regards when you next see him. Hoop www.jimhooper.co.uk

I never met Tall Paul Gorman, but his name had instant recognition for us nascent relative workers in Florida in the late '60s. He was one of those select SOCAL jumpers whose legacy can be seen on every dropzone today. Hoop SCR242

Tuna - tsk, tsk... That's the L10E Electra. Hoop

Like Crusty, I was there when she visited Z'hills. She was 4'11". Only a very few jumpers got her signature because her hands were so arthritic she had difficulty holding a pen. Whoever had brought her out to the drop zone (and I'm embarrassed I don't remember who that person was) asked me to make an announcement over the PA system not to ask her to sign their logbooks. Hoop

Hi Mike -- I have some pretty vivid memories of you guys. Hoop

Jim, don't feel like the Lone Ranger. Carbone did the same thing in the door of Sweet's Lodestar, 43WT, at Z'hills, with a member of the city council - who was also a lay Baptist preacher with a prfound dislike of skydivers - watching. I was not, as you might imagine, overjoyed. And poor Scotty couldn't understand why I grounded him. Again. Hoop

Cheaper without the face shield? I think I paid about $30 for mine, but that was...ahem...cough, cough..a while back. By the time I started in '65, football helmets were seen as dorky, and worn only by students. There must be hundreds of Bells langishing in garages alongside old rigs. Put up another thread. Subject: Bell 500TX. Hoop

No, no, no. Football helmets were out by the mid-60s. Very uncool. You want to be be looking for a Bell 500TX motorcycle helmet.

Jon, Strato-Stars were too closely related to ParaPlanes to give me any confidence in squares. "Jump one of them things? Me? (gulp) My mama didn't raise no fool." Took more balls than I had to strap one of those on my back. A few hundred jumps later, Dick Morgan convinced me to take one of their Strato-Flyers. I accepted the freebie only because I could get it into the same space as my Paradactyl. Hoop

Well said, Mr Nixon. Hoop ww.jimhooper.co.uk

I am somewhat puzzled by the horror stories associated with jumping rounds. My first logbook records 64 jumps on 28-foot cheapos, when I bought a ParaCommander. Memory may be failing me, but I'd guess that at least 75% of landings under that old RW&B PC were standups while wearing Adidas. (I really don't believe French boots prevented ankle injuries.) Hard openings? Sure, but they were the exception (until I switched to a Starlight - WHAM!). Landing out? From time to time, when the spotter erred. Over 1200 jumps on rounds and things like T-bows and Paradactyls preceded 2300-odd on squares, the obvious benefits with the latter being smaller pack volume - which was the first consideration - lower malfunction rate - 24 cutaways by that time, so not a big factor - and the ability to get back from a bad spot. Hoop

Rog - I think you're correct on those you named. That's Jim Beck on the left wing of the diamod to your left, James Revelle as point on the diamond to your right, and Walter Lambdin in blue helmet and 10-High team suit at the back. Best I can do. Hoop

A lot of breeze through the windsock since then. Around the same time as you signed off my PADI qualification. I didn't think Mr White was was going to miss something as easy as a PT-22, so I just had to get in there ahead of him. Hoop

I'll preempt: Ryan PT-22 with a five-cylinder Kinner. Logged a jump from one at the 'Hills. Hoop

You and Connie Ski and Donna? and? and?

I made more than my share of early jumps out of army Beavers when I was in Germany in the 60s. v...e...r...y s...l...o...w.

Well done, Patrick! Hoop PS Lemme know what you think of my new website. www.jimhooper.co.uk

Dear Mr DiGiovanni: I've tried to be the good guy, tried to lessen the impact of your slurs and innuendo, not to mention gross distortion of history and facts, but you wouldn't listen. The message between the lines was clear: time to button your lip and allow the dust to settle. The attention span of the public is like that of a goldfish - every time around the bowl is a new experience. They'd have forgotten everything by the morning. But then you had to mention Agent 9- I mean Summer Rose, who, as you well know, was not my daughter, but my niece (wink-wink). I've just spoken to her on our frequency-hopping encrypted semaphore smoke signal system. All her well known sweetness, and especially her patience with you, is at an end. I pleaded with her not to overreact. It was no use. Not even destroying everything you uncovered about high performance canopies, or slipping into your old disguise as a Buddhist monk (the saffron robe never really suited you, anyway) can save you now. The last sound I heard was the silencer being threaded onto the muzzle. She's out there, Mr DiGiovanni, she's out there and she's coming for you. (Why didn't you listen to me?!) Hoop

Rog and Niki - I described it in another thread somewhere, but I did all that Niki did, but replaced some panels with larger C-9 panels to create something like Lemoigne slots. Packed it in a POD in an upside-down NB-6 container. Very flat and light. I got reasonable drive out of it, and with a bit of wind could manage stand-ups. Being 135 pounds helped, of course. See attachment. Hoop www.jimhooper.co.uk

As we departed Tahlequah that year, Revis and I were standing behind Pablo as he levelled out and headed for the competitor's tent. "A hundred bucks if you knock it down," Billy said, "a thousand if you go under it." And for a moment, I definitely thought we were. According to Jack Bergman, USPA's treasurer at the time, it was just about the most heart-stopping buzz job anyone had ever seen. The FAA was really grumpy. On the way back to Z'hills, he got exceptionally frisky with the DC-3 and we put together the first-ever zero-G ten-man - 11 with Mary Donnan - with cases of Coors floating all around the cabin. The trick was not being under one when he eased out of the dive. This was the same genius who, rumor had it, took some happy snaps of himself and others somewhere way down south sitting on big bales of agricultural product and surrounded by lots of automatic weapons brought in to barter, and then put the film through Eckards for processing. "My, my, that's an intersting shot," someone at Kodak quality control is reputed to have said. "Let's make sure Mr Rice gets one, but let's do a copy for DEA and maybe one for US Customs, too. Oh, and there's another good one!" Cut to: "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, just because my client has a condo in Vale, another in Miami Beach, a home in North Carolina, a Ferrari, a Maserati, the first V-12 E-Type Jaguar in Florida, and a brand new Corvette should in no way suggest that he is other than a hard-working small businessman. And besides, can the prosecution prove beyond all reasonable doubt that those are real bales of marijuana or real machine guns?" Nice try, but ... Click-click, SLAM! Bye-bye, Pablo. The grumpiness exhibited by the FAA at Tahlequah was nothing compared to what his buddies in the photos must have felt after that teensy-tiny lapse in judgement. If I'm not mistaken, Paul Rice died of a heart attack 20+ years ago. It was an interesting cast of characters back in the early '70s. Hoop

Tuna, don't be vulgar. You know I've been sworn to chastity, doing good works, and rescuing damsels in distress for my entire life. Tsk, tsk, I'm surprised that you've forgotten. Hoop www.jimhooper.co.uk

Dave -- For a little history on opposition to that thread, may I refer you to http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3110608;search_string=garden%20shed;#3110608