howardwhite

Had to be the "Making of..." available on the Gypy Moths DVD. It was Deborah Kerr. The book "Birdmen, Batmen, annd Skyflyers" has a chapter on Garth Taggart, who did the "cape" jump in the movie. HW

I have this as an Adobe Illustrator graphic, and can do more or less whatever you need. PM me if you want. HW

Also used at the premiere, at Van Nuys airport, of One Six Right, a very cool airplane film. HW

AODs (or, to be politically correct AADs) did exist. There is an ad for the Sentinel MK 2000 on the page opposite the equipment survey. But I think it is safe to say that AADs for experienced jumpers did not come into widespread use until the advent of the Cypres. I am not sure about the inclusion of "sissy cord" in the container system category. I'm guessing it refers to what has been thrashed about elsewhere here as a "jesus string" or "last hope rope," but I would be happy to be corrected on this. "Pilot chute types" basically cover variants of spring-loaded pilot chutes, starting with the military MA-1 -- more or less standard in the olde days. The variants generally feature bigger canopies, longer springs, etc. "Raeper deployment." If memory serves, a diaper variant, but I don't have any hands-on memory. Others may chime in. Tape Wells/Booth Wells" Variant cutaway systems, playing on the name Capewell, the dominant manufacturer of military riser release systems. I'm not sure about Tapewells, but Boothwells refers to an experimental system by Bill Booth which used a metal fork to connect fabric loops on the harness and riser. They were in limited test in 1975 --one set of testers was a nationally-competitive 4-way team. Pictures attached. As to comments from others -- remember this was equipment used by RW competitors. Style and accuracy competitors would have had a different list, though there were, of course, a few people who competed in both S&A and RW. I also find the "miscellaneous" main category odd, since there are entries for canopies where only one was used. There is a big ad for the Pioneer Viking in the same issue, as well as for the Strato-Flyer, which was then just coming on the market. HW

Here's the equipment list, as published in Parachutist, for competitors in the 1977 RW Nationals. You know you've been around a few years if you can identify everything on this list. HW --- Type of Container System Piggyback - 228 Conventional - 7 Sissy Cord - 24 Total - 295 Main Canopy Strato Star-146 Piglet - 44 Strato Cloud - 26 Paradactyl - 20 Strato Flyer-14 Sierra-6 Miscellaneous - 6 PC -6 RWPC-4 Para Plane - 4 5-Cell Para Foil -4 Starlite - 3 Parasled - 2 1.1 Surplus -1 7-Cell Para Foil -1 PAP -1 Total - 288 Pilot Chute Type Hand Deployed - 234 Hot Dog-19 MA-1 -14 Grabber-3 A-3-12 Pioneer (PC)-3 Miscellaneous - 2 Total - 287 Deployment Device Bag -130 Diaper - 55 Free Pack without strap - 49 Free Pack with strap - 26 Raeper-12 POD-9 Sleeve - 3 Slider-2 Total - 286 Main Container Wonderhog -115 SST - 58 Miscellaneous - 47 Piglet - 20 Greene Star - 9 Guardian - 8 Starlight-7 Sierra- 7 Free Flight - 5 Top Secret - 2 Rodriguez - 1 Super Pro - 1 Total - 289 Reserve Canopy Security LoPo - 80 Piglet-63 26' Conical-50 Strong LoPo - 42 24' Conical - 24 Tri-Conical -16 Other-2 Total - 296 Reserve Deployment Cut Away - 269 Hand Deploy - 8 Total - 277 Canopy Release 1 1/2 Shot-130 3-Ring - 60 R-2 - 53 Miscellaneous - 9 Tape Wells - 8 R-3-6 Booth Wells-5 1 Shot-5 2 Shot-1 Total - 277 Helmet Hockey-122 French Leather - 71 Motorcycle - 57 Miscellaneous - 9 HALO - 5 Total - 264 Footwear Sneakers - 242 Paraboot-10 Miscellaneous- 7 Total - 259 Altimeters Altimaster II-150 No- 110 Altimaster III -31 North Star - 4 Miscellaneous -1 Total - 296

The Poynter Manual does (this one on a Strong reserve, but the idea is the same.) HW

Here, stolen from Poynter manual, is Booth modelling "an early model Wonderhog." HW

Jumptown, Orange, MA ASOS reported 68 degrees F at 2:30 p.m. T-shirts, no gloves at 10 grand.

Gee, I found several Steve Sutton patents (e.g. 3893641). though none with this design. I, too, wondered about the trailing edge. HW

Yup...Google patents is addictive, if one is so inclined. So many players, so many ideas, so (relatively) few real breakthroughs. HW

This is an edited description of an invention described in U.S. Patent 6146292, invented by Atsushi Yanamaka and published 11-14-2000. If you "perceive a sense of no-gravity-like-feeling" while skydiving, but are concerned that you might drop your Skyball and a human being "will suffer a fatal damage," you should read on. A patent diagram is attached. I have no clue whether the "throwing good" made it to market. HW ====== In sky diving, a person shouldering a folded parachute leaps down from a flying airplane and carries out various maneuvers during several tens seconds of free falling time, and it is known as an exciting sport. During the free fall, the person can perceive a sense of no-gravity-like feeling which cannot absolutely be felt in the daily life, and after repeated exercise, the person becomes able to control his posture and falling speed at will to link together hands between falling divers or even to keep a desired formation. Accordingly, one of the pleasures of sky divers is to attempt various maneuvers in the process of free fall. In the recent time, there is an attempt to catch a thrown good such as a ball between separate sky divers, which is called "sky ball". When the sky diver is carrying out "sky ball", he is under an obligation to capture and recover the thrown matter before opening the parachute for the sake of preventing its fall onto the ground surface. However, the diver may fail to catch the sky ball, and in such a case the throwing good will collide against the ground surface at a considerably high speed. If a human being is in that point, he will suffer a fatal damage. In order to avoid this type of danger, there is an attempt to prepare a throwing good which automatically projects a parachute at a predetermined height and thereby reduces its falling speed and can land with safety, even if sky diver fails to catch it. This can be realized easily by providing a mechanism of automatically projecting a parachute in linkage with a timer and a manometer. But, such a mechanism is so expensive that many of sky divers who are not affluent economically cannot use it daily. Further, in such costly goods, there is a danger that a sky diver who has failed to catch it does not abandon the catching work but may pursue the throwing good until he enters a dangerous zone lower than the minimum allowable height for opening parachute; As a result, of which the diver loses the time for parachute opening and crashes against ground surface. This invention relates to a throwing good for use in sky diving which includes a thin-gage, synthetic resin-made back body, a roughly circular opening window, a needle, a front body, and ballast water. When the throwing good not caught by sky diver free-falls down to a prescribed height (for instance, 2,000 feet), the rubber band joining the front and back bodies is broken by the needle due to the difference in pressure between the inner and outer atmospheres, due to which the front body separates from the back body, the water filled in the throwing good is released into air, and the throwing good becomes a safe, light-weight body flutteringly falling onto the surface of the ground.

See January Parachutist.

Thanks for sharing

Hijack away

I like it and will upgrade because: 1.) It is universal binary and screams on an Intel Mac (compared to CS2 running under Rosetta). 2. The new tool for creating and refining masks will save me a lot of time. 3. The Curves interface is much more comprehensive (and therefore easier to use if you know what you're doing). And, incidentally, the Brightness/Contrast controls are no longer the disaster they have been all along. There are some good tutorials at http://www.lynda.com -- look for Deke McClelland's stuff. HW

Clicky fixed: http://www.dhc-2.com/ HW

Well, here's one of the patent drawings. (I've got the rest of them.) The structure shaping the canopy consists of inflatable tubes. You sit on the windowsill of your burning building, turn on the gas (see the little cylinder), inflate, and go. No, Beatnik, I don't have one in my garage.

Here's a better Hornet picture I just found. I'd forgotten what a really wierd design it was. HW

These are from an old logbok. They are still universally accepted, and will, I'm sure, be of great assistance in your skydiving career. HW

Only kidding... I couldn't resist this one. HW

Here's a bit of text by Greg Yarbenet, then at Pioneer, who is generally credited with inventing the slider: === The slider concept started in 1973. I was working for Pioneer Parachute Company as a consultant on improving the single membrane Volplane. The hydraulic opener proved to be a problem in cold weather and represented sizable bulk when packed. After watching the Pilot chute Controlled Reefing System by Steve Snyder, I realized a system with pilot chutes was already patented. My attention went to the lower surface for a reefing system. I had a scale flying model (6 sq. ft.) of a Volplane I folded many a time and tossed into the air to test ideas. As I observed the openings the idea of a ring (my wedding ring worked great!) sliding down the lines to control the expansion of the wing occurred to me. The model Volplane and my ring worked great . . now, to apply it to a full size wing! Instead of one ring, four rings (one for each riser group plus an extra strap to connect them) were used. When test jumped, the canopy pulled free from the bag and . . . POW! . . . what happened? The opening was really hard and the rings slid down the lines so fast they were a blur. Back to the drawing board! The idea of a pilot chute attached to the cross slider up through the wing was used next – it worked really well, but I felt it infringed on Steve's P.C.R., so I decided to leave out the pilot chute (one company is using my slider with the pilot chute). After watching slow motion movies of the deployment, I realized all that was needed was more drag in the slider. As a result, we added a small rectangle of material in between the rings for drag. ==== I had a Volplane, initially with the hydraulic system (I still have the reefing system), and replaced it with a slider in, I guess, 1974. (Not to suggest that you're wrong about your date conclusion for other canopies; i had a lively inprint exchange with Elek Puskas of Para-Flight after I published an article, in 1976, about how I'd put a slider on my Strato-Star. He thought that was a terrible and dangerous thing to do.) HW

Zing and darkwing: Yup, it's a Sled. I think I jumped one once or twice, but can't be sure. Someone (Ted Strong, maybe) had one in Massachusetts for a while in the early 70s and I also jumped at a little DZ in Delray Beach, FL where they were being tested. I was at USPA HQ last week and saw a Sled packing manual, but had already packed up my scanner so didn't grab images. The square and cheapo picture was taken at Orange, MA, so the cheapo was certainly a student C-9 ("Gary gore"). When I get to look at the original again, I'll see if it's dated. As to scanner/copier/fax combo, get it if you need a copier and fax, but if you have a printer and don't need fax, a stand-alone scanner is better and probably cheaper. I have a pretty good consumer-level scanner (Epson Perfection 4490) and some third-party scanning software plus Photoshop. But all of my scans are done with the possibility in mind that the picture might eventually see print (as in a book or magazine), so I scan and retain at high resolution (disk space and DVDs are cheap these days.) It's easy enough to chop them down for web sites or for meeting the size limits for pix here. HW

O.K., just a couple more, and then I'm done HW

Here he is at Orange in 1974 HW

Well, there was a lot of Velcro on the reserve closing flap...... The catalog describes it as "...the first reserve container that allows you to concentrate on jumping and never worry about accidental activation of your reserve." Funny, that was not something I lost a lot of concentration over. I don't remember when the term"rip-off" was first used to describe it. HW