howardwhite

Well, o.k., here's how to do it. Yup, sort of like a PC without holes. HW

Good guess. The real answer is more interesting. HW

...or... HW

The Los Angeles Times has a blog entry today featuring a March 23, 1959 feature story about skydiving at Elsinore. A .jpg is attached, but highly compressed to allow posting here; if you want to read the original, download it from the LA Times site. HW

Screen grabs from a 1936 Pathé newsreel... HW

Reviving this long-ago post because Lee Guilfoyle (D-50) recently posted on Flickr an account of the final flight of the Lake Erie B-25. Unfortunately, that account falls short in the facts department and Lee and I have added some corrections to it. Read it here. HW

Any experience with this (pricy) application? HW

You (or someone) obviously has far too much time on his hands. Beautiful. HW

Jumptown,(Orange, MA) will host its third annual boogie in memory of our long-time club member and friend, Paul 'Q' Quandt, July 2-5. Q was a national and world record CRW competitor and member of the U.S. Parachute Team. Organizers: CRW and canopy piloting - Chris Gay, member of the U.S. Parachute Team; Freefly: Dave Brown, Team Mandrin; Wingsuits: Justin Shorb, Flock U. RW: Organizers for all experience levels and group sizes. The CASA will be there July 2-5, but the DZ will be open and jumping every day from June 25-July 5. HW

Jumptown, Orange, MA 124; we had to use the PA system for people who couldn't fit into the room. Four Otter loads; several recurrency jumps. New England really lucked out on the weather this weekend; temps in the 50s Sunday, with blue skies and low winds. HW

J There's a much longer thread on this event in History and Trivia. I'll have a scanner there for capturing your pix. HW

I will have a scanner with me. I'll grab whatever pictures people want to share. In Salt Lake City last year, Ted Strong had a huge stack of black and white pix taken by Tom Schapanski, who was well known both as a photographer and competitor. Unfortunately I didn't get to scan any of them and Jim Arender took a bunch of them home with him. I wish I had been able to record peoples' stories (well, at least some of them.) Particularly memorable were the early jump stories from Brian Williams, a (definitely) pioneering southern California jumper. HW

SkySystems, the folks who previously brought you condoms disguised as tube stoes, passed out "Helmet Fresheners" at PIA this year. I just got around to reading the warning label (which is very small.) The package also says "Prevents that 'not so fresh feeling' that may accompany long boogies and competitions. May partially mask environmental anomalies due to lower pressure at high altitude." HW

I see that an outfit called "Tri-City Trading" has started running banner Google ads here. So I looked at their web site and found this "About Us." I think I'm not running there to buy stuff. HW

Pre-TV. Who is this hero character, making Mr. Bill jumps to rescue the good guys from burning airplanes shot down by the bad guys? HW

Another reason to be there: a talk, either Friday or Saturday night. The topic: "How a Phantom Driver, with a budget of $0.00, steals a C-130, rounds up 12 folks from around the country and ends up at 2 AM, 44,100 feet over Ft Bragg." The speaker: Bob Mathews, one of skydiving's truly legendary storytellers. Subject: Marines (plus one Army guy) high-altitude record, June 1964. Bob says eight of the 12 participants will be there. HW

DVD and stills on CD. No film. VHS tape on special request (but I don't think there were any last year.) Option not mentioned: landing stills (not part of any other package and operating as a separate concession). Stills are displayed on a monitor easily visible by those who just jumped; they can select one (or more) and get an 8 1/2 x 11 print immediately for $25. HW

The Grand Army of the Republic, an organization for Union veterans of the Civil War, dissolved in 1956 upon the death of its last surviving member. Since "membership" qualifications for the Pioneers of Sport Parachuting were never as clearly defined as those for the GAR, when will the "Pioneers" dissolve? The first reunion was at Nate Pond's (D-69) farm in Vermont in 1997 and the second in Tampa in 2001. I think the definition of a "pioneer" then was someone who had jumped prior to 1965 -- so even at these first two, I didn't qualify. When I took over the Pioneers web presence on the PIA site a couple of years ago, I blew away any qualifying language, so blame me for the lack of clarity. I hang out with a lot of newbies. I made three jumps last weekend with college kids exercising their relatively new A licenses. When I drag out "A Sport is Born" -- or even "Masters of the Sky" -- some of the new people are interested, others wander away. That's fine. I'm participating in trying to get a National Skydiving Museum built and open while some genuine pioneers are still alive for the ribbon-cutting. May 2, 2009 is the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Orange Sport Parachute Center. Two days after I posted the event on Facebook, 25 people have already said they'll be at Jumptown -- lining up, no doubt, in the hope of jumping with Lew Sanborn. So I don't really care what we call it; I care that at least some who never saw a round or a PC or a static line jump are interested in more than how to look cool swooping under a tiny canopy. Check out the attendance list on the reunions website. A lot of people on that list have really cool stories. Some of them are bores. If you're bored, go to the bar. I might be at the bar myself. HW

At the risk of being slapped for cross-posting, but because people here don't necessarily visit the Events and Places section, go there for information on the Pioneers of Sport Parachuting Reunion in Raeford in May. Lots of low D-numbers and other well-known people will be there. HW

Want to meet, talk with, maybe even jump with any of these people? * Earliest Pioneer - Nick Velicu - started jumping in 1949 in Romania * Lowest D - Jerry Bourquin - D22 * 2 Digit Ds - Jerry Bourquin (D22), Coy McDonald (D70), Bill McCarthy (D83) * Started jumping in 50s - Bob Mathews (1959, D118), Walt Morgan (1957, D468), Coy McDonald (1955), Jose Rodriquez (1958, D1910), Milt Platt (1955, D435), Jerry Bourquin (1958), Bill McCarthy (1958), Len Potts (1952, D220), Kim Emmons Knor (1959, D221), Bill Dolley (1953, D390) * Other 3 Digit Ds - Paul MacLean (D320), Dick Myron (D232) * Early Ladies - Marge Bates (1961), Kim Emmons Knor (1959), Elizabeth Foster (1960), Joan Williams (1965) * Raeford Team (1973 to 1978) - Cheryl Sterns, Joan Williams, Cathy Miller, Kevin Donnelly, Paul Sitter, Mark Limond, James Hayhurst, Linda Miller They're all going to be at the Pioneers of Sport Parachuting Reunion May 7-10 in Raeford/Fayetteville. Free jumps and free wind tunnel time may still be available, but you better register here soon. You can also see a complete list there of people who have registered (The list above is the"official" list, but Lew Sanborn,D-1, told me last week he'll be there and jumping.) HW

I've gotten two "xxx... has accepted your Friend request" messages in the past three days -- without (consciously) having asked. This has never happened to me before -- ever since the "Friends" thingie was added. So I wonder idly if something weird is going on. No big deal -- I just "unfriended" them. (One was DSE.) HW

These are from another old newsreel, but I don't think it's a Russian. HW

I don't know about loading, but if I were paying for Adtuition ads I'd be pissed off that the third line of text in the right-hand ad is pretty consistently cut out, presumably to make room for the AdTuition text. HW

The Apple Final Cut Express web page has a demo video specifically about AVCHD, noting you can "Begin editing AVCHD footage seconds after import." This is, of course, true, but import takes a while. I'm guessing -- but only guessing -- that the FCX performance in this will be essentially the same as with FCP. There is a good little demo there of Log and Transfer, which notes that you can select individual clips from a stick and choose only the ones you want to import. (But you can't "scrub through" a clip and select only portions of it for import, as you can with a tape.) And as soon as one is imported you can in fact begin editing it, while others continue importing/transcoding in background. That still does not compare to the workflow with Vegas Pro, where you can begin editing in seconds after the stick is attached. HW

MacBook Pro, 2.33 GHz Intel Core Duo 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM HW