skypuppy

I've just heard he lives in St. Catherines, but don't have any contact info yet. 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

You are correct, sir. In November '75 and again in Feb. '77, Cole was hired by Irvin Parachutes of Canada in fort Erie to go down to Ecuador to work with the Special Forces there. This picture was from the first trip where the training took place in Quito. Cole said the city is about 9500 ASL, and after a couple of days it was all he could do to put his gear on and walk to the plane without getting winded, let alone flying around high enough for a 30 or 40 second delay from the Arava. In the second trip they only did a couple of jumps in Quito before flying down to the coast to finish the training at another base closer to sea level. Where did you know cole from? 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

Guayaquil Ecuador. But who's the Gringo in the white jumpsuit? On second thought, maybe Quito, looking at the terrain behind the hangar. ______________________________________________ What made you think there? Or have you been checking out my facebook page? It is Ecuador. I won't say where yet, in case anyone else wants to guess. 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

QuoteIAI Arava?... guessing in Mexico our south america somewhere? I think I see spanish. Right airplane. Spanish would be correct, too. South american. 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

Might be too easy. But extra points if you can guess where about in the world this is, too. 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

Hi Jerry That may be a different Brian Bowman. This one lives up near Toronto. I'm not normally in touch with him but I might be able to find contact information. I've been a bit curious about his background myself. Rob 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

I re-scanned this pic so it would upload. Hopefully resolution is still good enuf to see how the crowd is so big it sort of disappears into the distance. This is Fred Murrin coming in under his Strato-Star at CIAS 77. 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

Nothing wrong with a round chute, but if you really can't hack the landing, use more than one.... I mean, it works with rockets, right? Hi Skratch. 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

Yes to both. Bill Cole, Rick Wall and Brian Bowman in a 3-way with Fred Murrin of Pennsylvania coming in to make it 4. rick holds the distinction of never having been a member of CSPA despite having made all sorts of high-profile demos in and around Ontario, and setting a night high-altitude record over Pearson International in 1986 (30,571 ft) with Bill Cole. Photo taken by Mike Swain during the Canadian International Air Show over the Canadian National Exhibition grounds during the show in 1977. Howard is correct, no Skydome. In another shot there is a pretty good view of Exhibition Stadium, the field where the Blue Jays and the Canadian Football League's Toronto Argos played. In this picture, Claude Lalonde (Froggy) is also visible under the formation. The landing shot shows Brian Bowman in front of the crowd, I tried to get a shot showing how the crowd just disappears into the distance, but they were too big to upload. They estimate 250,000 show up each day for the air show. 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

Where and when? 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

__________________________________________________ I'm guessing the insurance company would still cover it and the instructor defence fund as well, if for no other reason then to avoid having a precedent set against the dropzone.... 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

In conclusion, Grimm Clouds opened the same as Para-Flite Clouds. __________________________________________________ Well, again, I would say that Eddie's canopies could be inconsistent. One cloud might open soft, another might open hard, not unusual at all. On the other hand, I've never really seen one that 'couldn't' or 'shouldn't' be jumped. My experience jumping on the old Labatt's team with all sorts of Eddie Grimm equipment was that the worst thing about them was the risers were so long I could barely reach the toggles. Trivia... When Vincent Taylor parachuted from the Upper Steel Arch Bridge into the Niagara River on Sept 5, 1927, he was rescued by L. Grimm, superintendent of the Maid of the Mist who picked him up in a rowboat and took him to the American side to avoid Cdn. police. Is L. Grimm Eddie's father or grandfather? Was youg Eddie perhaps impressed by stories of this early parachuting stunt, and decided to follow in the adventurer's footsteps? I don;t know, but it'd make a hell of a story. 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

The point is that Bill is the MAJOR person to come up with this rule, and then shows it's a definite case of do what I say, not what I do, by breaking it himself, and not for the sake of an underage child who may have a disability or terminal illness, and who would benefit, but for the ego trip of taking his underage child on a major demo, an ego trip for both him and her! Don't get me wrong, as far as I'm concerned we should be letting kids jump as young as 14, at least, maybe even 12 on tandems. But Bill is the one pushing for the nitpicky rule of having a minimum age! And he and UPS have threatened to discipline tms that ignore the rule. And any time you have a rule that is waiverable, then let's face it, it's no longer a rule. Unless you can show that even though it's waiverable, no one (or very few) ever got a waiver. The fact that you would allow a waiver means it can't be a safety issue, or no one would be allowed. So if so and so with X amount of experience can get a waiver, then the guy over there with the same or more can just do it safely anyway, no need of a waiver. It's the same logic the board used when it quite rightly refused to grant the Red Bull guys a waiver on opening altitudes for demos. If it's a rule, it shouldn't be waived. As for the daughter not suing the father if he's a tandem master, what about the mother? If the parents are estranged, the mother might not agree with the jump and could sue. Or she might say she agrees and change her mind once something happened. Or, God forbid, in some cases, especially if serious disability results, the state might actually step in for the disabled person and sue for money to care for an invalid for the remainder of their life, rather than placing that burden on the taxpayer. I don't really care if you want to have a rule on minimum age or not, but if you have such a rule, there should not be any waivers. Just my opinion. 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

So the BOD pissed and complained about Bill and told Richard to go figure out something. While that was happening - get this - some TM in the midwest gets an 'emergency - retroactive underage tandem waiver' for a sick kid jump. The story line on that was that it was a high publicity jump and USPA wanted to save face for the TM. You won't find this in the minutes, but I have all the emails. Then the BOD lowered the age for tandems to 16. ________________________________________________ Wait a minute, now. I thought this other tandem master was then forced to resign his position on the board because of this particular jump. Or was this another situation. I sorta wish you guys would give a succinct recount of all the information instead of beating around the bush, so only those 'in the know' can be sure what's being talked about.... (Sorry Jan, I didn't mean that to be as snippy as it may sound coming across - it's just that for some of us who may not be in the US it can be kind of hard to follow the story when it's not spelled out.) Personally, I lost a lot of respect for Bill when I heard about this fiasco a while back. 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

From most accounts, Niagara Parachutes products were extremely inconsistent. My understanding is, as a small manufacturer, Eddie would buy fabric from anyone who had it cheap, so he would have different kinds of fabric depending on what colors it was, etc. Also, I think he wasn't above making something a little smaller if he wanted to use up that last bolt of material. Canopies that should have been identical could easily react very different from other identical models. (Here I'm talking mostly squares). Still some people swore by him. This may have been because his older stuff, especially, was over-built like much early equipment. And many people were used to hard landings and hard openings, so I guess they didn't know better. Early Baby cobras were 4-line release, then I've actually seen some that had both mesh panels and 4-line release, others with just mesh. The original Labatt's team all jumped labels made by Eddie, and the white rigs with rainbow canopies for the commercial were Niagara parachutes as well. 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

We jumped from this beaver a few times up at Blind River days on the north shore of Lake Huron. It later crashed on a fly-in fishing trip. pictured are my wife Brenda, on about her 50th jump, Jim 'Farmer' Smith and Claude 'Froggy' Lalonde. Claude did some jumping scenes for the movie 'If you could see what I hear' with Natalie Cole. 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

hmmm. A very young bill booth... 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

I agree with the others who don't know why people are so scared of rounds these days. The military still uses them they can;t be all bad. I say go for it. I'm a bit heavier than I used to be and don't get great landing on the rounds like I used to get, but they're certainly nothing to be scared of. 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

This seems like more of a job for a UAV. I know they have the endurance, but less sure about their range they can be staged from. I don't believe the F-18s are at all nearby - they can't be scrambled everytime a tanker captain see some hoodies on a zodiac. __________________________________________________ I don't know, if they sink it, sooner or later they'll run out of zodiacs. If they don't have a good reason for buzzing around with automatic weapons, take 'em out of commission. 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

For once, I'd been wondering the same thing for days. 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

I know no one will believe this, but I thought of Bob Sinclair yesterday when I saw this. 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

For those of us not in the US can you tell us what these acronyms are. chl ccw sbr/sbs etc. 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

I have a Lazer 8 -- it's a fine canopy, other than being a bit confusing for someone if you're doing crw. They made it as a 7, 8 or 9... 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

"Hey, how'd I get stuck on this electric pole? And how did this thread end up in the History and Trivia section?" He must be dead, so it's history.... 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

Believe it or not, at the Simcoe Ontario dz I believe they still had a few twill reserves up until the early 80's. I remember the rigger telling me he kept putting his packing paddle through them whenever he could but the dzo wanted to keep using them. 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