Bill Brandon in Skydiving Magazine

[skypuppy 1]

I was happy to see Bill Brandon getting an award for doing a 'buttful of jumps' in the latest skydiving magazine.

Brought back some memories -- from the haze in my mind that represents the early part of the 1980's. I seem to recall seeing Bill's 4000th jump at z-hills, probably in 1981 or there-abouts, probably the first year after they moved across the airport.

Seems to me it was a 40-way dive from 2 DC-3s -- a take-off of the old hoop dives, where they built a 10-man star and the rest of them flew through the centre of the ten man star and then built a 30-way on the other side....

I wasn't on it but some of my buddies were. Maybe Skydive Jack can confirm the details -- his memory is undoubtedly better than mine.

If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

[SkydiveJack 1]

Quote

I was happy to see Bill Brandon getting an award for doing a 'buttful of jumps' in the latest skydiving magazine.

Brought back some memories -- from the haze in my mind that represents the early part of the 1980's. I seem to recall seeing Bill's 4000th jump at z-hills, probably in 1981 or there-abouts, probably the first year after they moved across the airport.

Seems to me it was a 40-way dive from 2 DC-3s -- a take-off of the old hoop dives, where they built a 10-man star and the rest of them flew through the centre of the ten man star and then built a 30-way on the other side....

I wasn't on it but some of my buddies were. Maybe Skydive Jack can confirm the details -- his memory is undoubtedly better than mine.

My memory must not be that good because I don't remember that dive. However many of us might have gaps in our memories from those days!

I too was happy to see Bill get recognized for all his jumps. We shared a house for a while in Z-hills. He has always been a stand up kind of guy. No big ego, just a calm quite manner and the ability to do any slot he was assigned. He's one of the unsung "real skydivers" out there. Like the energizer bunny, he just keeps going and going and going and....