Barbara Druggan

I have a distant cousin that jumped in the 60's, She went in June 13, 1967, I believe in Ohio. Anyone know her?



_________________________________________________

Yes, believe we do.

Was she extremly pretty with dark hair?

If she is the one, she died in Ohio jumping from South Dayton Airport.

Skies blue

Quote

Was she extremly pretty with dark hair?

Yes, that's her.

Not trying to sound morbid, does anyone have a picture?

There's a letter to the editor, November 1967 Skydiver magazine. The question was about malfunctioning reserves after cut-aways. The answer: "Yes, Barbara Druggen (sp?) was killed this year. Line over on her PC - broke away at 2000, reserve was seen to clear the pack at 1500 feet, got full line stretch but canopy stayed bundled around her reserve pilot chute." The response goes on about how improbable this is, and how it's still better to cut-away and have a reserve pilot chute.

Is this the person you're talking about?

Hi herpster,

This is the one that made a lot of us take a long deep breath about just what we were doing.

To the best of my knowledge, this was the first fatality with a clean cutaway and pilot chute reserve deployment.

We had always subscribed to 'clean cutaway and pilot chute on the reserve' and you're home free.

As I remember, a few folks stopped jumping after this one.

Jerry

Quote

There's a letter to the editor, November 1967 Skydiver magazine. The question was about malfunctioning reserves after cut-aways. The answer: "Yes, Barbara Druggen

it's More than likely. The only details i get from Family is "the chute didn't work" Jim & Lee West are trying to get some more details for me. If you could scan and send me the article I would be really owe you.

I'll e-mail the scans since I haven't figured out the uploading process yet. One page is from letters to the editor, the other is the editorial from the same issue. See about halfway down the first column of the editorial. Hope this helps.

PS, Jerry, thanks for putting this in the perspective of the times, back then.

Quote

Hi herpster,

This is the one that made a lot of us take a long deep breath about just what we were doing.
[...]
We had always subscribed to 'clean cutaway and pilot chute on the reserve' and you're home free.

Yep. I started jumping not long after that. The DZ where I was had been using pilot chutes on their reserves but they were debating whether they should or not. There were other DZs in the state who went back (for awhile) to reserves without pilot chutes.

I never could figure out how that malfunction could have happened. Possibilities were that it could have gone too long without a repack, could have been a cotton twill (still some around then ... I had one) that had gotten wet, pilot chute problem (no kicker plate of any sort? weak spring? who knows?).

It really didn't make sense. It sounded like she'd done everything exactly as she was supposed to have done.

Does anyone have info of the Parachuting activities at South Dayton Airport /Moraine, Ohio. I am working on the history of Moraine Airpark . if anyone wishes to contact me please email me at [email protected].

 

Part of the logic for removing pilot chutes - from chest-mounted reserves - was that old umbrella style pilot-chutes had wimpy springs that contributed little to launching the pilot-chute into clear air.

Umbrella style pilot-chutes were considered obsolete by the time I started jumping in Canada in 1977.

The last time I saw an umbrella style pilot-chute was in 1986, at the West German Army parachute school. Mind you, the WGA was in the later stages of developing a replacement for the T-10 system.