skypuppy

Do you mean before or after the jump? I used to know quite a few people who weren't feeling any pain when they jumped? Seemed de rigeur in the old days. Wonder where they are 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

What about teachers? 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

Quote"The legend lives on Thank You for everyone, who has contributed to this thread. It is amusing how the time flies and 30 years is apparently enough to turn history into history with question marks." I really dislike the term 'legend' as it has connotations of just what you speak of - that the story has outgrown the events it speaks of... I have to say that in this case that just isn't true... I have talked to Bill extensively when I wrote the article, saw his logbooks, scrapbooks, clippings. I have talked to people on his 2nd chuteless jump, on his demo teams, and the personal assistant who stepped in to finish a movie for him when he was injured on a jump... I talked to a DZO who CSPA was trying to get tow the party line and kick Cole out after CSPA rejected him (and who basically told CSPA to revoke his school's statis if they want and he's just continue without them). I know a guy on some of his more well known exhibitions and his high altitude jumps (30,000'+). Bill has done everything in that article and more I couldn't fit in. While many people, even his friends tell me Bill can be pig-headed and hard to get along with, the only people who tell me Bill is a liar and a self-aggrandizer are people on the board of CSPA or officials past and present with the competition committee of CSPA. Strangely enough I seem to have caught some of them embellishing the facts a few times myself. The old-timers in power in CSPA just don't like Bill, and the young ones don't really seem to know anything about it and go along with their elders out of some mis-guided respect, rather than making up their own minds... People on the CSPA board seem to feel that everyone agrees with them that Cole is evil personified - but there's a ton of people out there that know different... They just don't have the votes to do anything about it, and some were at some points forced not to acknowledge knowing or jumping with him for fear of damaging their own reputations. 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 had lots of fun jumpin out of DCs, including Mr Douglas and the one at Z with the rainbow paint job - What was that called? But one of the most fun to jump out of was Canucks Unlimited of the Canadian Warplane Heritage... We used to jump out of it quite a bit at the Hamilton Airshow and other venues around Southern Ontario, often in formation with the foundations Beech 18 as well... One of the most fun jumps was one into the National Aviation Museum in Ottawa for the 50th anniversary of D-day in 1994... Attached is a pic of the Hamilton team and Canucks Unlimited in her WWII Burma patrol paint job at the Muskoka Airshow... 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

Bill will probably come on and talk about it - it's been done by 3 people now. First was Rod Pack - I believe in '65 - there's an interesting account on his jump by Lyle Cameron on www.parachutehistory.com Bill did two - as Mikkey quoted, the first was in 1969 over Centralia, Ontario, but the film didn't turn out... Bill did it again in Ohio in 1972 and Mike Swain filmed it this time... His film "Bill Cole's Chuteless Jump' won a Cine golden Eagle award and first place at the 30th International Sports Film Competition in Italy in 1974. You can buy it at www.endlessfall.net Jimmy Tyler did at least two - on the first, as someone said, he hooked on to another guy's harness and they both landed under that chute... On the 2nd, they attached a chest mounted reserve to a board across the open end of a large baker's mixing bowl with a small drogue on it and threw it out the plane ahead of Jimmy. He dove out after it, caught up and hooked the reserve to his harness before opening it. This was shown on 'That's Incredible' with Cathy Lee Crosby in the '80's. Jimmy was quite the guy but he's dead now - Bounced off Half Dome... 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

"Welcome chuteless, It is always better to hear stories first hand. Until now we have only heard Bill Cole's story third hand." So you're saying you don't believe what "I" wrote about 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

We got good beer in Canada... 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

"Skinflicka and so on and so forth are very forthcoming with information..." Someimes I think Skinflicka may be too forthcoming with information (some of his favorite animal threads come to mind). 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 make a good movie though... Hmmm, who would we put in the starring role? Or the love interest? 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 always figured some girls'll leave you because of BASE - but lots of girls'll LOVE you because of BASE... Well, for a night or a weekend maybe, huh? 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 think there was such a pic in one of the Skies Call books - probably II or III. 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 see on another thread talk about renting gear for Bridge Day... Does this mean you need BASE specific gear this year, or just not to bring my 79 square foot pocket rocket this year? 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

Like I once heard someone yell down from the skilift - "IT'S NOT HOW GOOD YOU ARE - IT'S HOW GOOD YOU LOOK IN YOUR GEAR THAT COUNTS!!!" 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

On my first trip down to Z-hills in '79 we had a crater party for a Canadian girl who'd gone in there within the last couple of years... According to the guys who'd been there, she hit within about 50 yards of the clubhouse... My buddy had spent the night before with this girl, and when she was getting geared up (she was a student) he went into the clubhouse to get an AAD-equipped reserve... When he finally came out with one the rest of the load had gotten impatient and given her one without an AAD and loaded up the DC-3 to jump... She spun in on her back, no pull... This was the fatality that left H***** saying, "I may not have been her first, but I know for damn sure I was her last!!!" It was sort of scary going down there for the first time with about 19 jumps from a small dz... I remember there was a ding in the eaves of the clubhouse that was pointed out to me - from two guys who ran into each other at a few hundred feet and spun down only to bounce off the roof... 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

At one point I was thinking about writing an article on the evolution of the wingsuit - or batwings - from the 30's to today - however I was having some difficulties coming up with all the names and incidents from our history... I have read this quote before... "Unfortunately, between 1930 and 1961, 72 of the 75 original Birdmen died while trying to break the barriers of the human flight." and I seem to have some troubles with these numbers... From what I read there were way more than 3 or even 10 birdmen from before 1961 that lived full lives, and I have a suspicion from what I;ve read that there were way more than 75 birdmen during that time in total... Just look at all the guys who wore them in the Ripcord series and the Gypsy Moths movie (ok, I know this came out after '61, but many of the guys had experience or were trained by guys with experience in that time frame), and Roy 'Red' Grant, who used them to make flights across the international border from the USA into Canada across the Niagara gorge. Even Canadian parachutist Bill Cole used batwings as late as the early 70's on some exhibition jumps. Yes, the early birdmen had a high mortality rate, but so did all early parachutists, especially considering that they were not fun jumping, but performing for the crowds, therefore likely to be jumping in marginal weather conditions, opening low to put on a better performance for the audience (and to decrease their chances of being blown out of the showfield while descending) - remember there was no real governing body and no minimum opening altitudes for these guys... I'd wager most of them opened around 1000' or lower... Many of them only used one chute as well... The batwings for these guys was really only a gimmick - keep in mind that many of them such as Clem Sohn couldn't fall stable even without batwings - they would simply do slow rolls or loops while watching their altimeters... It wasn't until the 50's that Valentin started to publicize and teach methods of stability (although individual jumpers may have discovered them before, they kept them largely to themselves). Most fatalities among the early birdmen then were probably simply parachute malfunctions, many of which might have happened without the wings on too... Sure, there were cases such as Valentins where he smashed one of his wings exiting the plane and never recovered, or Clem Sohn where I believe the parachute caught on part of the wing assembly and streamered - but these were not the rule... Some also found they could not move their arms to open the parachute while flying their wings. I don't think too many actually made a decision to try to land the wings, it's more likely they just had problems deploying their parachutes at the usual 1000 - 500 foot opening altitude, and ran out of time... The wings were simply a gimmick to draw bigger crowds... That being said there was at least one man who designed a wingsuit-like contraption (parachute/overcoat) he felt he could land safely. After trying it out on a test jump from 10-15 feet to see if it would inflate, Franz Reichelt decided to do a live test instead of a dummy drop from the Eiffel Tower in February 1912, only to fall the 190' or so from the first deck to his death.... This was in response to a cash prize being offered in France at the time for someone who could come up with a fall-arresting device... 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 where I come from, in the woods you could encounter creatures such as bears, cougars, and even drunk rednecks in large pickups. Two people are hardly, if any, better off than one person alone. ---Dex So - you are from South Carolina??? 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 question is not how fast it can go, but how much can you it down to??? 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

Question, Tom. So would you suggest a vented or non-vented BASE canopy for skydiving with to gain experience??? Do vented and/or valved canopies open any harder on terminal openings? Are they going to undergo exorbitant wear during the learning phases of a students career (this could be a couple hundred skydives or more, don't you think?) Or would it be a good idea to buy a non-vented BASE canopy at first and then get the vents or valves retro-fitted when you're ready to advance??? 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 the Germans pilots used parachutes in the last year of the First World War - it was only the Allies that didn't think it was a good idea to equip their pilots with a way to get out of a burning plane relatively safely.... The first parachute descent from a plane was Albert Berry March 1912.... then Rodman Law on April 13, 1912, Grant Morton on April 28, and on May 24, Charles Saunders was the first to jump from a plane in Canada.... The first European to jump from a plane was Adolphe Pegoud (Aug 25, 1913) -- and HE ALSO FLEW THE PLANE... At 750 feet he put the plane into a dive, stood up and dumped his parachute.... The plane did a slow loop, and lightly crash-landed not far from Pegoud, sustaining only minor damage... Throughout the First World War there were parachutists actively working on systems for the Allies but they never got the muckie-mucks to approve them until right before the end of the war... The silent movie WINGS has some interesting shots of emergency jumps from German observation balloons.... 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 = when he died they were unable to compare handwriting or question him, but they seemed to think that he spoke some of the same phrases as D>B> Cooper used in his hijacking.... Therefore they were never able to officially close the case.... 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 man - an hour just ain't long enuf to justice to the Stooges!!! 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

Three Stooges 75th anniversary show - NBC - Tonite! 8pm... Hnuck! Hnuck! Hnuck! 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

There is a movie called 'If you could see what I hear' about a blind guy who, among other things, does a parachute jump.... Bill Cole was supposed to do the jumping in the movie but he broke his ankle the day before shooting, so my buddy Claude ended up doing the acting, which was shot I believe by Kevin Gibson, somewhere around Peterborough, Ontario, north of Toronto... There was some kafluffle at the time about who had to cover the bar bill at the hotel after the 9-day shoot... The producers ended up covering it in the end... 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

Before I begin let me explain that this thread is not about landing with over-inflated rubber blow-up toys that you take out of an airplane with you - rather it is meant to be a serious thread about the proper techniques to use on landing your parachute on a small raft in the middle of an open body water... Anyone else's experiences with landing on rafts or other small objects on an open body of water would be appreciated.... THE RAFT JUMP - the first thing to realize about a raft jump is that when you put your weight on one side of the raft, THAT SIDE SINKS DOWN, and the other side goes up!!! This can result in being flung over the side even after a successful raft landing... Therefore one of the keys to a successful touch-down is to land AS CLOSE TO THE CENTRE OF THE RAFT AS POSSIBLE! The second thing to realize is that the wet surface of a raft provides very little friction, so a person doing a high speed landing and touching down on the raft is likely to continue right across the top and into the water on the other side, sending rooster-sprays from his heels (or his bum - think splinters!).... Conversely, a person with forward speed who undershoots runs the risk of hitting the side of the raft with enough force to break ribs (or other appendages). Therefore the best way to land on a raft is to LAND WITH NO FORWARD SPEED WHATSOEVER... Good rubber-soled shoes may also be expedient... Accordingly, the best way (I think) to land on a raft is to set up coming down just off to the side of it and to flare and then sideslip over on to the raft at the last minute... This leads to a third point - IT IS USUALLY A GOOD IDEA TO FIND SOMEONE WHO DOES NOT REALLY REALIZE WHAT IS GOING ON TO DO A JUMP NEAR THE TARGET AND GIVE YOU (AS AN OBSERVER) SOME IDEA OF THE WINDS DOWN ON THE WATER... Such a person is often called a wind drift.... ALTERNATIVES TO RAFT LANDINGS Occasionally you may find yourself over an open body of water without a raft in sight... At such a time it might be a good idea to keep in mind what objects might possibly be good alternatives to a landing raft.... The first object which comes to mind might be a WATER SKI JUMP RAMP (especially if you were jumping at the Canadian International Airshow on the Toronto Waterfront in the early 90's). A water ski jumping ramp can make a viable alternative to a flat raft as long as you keep something in mind.... A JUMPING RAMP IS NOT FLAT - YOU WILL BE LANDING INTO A WOODEN SLOPE!!! Of course, this means that even if you are landing with considerable forward speed, you have less chance of bouncing over the far end of the ramp and ending up in the water.... Another possible alternative landing area might be a dock... While realizing that docks usually have one end fastened to the land and you may therefore be able to land off the water anyway, let's assume you're far enough over the body of water that you don't think you'll make the far end of the dock... Things to realize about docks are A DOCK IS GENERALLY MUCH LONGER THAN IT IS WIDE! This means that whenever possible you should probably land ALONG the dock rather than ACROSS it... Another problem with docks is that IF YOU MISS THEM, YOU WILL QUITE PROBABLY HIT A BOAT!!! This can be pretty rough, so it is a good idea that if you are indeed trying to land on a dock, you do in fact hit it.... The final alternative I can think of is an actual boat, something I think was done in the Bond film 'Live and Let Die'... While some boats may be quite large and therefore relatively easy to land on, you may want to be sure said boat is not filled with low-life drug-runners who could mistake you for DEA or FBI or some other acronym, and end up shooting you after an otherwise good landing.... For this reason a Coast Guard cutter or police boat may make the best target.... MOTIVATION FOR LANDING ON A RAFT Some of you may indeed be wondering what in the world the motivation for landing on a raft in a large body of water is.... Well, of course the number 1 motivation probably has to be to KEEP DRY!!! Next, or - well, no maybe this is number one - SOMEBODY BET YOU A CASE OF BEER THAT YOU COULDN'T LAND ON THAT RAFT OUT THERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THAT LARGE BODY OF WATER!!! If anyone has any other tips on landing on small objects in big bodies of water, maybe they could post them here before the summer... Skypuppy 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 still remember watching my friend 'the Frog' hum it down.... It was a demo at Richmond Hill Winter Carnival, oh, maybe 12 or so years ago.... The clouds were down low but the show has to go on so we were getting out around 2200-2500 on a grey and windy day.... I exited first, and dumped 2 or 3 seconds out the door. As I was reaching for the handle I watched Frog come out and freefall down in front of me. As my parachute started to give me some lift I saw him reach for his pilot chute, and then he seemed to hold on to it for a second. He started to get deeper as my parachute opened and started flying forward... I watched, not really worried about him because this guy has been jumping longer then I been alive and I figured he could handle just about anything... But as he got deeper I was starting to wonder what was going on, thinking to myself, 'Come on Frog, it;s time to get it out....' Finally I saw a round parachute blossom over the snow and a second or two later, the Frog was on the ground - I could see the dot that was his body get up and run around the canopy to collapse it before he got dragged in the wind. Now I had a choice to make - go down and land with my buddy, or head back to the target which was fast becoming harder and harder to reach as I watched... The thing about the demo is the crowd were down on the frozen ice of the Mill Pond, surrounded by high banks covered with trees... The crowd would have watched as Frog freefell out of sight behind the trees without seeing the blossoming reserve.... I decided I better turn around and run like hell to let people know Frog was alright... But even as I was half way there my mind was saying 'Was he really up and running around it or did he just bounce down the slope there?' I mean, this one was CLOSE. By the time I got back the fire engines had gone screaming off and the radio journalists were already giving live coverage to the 'Skydiver's chute fails - falls out of sight' events... I let people know he was okay, and someone went out to pick him up from the little park off Bathurst St., but they didn't find him.... I had to get packed and organize the next load, so I couldn't wait around while people looked for Claude, who I 'thought' should be okay. When I got a minute I went looking for him... I didn't find him for some hours, when finally I had a chance to pop into the cube van organizers had thoughtfully filled with beer for the carnival's participants.... There he was, comfortably ensconced on a throne of beer cases, reliving the experience for all who cared to hear.... It seemed the pilot chute entangled with the smoke bracket on Frog's boot, and he spent some time trying to work it loose so the reserve wouldn't entangle with it or anything.... When he finally got the reserve out, it opened somewhere south of 150'.... After running around and collapsing the chute, some guy driving down Bathurst stopped and asked him if he was alright and did he need a ride? Turned out it was even someone he knew (strange enough in itself) but that's why he wasn't there when the fire trucks arrived. Frog later had his 15 minutes of fame extended when he was called up by a Canadian nationally syndicated talk show host and interviewed live... Our liason at MOT was driving down the 401 when he heard about it on the radio. After not hearing from us in the next day or two he called up to ask what happened and said if something like that happens again they want us to call them up right away so they know what to say if someone from the media calls 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