howardwhite

A few here. HW

The Library of Congress has recently posted a selection of photos from its collection on Flickr. The hope is that people will add comments that will provide some historical context. The very first picture that crops up is this one of a B-25. If you poke around, you'll find lots of other great airplane photographs. There's also a collection of earlier glass negatives from the Bain News collection, again including lots of airplane pictures. Fun to check out. HW

This one had fairly limited circulation, too. HW

Nope. Already covered that base here. HW

I didn't bother to obscure the markings. Wonder if it was ever used for sport jumps? HW

Well, just to put this one to bed... The cover photo note from the Nov-Dec '78 Spotter reads: "The Army Parachute Team, later to become World champions in 8-man, put a new slant on 10-mans at the 1978 Nationals. Photo by Pat Rogers." The APT team did compete at the 78 Nationals in Richmond, IN, and their 8-way team went on to win the World Cup that year. And I was editor at that time, so it must be true. HW (The same issue also contains a picture of a C-54 at Coolidge sent in by zing, and a separate note: "75 jumpers set some sort of aviation record Nov. 25 by being the first people ever to jump out of a C-54. The plane, at Arizona Parachute Ranch, carries a minimum of 40 and a maximum of 100 jumpers.")

"New" as in published in 2001 (Just "The Bluegrass Conspiracy.") Drew Thornton is also mentioned in the book "Cowboy's Caravan," which was mentioned recently in another thread here. Here's a picture from that book showing his last DZ. HW

From XKCD.

Here's the dog cartoon, along with another (which seems equally pertinent today.) And Carl Boenish's picture of Joe's "test jump" from El Cap July 1, 1980, before an audience of Fish and Wildlife people, resulting in the "legalization" of jumps starting a month later. Finally, here's the text of Bill Ottley's obit in the March, 1983, Parachutist. HW ------- On Friday, Jan. 14, Joe Svec, 35, secretary of the United States Parachute Association, was killed in a tragic skydiving accident during filming of a stunt sequence for "The Right Stuff," a film version of Tom Wolfe's best-selling novel about test pilots and astronauts. Skydiving cameraman Rande Deluca of Big Sky Films was jumping with Svec at the time, and reported seeing no problems. Deluca quit filming at approximately 3500 feet and turned and tracked away to open a distance away from and above where Svec planned to open. Svec was seen by Doc Johnson, an experienced jumper, to turn face-to-earth (he had been facing upward, flying on his back during the filming sequence) and fall flat and stable until impact. Despite very careful analysis and medical tests, no explanation has been found for the accident. The sequence being filmed depicts famed test pilot Chuck Yeager (first man to break the sound barrier) ejecting from an experimental aircraft. During the fatal jump, however, Svec was wearing no particularly cumbersome or otherwise "odd" gear (except perhaps his helmet) which might have inhibited his movements or reactions. Svec had achieved meteoric success during his six years as a skydiver and USPA Board member. He began as a well-known figure in the Houston area, at the Spaceland Center and other Texas drop zones. He was elected as a write-in candidate for Conference Director in 1978 and published the very popular Southwest Swooper newsletter, which featured "Don DePloy" who had an opinion about almost every subject in the skydiving world, cleverly drawn and cleverly written. Svec became a National Director in 1980 (when Eric Pehrson succeeded him in the Conference Director slot) and was elected USPA's secretary that same year. RW meet director of the National Championships in 1980, Svec also competed on various teams and served as Leader of the U.S. National Skydiving Team which won gold medals "across the board" at the World Meet in Zephyrhills in 1981. As his friends would tell you, Joe Svec was truly a "Renaissance man," with a tremendous collection of skills and achievements. Little known, for example, was his generosity: he funded other people's skydiving teams when they ran out of money in order to permit them to compete in the Nationals and in world competitions. He was a true war hero—he held some sort of record as Vietnam's luckiest combat veteran, having returned to combat repeatedly (with and without the Army's permission) after having acquired seven Purple Hearts that the government knew about and a total of more than 20 battle wounds. He served with the Special Forces in their most secret and difficult assignments, where he operated almost exclusively behind the enemy lines for months at a time. When finally his wounds got to him, he was MED-EVAC'ed to Tripler General Hospital in Honolulu, where he stayed after his recovery and became a successful political cartoonist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin. His interest in politics and his wry humor combined to help him create a series of memorable cartoons and satirical articles, some of which appeared in the pages of PARACHUTIST. Joe was principally involved in making El Capitan jumping legal (briefly, in 1980) and led 'the first Park Service-approved jump off the famed cliff. Perhaps one of his greatest disappointments was when a short time later actions by others caused Yosemite's policy to declare cliff jumping out of bounds. More recently Svec became a stunt jumper for the "Fall Guy" televison show and this led directly to his commitment to "stand in" for one of the actors in the dangerous sequences to be filmed for the cinema version of Wolfe's best-seller. Joe was buried by family and friends in a somber ceremony on a wind-swept afternoon on Tuesday, Jan. 18 in Houston, TX. USPA President Larry Bagley led a delegation of USPA officials who joined with hundreds of friends at the ceremony in the cemetery chapel. "This is one of the biggest services we've ever had," was the comment of one of the officials present. Joe Svec had a lot of friends. —William H. Ottley

Well, I would guess: "Bob Stroud best uses his engineering degree from Oklahoma State University in designing chutes and safety systems. These designs are actively used in safety applications from cars to boats to rockets to aircraft and more. He has over 1000 parachute jumps (many testing his own products), spent 7 years in the Army Special Forces and is an examiner for the FAA." But his name isn't on any else's roster for this picture here. HW

Here are a couple of .jpg images of a Parachutist story (Aug. '80) by Joe about "The El Cap Pro-Am Invitational." A little fuzzy because of compression required to post them; hope they're still readable. Typical Svec humor. HW

Not to mention USPA Board member, talented artist/cartoonist, funny man and really nice guy. I'll try to find and post a couple of typical Svec cartoons in his memory.

Vintage Skratch. HW

My guess is they're really underexposed, though it's hard to tell with such small files. I played around a little with brightening up just the canopy and the jumper and there's not much to work with, especially with the jumper. I used to (and still occasionally do) underexpose a lot in TV, just by not paying attention to the warning in the viewfinder. HW

Long thread here. Already been done. HW

The one in this thread. HW

The site has been officially blessed, in a forum entry on "Which is the best Drop Zone in the World?"

Some more pictures from the Oct. '78 Parachutist, which ran the story under the hed "Yes, it Really is Pointed." "Rumor has it that there is somewhat of a question concerning whether or not the Washington Monument is really pointed. On June 17, 1978, eleven members of the Quantico Skydivers Sport Parachute Club were given a unique opportunity to find out by participating in an historic event -- a freefall parachute demonstration jump onto the grounds of the Washington Monument." (Camera on your 173rd jump? Don't let the Photography and Video forum people see this; they'll say you weren't experienced enough. HW

You're right about the late 70s, and the photographer was from New York. HW

From the archives..... HW

And what is below? Perhaps the foot's owner will share the story. HW

1. Using it. Liking it. Even getting paid for using it. Works beautifully with Mac. 2. Adobe has "educational discounts." You can buy a legit copy of the CS3 "Standard Package" (Photoshop, InDesign, Acrobat, etc.) for $499 if you can show some association with an educational institution. You can get fully functional 30-day trial versions from the Adobe web site. 3. You can get reasonable open source packages for free: GIMP for image editing, Inkscape for vector drawing, Scribus for page layout, among others. All work reasonably well on OS X. HW

Everyone will be (I think) surprised to learn who these people are. HW (I am relying on the caption information in the magazine. I am not entirely sure I believe it -- even though I was editor at the time.)

All it takes is a pile of old magazines, a nice scanner, and too much time on one's hands. HW

Canadian 10-way #209. HW