skypuppy

Phil Smith and Andy Calistrat put out BASELINE for a few years. I still have a few copies kicking around. At least when they were doing it it came out on a regular basis.... I had a bunch more but I leant them to Bob Lennox when he was trying to get permission to do legal jumps off the CN Tower into the skydome, and never got them back before he killed himself jumping off his balcony.... Interestingly enough, at one point we had permission to do legal jumps from the tower, but the day before the big event, CN's headquarters in Montreal put the kibosh on it.... Plan B was out of an airplane, but the weather turned out to be bad anyways, so we sat in a skybox and ran up their bar bill. 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

How well did you scout the cliff face? It doesn't take much of a ledge protruding to break an elbow and dislocate a shoulder - or break a leg... Or a worse case scenario is you get your legs caught up on something and the canopy collapses and falls beneath you, after which you break lose and fall into it... Seems to me there's just too many 'what-ifs' to make riding down a cliff face a feasible option. You might do it once and get away with the fact you didn't get turned around, but the next one could bite you... 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 used to compete years ago at canopy rotation. When I first started we were using sashays - later on another team we changed to over the top. It was a lot of fun. After our second nationals we quit as a rotation team and I got more into demos and instructing for a bunch of years... Recently I saw a couple of teams doing rotations at another competition... They weren't too good at rotations (hadn't really practised) but were also using sashays - when I asked them about it they claimed that pretty much all the teams now use sashays instead of going over the top... So my question is - is this true??? I've been talking to one or two buddies about getting a fun team together for next year doing rotations, maybe going to the nats. Are the teams all doing sashays or are the top teams still going over the top? If it's true, I didn't realize I was so out of touch with today.... 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

Actually I did sort of start BASE jumping to be 'kewl', but at about 5'6" before my accident, (and about 5'4" after) and weighing in about 185 lbs with bad teeth and a bald spot beginning to appear on the top of my head, it never really panned out for me. Still, they say it's the journey, not the destination. Rob Price BASE 92 ps. I vote for skin for best basejumper... Or at least most entertaining... 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

Any pictures? 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 don't recall the details of how he went in - just that he was a real neat guy! Rocky was in my first 3-way when I had ab0ut 20 jumps in 1979 at the old Z-hills. Roche was ex-foreign legion, had jumped into Algeria twice and was once promoted post-humously, coming out of the jungle after a few weeks only to find he'd gotten a real nice wage and pile of retro-active pay to go through. I don't think he did all 10,000 jumps on the same cloud, when I met him he had 7,000 jumps and was using borrowed gear. His 10,000 was on a specially created Vector III from Booth made out of mink? with gold-plated hardware or something... As to Frenchy, I remember one year at Z-hills around 1981 over the Xmas holidays, there were so many people arouund the fire pit we were going through the beer kegs real fast. He and I and a couple of others (Gerry Lambert comes to mind) saw a full keg sitting at the edge of the fire pit and put a garbage can upside down over top of it. Once the other kegs were empty everyone else headed into town, at which time we pulled out the other keg and opened it up. A good Xmas, but I don't remember all of it... 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

Murray Just saw this thread - I'm pmmming Bill now... 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

Comparing Bridge Days from when Jean organized them to the latest ones organized by Jason, I have to say that Jason's seem to run much more smoothly. The biggest problem I had with Jean was when she decided to 'return' the permit to the NPS in '89(?) because she felt people couldn't jump safely. She did not however seem to want to return people's money for an event that never happened. It's one thing to be weathered out, it's another if weather conditions actually permit some jumping but the permit has been forfeited.... I also remember there was a distinct reluctance to provide information on where and how the registration money was spent. Sort of an 'I don't have to answer to you' attitude. Still, the jumps were fun! 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

Rob 'Skypuppy' Price BASE 92 Age:45 Height and weight:5'6", 170-195 depending on time of year and injuries Birthplace:Sarnia, Ontario, Canada Marital status:married Occupation:supply teacher Hobbies:BASE, skydiving, kayaking, camping Harness and container:Reactor Parachute:Fury Home Dropzone:Skydive Toronto Records or Awards:helped organize Canadian CRW record on Canada Day in 1985; in Canadian record FS formation, 2001 Pet peeves:people who are always sure of what has to be done. What is your favorite quote? "now I see what you were doing... You just needed someplace high to jump off..." Some farmer wondering what my buddy was doing parked down at the road next to this antenna near his farm... or how about "Your buddy Joe tells us there's someone named Rob up there. You want to climb down so we can have a little talk with you too???" What is your philosophy on life?There has to be something I'm alright at. What is something most people don't know about you? I mostly feel like an anachronism. Who has inspired you in BASE?Phil Smith, Kevin Venell (the little Texan), Robin Heid (that's right, Satan himself, and I still admire him!), Joe Stanley. Most memorabe BASE jumping moment:Sitting atop a 700' antenna under a bright blue sky on a windy day above a solid 400' thick ground fog. The only thing I could see from the real world was the antenna I was on with it's guy wires disappearing into the fog, and another antenna a couple of miles away that poked up out of the fog. That's the closest I ever felt to being one of God's creatures in my life. Then falling into the fog before opening, facing the tower and doing s-turns into the wind while the only things I could make out thru were a short 50-70' section of the antenna in front of me, and the occasional glimpse of guy wire as I did my s-turns between them. The sight of trees coming up below me on a side of the tower I'd never really checked out, and not knowing if they were 100' high, or 10'... (turned out they were 10. Describe Rob Price in five words or less:Desperately trying to fit in. I BASE jump because...Originally in the mid 80's, I thought I was pretty adept at understanding how parachutes worked and why(I was a rigger and instructor with 1000+ jumps, lots of crw and accuracy), and it just seemed like another discipline of the sport and a natural progression. The challenge was just how to adapt the parachute to open at low altitudes. (Not for me the intentional throwing of one's body through wild gyrations on exit only to save one's life at the last second with a desparate throw of an over-sized sea anchor - no thanks, I'll try to exit belly down and hope to have a long, rather tame ride down). 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

My ground rush occurs at around 1800 - 1600ft I can't ever remember taking it down to 1000ft So with different people can it occur at different hights? __________________________________________________ I don't think a lot of you people have really seen ground rush... I know I didn't understand it for the longest time... People said it was when you lose the horizon from your peripheral vision - when the ground fills your entire view - when it looks like you're falling into a bowl... I got news for you. That's not Groundrush!!! Someone said it right when they explained it's about the changing angles, and the diagram is really cool to explain how it happens in a technical sort of way, but, in layman's terms, when you're really low at terminal, the ground looks like the surface of a pond after you've thrown a pebble into it - directly below you is the centre, and around it are concentric circles of waves radiating out rapidly from the centre, as if there was a weird wind blowing out 360 degrees from that one spot. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself.... You won't see this at 2000 feet, or even at 1000 feet. Maybe at 500 feet, definitely once you get below that having pulled every handle you got and waiting to see if something's going to open (at that moment you'll be sure it won't), you have nothing else to do but watch the ground.... After seeing it, you'll understand what groundrush is... Most of the people that see it probably don't live to tell anyone elsewhat it is, and that's why so many people think it means the ground just starts to look big. Groundrush is not just fear or a feeling, it's an optical illusion caused by the rapid rate of descent in close proximity to the ground, and will never be mistaken for anything else once you've seen it. I remember Mike Swain talked about trying to film groundrush in his book 'Endless Fall', but I think his camera malfunctioned and he didn't try it again. I wonder if anyone has ever managed to film it? 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

When jumping from airplanes first became a "sport" they used 2 canopies. At first they were both "reserves". They would take an emergency "back type" system and mount a QAC, "chest type" to the front, thus giving them a main and a reserve. This was first done by military test jumpers when testing a new system. Sparky __________________________________________________ The first actual 'save' I remember reading about was a British military test jumper (Bowen?) who came to McCook Field to demonstrate the Guardian Angel (a static line deployed parachute) to the team developing the military emergency chute for the US air force in 1919. They would not let him go up without a reserve (he didn't have one), so he was made to strap on one of the Irvin freefall chutes. Sure enough, the s/l caught on the plane and broke and the jumper ended up deploying his Irvin reserve. The Brits did not make the sale. 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

A jumper who did his first jump in Toronto in the 1930's and did 50-60 jumps over the next 20 years or so remembers jumping at the Canadian National Exhibition Airshow before the war without a reserve. It seems their club only had so many canopies, and if they used any for reserves it meant that they would have less jumpers on the exhibition jumps... He is still around today. The first jump from an airplane by a Canadian over Canada was done by Frank Ellis in 1919 without a reserve (pic of system attached - the things around his belly are old aviation inner tubes for flotation in water landings). He was a pilot who flew for some test jumps for Irving Industries. He bandit-jumped a proto-type canopy that Leslie Irvin was testing after Irvin had to return to the states and left the canopy to dry for a couple of days. He and his partner packed it up from memory of how they remembered Irvin's test jumper doing it, and drew straws to see who would be the lucky one. In 1979 Bill Cole did a re-enactment of Ellis' jump from a Tiger Moth, but he wore a reserve. Many barnstormers and professional parachute jumpers did not use reserves well into the 1950's (see Valentin's book 'Birdman'). Of course other jumpers did intentional cutaways with several parachutes (I read of one Chief Whitefeather or something, who attempted to use 10 different chutes on one jump, deploying and cutting away, but ran out of time and bounced. This would be in the 30's. 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

Well being new in the game I noticed a lot of other new people. When you add to the populaton then consider the addition to the population isn't experianced the chance of death goes way up. __________________________________________________ The two CRW guys in Colorado were both way experienced world record holders, Chris Martin in Arizona had 5700jumps+, Slim and Jason F both had several hundred BASE jumps (in slim's case over 1000)... These are not inexperienced people. The fatality in the Beaver Valley plane crash was an experienced jumper as well. To balance there was the student at the Ranch, and another person with little experience (in Ill.?) Yes there has been a rash of accidents this past few weeks, but no, they are not all or even mostly students. Shit happens 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 not saying it makes a difference at all. I'm just saying that he did kill himself... London was a guy it would have been cool to hang around - sailor, boxer, dock worker, lumberer, sometime gold prospector, also a communist, well-known author (Sea Wolf, Call of the Wild). I'm sure if it had been a little later he would have been a pilot as well, probably flying in South America like Jimmy Angel. He also drank prodigously, and actually wrote a semi-biographical novel about an author who drank and then killed himself..... Like I said, an interesting guy. He died too young. 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

What is your favorite quote? "I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time." -Jack London __________________________________________________ Interesting choice. I believe Jack London killed himself.... 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 got most of them through the internet. Try bookfinder.com and search by title or author. 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

Birdman by Leo Valentin The Yorkshire Birdman by Peter Hearn and Harry Ward Tiny Broderick: The First Lady of Parachuting by Elizabeth Roberson When the Chute Goes Up by Dolly Shepherd and Peter Hearn Baling Wire, Chewing Gum and Guts by Bill Rhode The Story of the Parachutist John Tranum by John Tranum They might get you started. 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

Oh yeah… By the way, since you’re so knowledgeable about Bridge Day and all, you obviously know that Bridge Day was not and is not based around BASE jumping. BASE jumping is simply one of many events at Bridge Day… __________________________________________________ BD is about BASE jumping - if the first Bridge Day was 1980, I believe the first jumping at a BD was probably '81 (maybe '82 - it was invite only)... The marketing effort is directed towards BASE jumping - even the rafters advertise that you'll stop under the bridge and watch the parachutes... Strangely enough, in 23 or 24 years of BASE jumping at Bridge Day there's been only 2 deaths associated with it(one a drowning before their were enough boats to handle every jumper), the last one back in about '85. And that is despite the fact that when the 50 jump rule came into effect, I believe there was NO bottom limit before that. A very conservative estimate of the number of BD jumps would be somewhere around 12 - 15,000 over the years (just counting legal Bridge Day jumps), so I think your fears are misplaced 2 deaths in 12,000 jumps is not a bad percentage compared to some other BASE jumping venues around. Certain 'pro' or 'high-profile' events started in the last 3-4 years or less have had much worse accidents then Bridge Day over the years - because BASE jumps are about the object, and with proper training the NRGB is a very safe object. I once figured I could train a chimpanzee to do a BASE jump off it without any problem... __________________________________________________ The NOT will happen eventually if we keep allowing inexperienced jumpers to huck off that bridge in front of hundreds of thousand of wafo’s without proper training. Things will change overnight if we traumatize one jumper’s family, because that jumper unnecessarily burns in because of lack of training, and they sue the event for negligence. Which negligence could easily be proven by allowing people to huck off that bridge with only 50 skydives and no BASE training… __________________________________________________ To begin with there are BASE courses given at BD, adequate for the object... There have been deaths and injuries, they have not shut BD down so far - if anything I believe BD is safer now than in the '80's when I started going down... You are taking a narrow-minded view of what you think should be the way to run a sport and trying to change the way an event that has been THE introduction to the sport for THOUSANDS of BASE jumpers and been jumped by thousands of other experienced jumpers and making a judgement that it should be changed. Did you expect me (or Jason or anyone else) to say 'Yeah, that's right... Why haven't we been doing it that way... Man that SBCMac is a smart cookie?' I don't agree with a lot of things I see happening in BASE right now, and sometimes with the attitudes of some people coming up, but BRIDGE DAY IS NOT ONE OF THEM... The day they even decide to ban skydiving equipment at BD will be a sad day (hope it never happens). Some of my fond memories are seeing a guy go off with a sleeve-packed Para-Commander with a spring-mounted p/c in a B-12 military surplus harness/container. Problems with conservative skydiving equipment (larger 7-celled canopies) are caused by lack of knowledge and/or improper rigging, not gear inadequacy. 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

But if I had the choice to eliminate one of the above, it would be events like Bridge Day that allow untrained skydivers to do their first BASE jump. I think Bridge day is causing a ripple affect that we are just now seeing. And it’s only going to get worse if we keep letting people bypass proper BASE training… _________________________________________________ I was one of the guys making my first BASE jump at Bridge Day, possibly before you were born... Bridge Day's been around a long time before you started hucking objects, and I;m sure it'll be around for a long time after you're gone... So I guess if you don't like people entering 'your' sport you're just going to have to start rounding them up and getting rid of them like a man rather than grousing about an event that gives economic benefits to hundreds of thousands of people each year in West Virginia. The world is about more than just you. 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

After my first, I was a bit too busy getting things sorted out to volunteer information, but when the student asked I answered his questions... He wasn't real sure what had happened but I still wanted to continue with explaining how to steer the parachute (even tho' the reserve doesn't have student loops on the toggles) , practice getting his feet up for landing and talk about the area and the winds.... After my second (about 4hours later the same day) the student was a bit more aware, we were open higher and I wasn't concerned about landing on target because I realized it was impossible, so I had more time to talk to him about it. Still, it's mostly just answering their questions... Hey, if we didn't expect to have a malfunction sometime, we wouldn't wear reserves.... 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 have mostly manta/skymaster 290's with a couple of pd 260's for smaller students, and man o' wars for the real big guys.... Even in the rental gear with boc's, I think the smallest is a 220? 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

Basically I don't think I get enough to teach first jump courses, especially on a weekend, considering I can make more and also get to jump if doing tandems. For 1-6 s/l students I get the minimum, 60$ Cdn. From 6-12 or so, I get $10 per student. Above that it gets confusing because they may bring in a secondary instructor. It works out to $120 ($10 times 12), plus $5/student after that, and the secondary instructor gets 7$ per student for the excess. So on a class of 20 I get 120 + 40 = 160 and the secondary instructor gets $56. I would hugely like not to have to do first jump courses on the weekends next year. In the summer I don;t mind so much if I have to do them on weekdays, but I would like to see the workload split evenly so I don't get stuck teaching all the time while someone else always does tandems... Basically I consider myself overqualified to be stuck teaching FJC all the time. I'm better off doing coach jumps. 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 am not able to make it to BD. Email me if you passed the security check in the last two years and want my slot. 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

to me this sounds really stupied.. i mean.. do they keep your cars aswell after a speeding ticket? __________________________________________________ Up here in Canada, the sentence depends on the crime. For illegally netting fish out of season you forfeit not only your boat, but the trailer and vehicle you used to bring it out to the lake. So, base-jumping-wise, in some places they might decide to take not only your gear, but any vehicle you've used to get to the site... 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

Any way to find out what is happening at the World Meets in Croatia and Brazil? 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