Question -- who jumped at the Houston Parachute Club and Galveston Skydivers, pre 1970's??

Andy Butchko is alive and well in Belize. He still makes a couple of jumps a year out of their military plane. He's pretty connected to the Belize Defence Force guys and he's still a character.

He tells some great tales of the Texas days

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Hi Pat:

Here is an update on my earlier messages - including your additions/corrections and a few of my own.

Chuck and I would love to work with you. Below is what I've put together along with your additions/corrections. I'm trying to get a list of the first 2,000 D licenses from the new PCA and will go through those when I get it. The additional licenses should bring it up to about 1970.

I've got a question. I don't ever remember receiving my gold wings or my 12-hour badge. More than likely I never applied for them. I took a look at the applications and they have to be confirmed by a national director. My logbooks were stolen, so I don't have those, but there are a lot of fellows still around who know I made well over 1,000 jumps and a significant number of those were from 12,500 and a few between 15,000 and 25,000.

Any idea who I might need to contact to complete the two applications? I don't know the exact number of jumps I made or the exact minutes of freefall.
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Here are a few of my jump stories…
I started skydiving in the early 1960s. I continued jumping periodically whenever I found a drop zone near where I was.

When I moved to Houston I started fishing. Most of the time I would go to Galveston and fish at the end of the North Jetty. On one of these trips I noticed parachutes in the sky and stopped to check it out.

Turns out that was the home of the Galveston Skydivers. I introduced myself to the club owner, Dr. Gus Anagnostis. Gus was in the 101st Airborne Division during WWII and made 2 combat jumps with the 502nd and 509th Infantry Battalion. When I met him he was wearing those WWII jump wings with the combat jump stars. I got details on when and where they jumped and proceeded to Galveston to fish.

The next weekend I went back to Gus’ club and made a couple of jumps using club equipment. My training lasted about 30 minutes. Gus was my instructor. Gus gave me the name of a dealer in Dallas and I ordered my equipment from that dealer.

I started jumping every weekend that weather permitted. I loved skydiving and was very active until Memorial Day 1966. I had a lot of fun and a few harrowing experiences.

I was a fun jumper. Accuracy was not one of my assets. If I landed on the DZ that was fine. The only dead center I ever made happened to be at a meet at A&M. Hitting that 12” round pie plate was purely accidental and resulted in my sharing a 1st place with one other jumper – don’t recall his name. I did beat out some of the far more experienced jumpers, including Carlos Wallace.

The highest jump I ever made had some glitches, but was probably the most fun of all.

A number of us loaded into what I recall was a Twin Beech. We took off and started to climb to the highest altitude possible. Since to reach the maximum altitude we had to unload one or two jumpers periodically, we drew straws to determine the order. I drew the next to last straw.

There were only two of us remaining as we reached the bird’s maximum altitude – I do not recall the altitude but 26,500 feet comes to mind. The other jumper was a female who I believe might have been woman’s skydiving champion and who I had been harassing and playing fun and games with all the way up. I think she was from the Dallas area. When it came time to jump I spotted the load and jumped. No sooner than I had exited the bird there was the flash of a yellow jumpsuit passing me and all of a sudden my reserve parachute opened and I was hanging at around 26,000 feet. She had gotten her revenge by pulling my reserve ripcord. One question about this jump I have not been able to answer – oxygen. I’m pretty sure the plane’s cabin was not pressurized. I do know I had a bail-out bottle, but do not recall ever having used it.

It was a long, gorgeous and serene ride down. Since there are no control lines on the reserve parachute I had to go where the wind took me. I landed about 25 miles from our drop zone and it took me hours to get back – arriving near dusk. I ended up the butt of almost all jokes for several weeks.

The most foolish jump I ever made was in Bandera, Texas. A fellow jumper and physician, Dr. Ed Fitch got a free weekend for two if the two of us would make demonstration parachute jumps at the dude ranch. The dude ranch would provide the pilot and plane for as many jumps as we could make. Hard to beat a deal like that.

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The most foolish jump I ever made was in Bandera, Texas. A fellow jumper and physician, Dr. Ed Fitch got a free weekend for two if the two of us would make demonstration parachute jumps at the dude ranch. The dude ranch would provide the pilot and plane for as many jumps as we could make. Hard to beat a deal like that.

Ed was a Houston surgeon. His father was my middle daughter, Happy’s pediatrician. Ed was, to say the least, unconventional. He owned and flew a Swedish aerobatic plane and also had a Cessna single engine. I don’t recall the model. On one occasion we were jumping at the Houston Parachute Club (HPC) drop zone and he realized he was scheduled for surgery and there was not enough time to drive to the hospital. He and another pilot got into his plane, they flew to the hospital and he jumped into the hospital’s parking lot. Ed died of hepatitis and per his wishes and his wife’s authorization, he had an unconventional burial. George Sage, another jumper and pilot put Ed’s body in a USPS mail sack, weighed it with iron weights, loaded Ed into the plane, flew out over Galveston Bay, and dumped Ed into the bay.

At Bandera Ed and I made 9 or 10 jumps on Saturday. Most were 30 second delays from 7,500 feet. On Sunday we decided we would go higher and made a couple of 60 second delays from 12,500 feet trailing smoke from smoke grenades we had affixed to our feet. I then decided to give them a real show. Ed tried to talk me out of it but I would not listen. I had this planned. I was an FAA licensed parachute rigger so I had sewn extra sets of “D” rings and capewells onto one of my harnesses and I had brought some extra reserves in Ed’s plane. I hooked everything up and looked like a robot. A photo was taken but it is long lost.

I had my Security main parachute that had the reserve on the back mounted above the main. I then hooked one of the reserves’ two snaps to each of 4 of the “D” rings. I hooked one of the snaps of an unpacked reserve that I had stuffed into a cardboard helmet box and chain linked the lines to the last “D” ring.

I then got into the plane and told the pilot to go up to at least 15,000 feet. He did and I spotted him over the dude ranch and exited. Immediately upon exiting I threw out the helmet box, the chute opened, and as soon as I was hanging I popped the capewell and cutaway, going back into freefall until I pulled the ripcord on the next reserve. I repeated the process for 5 cutaways.

When I landed the crowd roared. I had yet to open my Security main or Security back mounted reserve. Runners found all of the reserves, though it took some time to find one of them.

I had a few close calls. There was a jumper named Carlos Wallace who was also in the Houston Parachute Club. I made a lot of jumps with Carlos because he was always at the DX and since his jumps did not cost him anything, he was on almost every load. Carlos was a true daredevil. While the lowest altitude I felt safe pulling at was 2,000 feet, Carlos would often go down to 500 feet before pulling. I don’t recall the altitude we jumped from but Carlos and I did a baton pass. After he gave me the baton I waved him away and a few moments later I pulled. Carlos had failed to move away and he came through my canopy, broke several of my lines and got some pretty bad line burns on his arm. He opened safely but I had to pull my reserve. I ended up coming down on a fully opened reserve but spinning because of a partially collapsed main. Scary but I landed safely though very hard.

Carlos and I also set a record – the only skydiving record I ever held. We were the first to make a baton pass between two jumpers where the jumpers exited different aircraft. Actually it was an easy task. I believe I was in a Cessna 185 and Carlos in a 190. We went to about 7,500 feet with Carlos’ plane a little above and to the side of mine. The pilots were on the radio with each other and Carlos spotted the target. Both pilots started a 5-4-3-2-1 countdown and at 1 we both exited. I got into a stable position and remained there while Carlos tracked over to me and handed me the baton. The baton was one that fellow jumper who was a machinist had made out of aluminum and anodized it a red color. After landing we flipped a coin to see who got the baton and I won. I had it engraved with the event and date. Somewhere over the years it has disappeared. Earlier I had used that same baton on a jump with my friend, Chuck Warwick.

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"Over the years I used a couple of different automatic opening devices for my reserve parachute. I don’t recall exactly how they worked, but one jump I made confirmed that at least my Russian KAP3 worked fine. I kept my devices set to open at just under 2,000 feet but rarely armed them. On this particular jump I pulled at about 2,200 feet – my normal pulling altitude, got a normal opening and suddenly my reserve deployed. I had failed to do something and the KAP3 worked. Other than the embarrassment there was no problem. Immediately upon realizing my reserve ripcord had been pulled I grabbed the canopy before it deployed and held it until just before landing. My other device I believe was named Security. I bought it from the fellow who invented it. It was an altimeter hooked up to a pyro technique. You set the opening altitude, arm the device, and hook a short cable to the ripcord. When you hit the set altitude a blank cartridge would fire and the ripcord would be pulled. I don’t recall ever actually using that one.

Some of us decided to go to a meet that was to be held at the Thunderbird airstrip in Las Vegas. I believe there were four of us with Fitch flying. The event went fine and on the way back we stopped for fuel somewhere along the way – I believe it may have been Alberquerque. We took a break at the airport, staying about an hour or so. There were a number of military aircraft parked at the strip. We got back on the plane and started home again when Ed’s plane blew a jug and oil covered the windshield.

His best scenario would have been to have the rest of us jump, but while we had some reserves in the cabin we had no harnesses. Fitch babied the bird and we ended up landing in Wink, Texas. Ed stayed with the plane and the rest of us took a bus to Houston.

Turns out that when we landed for fuel on the way back from Vegas, Carlos had broken into one or more of the military aircraft and stole some of their parachutes and put them in Ed's cargo compartment.

Carlos was not known to be the most reputable of our clan. I know that several times he stole rigs from the parachute loft at Ft. Polk, Louisiana. He would modify and sometimes dye these rigs, making 5- or 7-panel TU sports rigs. Carlos' rigs were pretty easy to identify because on most of them there was something called an "FBI modification" - a rectangular sewn on patch where the serial number had been should have been. A few years later he paid the ultimate price when a restaurant owner shot and killed him while he was riding away on his motorcycle after robbing the restaurant at gunpoint.

The closest I ever came to meeting my Maker came at a meet at Texas A&M. The weekend was beautiful, there was no wind, and the jump was flawless until I attempted to open my main. I had a “streamer.” Streamers are normally easy to clear. What happens is that the chute comes out and rather than the rushing air opening the canopy the air rushes straight up and out the apex. Normally all you need to do is to pull the lines on one side to get the apex off center and the chute will open. Nothing I could do would make the chute inflate and I was getting really close to the ground. I let go the main and pulled my reserve at about 500 feet. The reserve partially opened and then started wrapping itself around the main. I was doomed. For some reason the good Lord decided it was not my time and just before my feet hit the ground both the main and reserve partially opened making it one of the softest landings I had experienced to that date.

My last jump was on Memorial Day 1966. I was jumping with Gus Anagnostis’ club midway between Houston and Galveston. It was a beautiful day and almost no wind. I was making my last jump of the day. I don’t recall the altitude – probably 7,500 feet. When I pulled my ripcord I had a very hard opening and when I looked up I had a perfect “Mae West.” A single line had gone over the top of my canopy dividing it exactly in half. That is the best kind of a Mae West to have because you do not spin and it is easy to control using your control lines – if you have control lines. Immediately I noticed both of my control lines had broken upon opening. There was no way to control the chute except to pull on the shroud lines. At that point in the sport to do that was believed to be far too dangerous. I had to ride it down.

I had opened at about 2,000 feet and was directly over the Gulf Freeway. As I got closer to the ground I saw that I was headed southbound over the northbound lane. At about 200 feet I decided to take a chance and I gently pulled on one of my lines hoping to turn the direction I was headed. It worked and I landed at the side of a 3-story home with my chute caught on something on the roof. My feet were about 8-10 feet from the ground and I was unable to pop my capewells to release the chute. I was in the process of getting out of my harness when Anagnostis and a couple of others rushed up and helped me down.

They retrieved my rig and we went back to the DZ. I dropped my helmet, instruments and rig on the ground and told Gus the club could have it. I was through jumping. That was in no way a really bad malfunction, but neither were the other four I had in my last seven jumps. I figured someone was trying to tell me something if I, an experienced jumper with over 1,500 jumps had 5 malfunctions out of 7 jumps. I left and never went back.

One humorous experience happened at a hotel in Chicago while I was attending a printing convention. I was sitting at the bar and this youngster was telling skydiving war stories to a small crowd. I asked him if he had a skydiving license. He proudly pulled out his license. It was something like D409820 or some huge number. I congratulated him, smiled, and handed him mine. His eyes widened when he saw mine was #D605. Had I applied immediately after I was qualified, six or eight months before I actually applied, my number would have been a much lower number – probably in the 200. These were the early days when a lot of jumpers would use the money required for a license application preferred to use the money for jumps.

Another not-so-humorous experience occurred earlier in my skydiving days. I was driving back from a meet and stopped in Atlanta to spend the night with my aunt and uncle. I parked my car in front of their home and when I came out the next morning the car was gone. In the car was my new ParaCommander rig and my five log books and one of my rigger logs. The rig could be replaced but not the log books. To me they were priceless. I had many of the earliest skydivers who signed as witnesses to my jump including several who had single-digit license numbers. Also six of the first seven astronauts had witnessed jumps. Among the other important witnesses was George Gividen. George had been one of my instructors at West Point and he lost his left leg in Korea. That did not stop him for jumping. I made several jumps with the one-legged George. An interesting sidebar, it was Ernest West, another acquaintance of mine who earned the Medal of Honor for saving George’s life in Korea."

On 1/27/2014 at 9:55 AM, fastphil said:

Anyone remember a (stuttering) Dave Saffel. I knew him before I started jumping and after he had quit jumping. A Korean Veteran, where the close proximity to an exploding grenade had left him with a speech stutter, Dave was also a PCA D license. I think he had a California jumping background and had shown me a photo of a very large (28 or so) round star he was in, but I do remember him telling me of Doc’s 50 jump day. Dave was the sort that is hard to forget…

On 1/19/2014 at 4:16 PM, patworks said:

Another email about early Texas Jumps from Cy Stapleton D-605- -

My God! That is incredible! I do wish I'd seen your cutaway jump!