patworks

I remember that jump...thank you airtwardo. ’72 Hinckley, Illinois. Twin Beach. Speed star. James Gang. Practice for the 1st 10-way Nationals ever. Legs spread, we sit on the floor -- can't see out. No floaters then, just base-pin. We all pulled 'low' back then. So, close clouds below our exit mimic heavy ground rush. Pre-AAD, your brain cries “alarm!” Merging movement, electricity and 3-D visuals overwhelm it all. Dive, fly, + dock. You can taste the cloud-chilled air. It blows cold on our cloud-soaked selves. Ten round canopies carry us home for another jump... We hope as puffy white masses swell to close our sky. Yet again. Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

by Charlie Straightarrow, from United We Fall, Ch 3, '78, RWunderground Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

As I recall it was Rod Pack who made the 1st chuteless jump (but I'm old and drink when I can). .. I think it was in Canada........ long time ago. We practiced for chutless jumps at CG Wallace's 'Outlaw' DZ in Waller Texas in about '66 (?). Carlos tried to talk Skippy into being chuteless. Skippy sez, So we did that. Being the low-jump turkey, they put me out last (5th). Feather-ass me is high. They Huddle. Release reserve (in OD container it blends)... I see the other 4 tracking like mad. Why for?? I continue the quest. I spy the reserve! It is floating slowly upwards. I zoom in. It zooms up. EEEeekkkk! Oh, my! It is falling slower than I can. It is ABOVE ME for opening!! I too track like a mother for the far horizon. We land. Lost that reserve we did. About 3 hours later an old pickup truck with an elderly rancher drives up. Fellow gets out, grabs an unpacked 24' twill reserve from the back, tosses it on the ground and sez, Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

For LA-area RW Jumping during the week I can recommend both Perris and Elsinore. Whatever your skill level both cater to getting visiting jumpers into easy air fun. You'll find the big door aircraft a bonus to. Dzs like these are in business to make you smile Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

Your probably right. I knew jumpers who used them in the 1950s and figgured they'd be older than that. ... I'll change the story to say that the KAP3 came out in the 1950s THank You! Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

KAP– 3, automatic parachute activation device (AAD) Developed in the USSR in the 1930’s(?) the mechanical KAP 3 is the earliest functional AAD known. For decades, the Soviet KAP 3 AAD was the only sensible device for parachuting. For example, in the USA, the similar USAF high-altitude bail-out AAD was hardwired to open at 14,000 feet ASL making that device impractical for civilian jumps. KAP -3 is a Warsaw Pact AAD. A highly reliable device, all Soviet manned capsules and cosmonauts’ carried redundant KAP3s. You can check them out at the Smithsonian or the Boeing Museum. There are two-each of them mounted on the frame of a Soviet re-entry space capsule on display at the Boeing Air Museum in Seattle.... They were part of the kit for many drop zones around the world including wide use across America in the 50s -60s -70s. KAP 3 was the Czech designation where they were manufactured, the Soviets called them PPK 3. You can still see them on rigs in Russia and eastern non-EU Europe. Long lifecycle and very reliable durable devices, don't "time expire" after a few years. The AAD was mechanical and installed on the MAIN, and it fired on every jump, at the preset altitude. Basically, it was a "pin puller" type of AAD. Prior to parachuting one would wind the pin-puller like a mechanical clock. Some skydivers (in Checksolvia use KAP on the main canopy and Cypress on reserve. An Australian drop zone reports, “We have KAPs AND Cypress on our student Telesis SOS systems, possibly overkill but the KAP seems pretty simple to install on the single ripcord rigs we use, they do need regular maintenance though as the fire off on every jump.” A typical KAP3 jump looked like this: -- Let's say you jumped from 10,000 feet. The safety pin was inserted into the AAD. The AAD was "armed" (by pulling the AAD's "pin puller" cable to some extension on the ground and locking it in this "pulled" position). You hooked up the safety pin's lanyard to the airplane (much like you hook up a static line to the airplane). When you jumped, the lanyard extracted the pin from the AAD, and the AAD started it's 5-second countdown (you could hear the mechanism "rolling"). It then stopped after the 4-th second, and waited until you reach the pressure altitude of however many feet you'd pre-set. It then fired after one second, whether your main was out of container or not. Company Name AAD Model/Name Airtec GmbH Cypres Advanced Aerospace Designs VIGIL FXC Corporation Astra FXC Corporation Model 12000 Steve Snider Enterprises (SSE) Sentinel Sentinel Irvin Industries of Canada Hitefinder Mikrotechna Praha a.s. KAP 3p MarS Marsjev.cz MPAAD * * * Developed from Dropzone.com posts and other references. Thank you all! Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

Hello, Thanks for the info. I jumped with your mom and dad in Texas in the early 1960s. Please give your mom my regards. Last time I saw them was about '76 at an AIAA symposium on aerodynamic decelerators (parachutes). She was working towards becoming an MD. Hope she made it. Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

Just saw this on the web... Raise a glass to passing of a true warrior. Robert Goingsnake Thundercloud has joined his fellow warriors in the sky. Rob did four tours in Viet Nam as a member of the United States Marine Corps and is the only man I ever met with a gold cluster on his Purple Heart. He also earned more combat medals than I can count. When the war was over he had a problem fitting into the peacetime Marines so, as he was a brilliant artist, he went to college, graduated with a degree in art and became the art director for a major manufacturer. All this while serving on the gang unit of the Compton CA Police Department where he was wounded twice in the line of duty. He was the only officer to earn both the Compton PD Medal of Valor and the Medal of Honor since 1921. Rob was a man of honor and a true friend to those of us who were privileged to know him. Our country and truly the world is a poorer place without him. Ann Stephens Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

Rob and I were both skydiving buddies, business partners, and fellow competitor in various 3-gun shooting competitions for several years in S> Calif including war-combat stuff and cowboy SASS in the early daze. Previously, a younger Thundercloud got stitched like a sewing machine in the Nam across the chess with an AK47 and...."Bled like a lung shot duck." sez he. Re-Upped 1-2 times after he got to use a .50 BMG in an armored Duce+one-Half in convoy. ... "Way cool... I had fun!" Weird like Joe Sevec, RT liked patrols too. Action! After weird, at ~38, Rob graduated from the LA Police Academy & joined the Reserve Police Officers Corps.... He requested to be posted to Compton, Ca. Very violent black LA scene... Rob loved it.... "There's always action... gorillas in the mists..." got involved in 1-2 Officer related shootings. Got marked. Later took out 2 different assassins on two different actions who were, " ...going to set things Right. Yo" Last one was vintage Thundercloud. Rob is in his morning robe, jammies, and slippers in the kitchen with his head in the icebox. Hears noise. Looks up. Sees assassin dude exclaiming at the front door, with a pistol shooting shots. Rob bypasses the orange juice and grabs a Glock he had in the fridge and offs the fucker. (Who but Rob would have a heater in the Amana?) Only Thundercloud would stash a party pistol in the ice box. At the suggestion of his cop pals et al, he migrated to Texas to a very White town where no people of no color were/are welcome after sunset. There he concentrated on his art and COMPLETELY changed the art scene in that part of Texas. According to his wife, after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, hopped there and did about 6 months of security and cleanup stuff. Apparently Rob there caught some weird slime rot bug that offed him about 5-6 months later. He went slow. Pity. Cool dude. Loved him. Respect… -------- Reference Bob Celaya + Joan Rumble, DonDuler, etc. Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

Janner and I were/are great friends with Thundercloud.... We jumped together in his early daze and shot combat competitio stuff a lot thereafter. Impressive human. Wonderful artist. Crazy dude. XOXOXO Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

Kewl! Thanks, that helps fill-out the picture.... '66 for Florida. Florida was / is a big fountain of skydiving wonders. On our honeymoon, Jan and I jumped at your DZ when we got married... about 40 years ago... Jan had her 1st malfunction. ... tye-dyed 28' flat canopy. Paul, Thank you. Muchly

When formations first flew. .... fossil tracks we made in the mud of ancient skies. Can you primordial relics spare brain cells and share a clue? Here's what I think I know: Formation Skydiving 57 years ago -- Linked exits were performed in France in 1953. In a ’53 edition of the French magazine, Paris Match, I read that three parachutists carried a 3-way out of a Dakota (DC3), making a ‘delayed-fall’, “forming a true star” above a Perris air show. 50 years ago -- Back in the early 1960s D2 Istel’s Parachutes Inc. of Orange Mass. and California’s Skylark at Lake Elsinore carried a flame of man-flight. But I’m thinking that Texas led in parachuting freefall arena. After all, wind riding ain’t much more to bull riding. 1960s Houston Texans had a 130 member parachute club that wedded Texas scale jumping and wild merrymaking with the big blue. Like the soap opera, As the Prop Turns that tide swept me up. HPC partied, jumped, drank, humped, married, divorced, and split the skies and the sheets. Inspiring characters like Doc Fitch, Iron Tooth, and the undertakers, initiate my impressionable 17-yr old mind to proximity flying. Two-way formations Happened early. I did two-way formations in ’61 – ’62. Period parachutist, Dr. R. Economy, CA. reports much more saying HPC instructor Clyde Jacks was ‘the best of the era.’ In 1962, at the HPC DA at BeeLine airport, Clyde Jacks D42 linked up with me on a short delay for a zipper. Then in early 1962, on Tommy Foster’s 6th jump, Carlos Wallace D-152 passed a baton with Tommy on a 12 second delay. We free flew the exit from a Cessna 185. I went out last to watch from above. We proudly submitted the feat to the PCA’s Parachutist news letter for recognition and got notoriety instead. We were officially castigated in print for a “dangerous stunt.” Also in ’62 – ’63 at the Galveston Skydivers, I’d do linked exits with Tommy off D114 Doc Anagnostis’ Cessna strut to wrestle down to opening. To air-grapple, we used leg-scissors, head-locks and the like. The ‘winner’ was he who was on top of the pile at break off. Baton pass -- Anything was our baton. We used sticks, Coke bottles, or whatever to pass back-and-forth. However, lugging junk upstairs quickly got old so we logged physical aerial encounters as a “Contact” jump. The word “RW” or relative work didn’t appear until ’64 when the word “star” came into log book vocabulary. Envisioning myself as a hawk swooping prey, I’d use a mate’s burble as an elevator to glom a backpack. Swoop; Chomp. Three way formations were made over the Dallas Cedar Hill Club in 1963 where Tee Taylor and two guys linked up, made a line with arms interlocked at the elbows, then did front loops. By 1964 three-man stars were commonplace. Four way Formations Four-man Stars were commonplace in Houston at Wallace's DZ in Crosby Texas in 1967. I made them with DZ regulars Don Deveny C1758, Gary Lewis B-5561, Hop C3686, Hawkeye, Weird Bob, and Ed Burran. Multi-Plane attempts -- On July 4th, 1967 I logged, “3-planes, 9 jumpers, WOW! 4-man star, 6-man contact” at the Texas Parachute Council Meet in Georgetown, Texas. Five way Formations In the USA, 5-ways started in Texas in ‘67. In France, they’d done them 2-years earlier. With CG Wallace’s Outlaws we were making 5-ways in 1967 out of his Cessna 196 (195). My first 5-* was in September on my 248th jump. In Arvin DZ, Wallace Outlaw Nels Lindbloom was in California’s 1st five-way (196?). I’m curious. (and not just weird). Most/many aircraft of the day made a formation larger than 4 unlikely from a single aircraft (195, 196, 206, and Howard carried 5). Anybody know when + where you participated in your first 5-way? When did you hear tell of a 5-way in your skies? Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

24-hour clock-118, GW-845, DW-358, 3DW 351, 60 Hr. FF# 187, + Silly Tit and Chicken Choker (AirTrash.com) Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

watermelon dive Some time back in the dim dark past, around the time Ed Fitch opened his TASCO Parachute Center in Houston, things got weird out. Fritz Jackson and Joe Knunz & Bill Nicholson? do a watermellon dive. Meby Bob Author was camera... or Ed Burran (I forget). Fine thing, the mind. I have more of mine around here someplace.... Standard picture. Jumpers sitting around with... *Say, wouldnt it be wonderful if..... * *lets pass a watermellon!* *Wonderful* *. . . a BIG fugger...* *Yea, if it is BIG Enough -- we are certain to get famous!* [ for those not blessed by being Texan, In Texas, a big watermellon is, well a BIG watermellon] Not being retards, they get this BIG watermellon and push 550 cord (suspension line) thru and around it so that on each end there is a handy Handle! Woo-boy! The Official Plan: Joe and Fritz leave the Plane (C-195) with BIG Watermellon in-hand; one on each end. Bill swoops from above and sorta gloms onto it. whilst, Ed shoots the Nobel Peace Prize Photos Simple, effective and *easy* {ah fame!} So, altitude exit action camera. Beautiful shot -- Bill and Ed alone in the flat Texas sky. Meanwhile below, far, far below Is the watermellon. With Fritz and Joe Holdin' ON. The watermelon precedes them as it burns a hole in the blue. Flag-like, they flap together above the monster green cannon ball. Unaccustomed to pain, Joe lets go. *Hey, you hurt me up there!* (Spriong! Up he goes!) Whilst Fritz and the watermellon reach Mach 7.2. Fritz lets go. (It was hurtin my hand, it waz pullin so hard!) Watermellon thunders in to a yellow-green field. We regroup. Clearly, watermellons are not an automatic entry into the SAG. We need a shure thing. A Matress! Lovely Idea! Genius! Oh, hold me back.... YO! A freakin Beauty Rest Matress in free fall! *. . . . a skydiver lightly lands to lay and snooze on air. . .* Screaming we are gonna be rich we are gonna be RICH! We set off to plot and scheme. But that is another story. Crazy Pat Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

Bill, you are right. I'm remembering my 4-way team, dirty Billy Biship's Horney hats.... Recently, there was a nice Howard that did a low-pass salute at Gary Douris wake. My brain has crusty mold. Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

Right. I forgot about Istel's Noorduyn Norseman. It also served at elsinore in the 1970s. Skylark's Howards carried 4. And, And later on in the 1970s the D-18 Beechcraft carried 8+. I owned one for a while. Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

Hey! Somebody has to have been in a 5-way on or before '67..... howsomeever probably not. There were no airplanes that carred 5 then 'cept the 195 and the 206. Hum? Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

Jan has WNSCR #1 Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

The earliest 5-ways were made in Texas in 1967 as best I can tell. Any other inputs? (Same with 4-ways, they happened in '67 too, I think). Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

Thanks jimp and skydivered, Good inputs. I have a KAP 3 (or PPK 3 and remember them being used in the 1960s. They are about the size of 2-packs of cigaretts. There are two-each of them mounted on the frame of a Soviet re-entry space capsule on display at the Boeing Air Museum in seattle.... Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

Any body know anything about the USSR's KAP AAD? Here is what I think I know. KAP – 3P -- an early-era automatic activation device (AAD), -- ??Developed in the USSR in the late 1940's or 50’s [??] the mechanical KAP 3 is the earliest functional AAD known ??. For decades, the Soviet KAP 3 AAD was the only sensible device for parachuting. For example, in the USA, the similar USAF high-altitude bail-out AAD was hardwired to open at 14,000 feet ASL making that device impractical for civilian jumps. FACT: A highly reliable device, all Soviet manned capsules and cosmonauts’ carried redundant KAP3s. You can check them out at the Smithsonian or the Boeing Museum. They were part of the kit for many drop zones around the world including wide use across America in the 50s -60s -70s. Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

As part of the ceremonies at the Pioneers Reunion last weekend the names of our "D" holders now deceased were recited. In a beautiful little chapel atop a hill in the invocations soft words were spoken and different tellers recounted the names. Four persons came in turn to the pulpit and called out many names. It was moving to hear such a list. To know so very many made my heart big. The brotherhood of the sky is unbroken. Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

As to rigging, I practice a subtle mixture of oblivion and carelessness as a life long jump ethic. So, I for one an REALLY glad that someone pays close attention to these things. Keep it up. (Keep me up too) Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

Hummn, Are you talking about sport jumping? Cotton chest packs are rare and seldom seen -- you are probably talking pre WWII gear? .... Ain't no group of folks ever jumped a sleeve of any flavor on a chest pack. Belly mount openings suck and hurt. Your heels can imprint your helmet. For belly mounts, I guess that a sleeve flavor deployment device didn't make sense in the 1940 + period when they were carried + used for flight crews. Besides, I think you'd have a hard time getting a sleeve and a flat canopy to fit into a chest container. Sport parachutists even removed the spider pilot chutes from chest mounts. Enlighten me. Why would one want to retard the deployment of a round-flat-circular emergency deceleration device by adding a sleeve? But, I’m a jumper; not a rigger. B-1575, I still can’t pack for shit. Dumb old fart who actually thinks that having a reserve repacked years ago is good to go. Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

Freestyle in 1963 -- The first non-accuracy + non-style National Competition was in the US at the PCA Nationals in 1963. It was an individual free form event. Competitors wrote out the solo routines they intended to perform. Judging was from the ground. Ground judges used telemeters, powerful tripod mounted binoculars, to rank the performances. Points were deducted for any deviation from the stated routine. A few degrees off-heading, over rotation on front loops or back loops knocked you out of the running. Most parachutists’ complicated recipes cost them dearly. The winner did a very slow, very precise figure-eight. Related to me by my friend Tee Taylor Crump Brydon 1963 USA Women’s Parachute team. Tee and I jumped in Texas and served as editors for the Texas Parachute Council's newsletter WindLine '62-'63. The TPC was the model for what evolved into USPA Conferences. Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,