Jeannie McCombs

Hi Guys,

Wow, maybe the old memory ain't so bad after all.

Just maybe there is still hope for me,

JerryBaumchen

As I remember, it was a Security "System" (real original name, huh?) with a pilot chute pouch mounted in the back pad. The handle velcroed to the lateral webbing and they floated a lot after the velcro became worn. The story I heard from Don Balch was that she had two resv. rides from it and everyone was giving her shit about it. On her last jump she was heard to say "I'm getting that thing this time!"

The rest is, well you know... She was a great lady, always took time for me as a kid on the DZ. I remember her driving a nice red Morris Minor for a while.

Oh, and can a moderator edit the title of this to make it a SMALL j in her first name, PLEASE!

Jerry and Bill,

It was definitely not a Racer.

I was one of the firsts to jump a Racer in Elsinore. I had to talk Dean into ordering for me ( he was afraid that he couldn't service it for me because it was an East coast rig). There were a few others that were jumping SSTs, but they brought them with them.

I remember her, and I'm sure that I would remember another gal jumping a rig that was very scarce. There weren't a whole lot of us girls or those rigs.

Lisa

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Just checked with Kevin Donnelly on the subject. Kevin is 90% sure it was a Security Rig. I think Ray Cottingham was on the same load.

I know it was not a Racer.
I was on a load with Jeannie the week before and she had the same problem. She ended up less than 1,000 ft. before she deployed the reserve. It was a Security rig with a behind the back type of deployment. It was fairly new on the market and I seem to remember she was either selling them or sponsored by them.

Sparky

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As I remember, it was a Security "System" (real original name, huh?) with a pilot chute pouch mounted in the back pad. The handle velcroed to the lateral webbing and they floated a lot after the velcro became worn. The story I heard from Don Balch was that she had two resv. rides from it and everyone was giving her shit about it. On her last jump she was heard to say "I'm getting that thing this time!"

I remember those rigs. I had a Hanbury rig myself, which had the same kind of p/c storage, between the back pad and main container, with a velcro lead to the pud handle. As the velcro got old, the handles could get loose and be hard to find. had a few reserve rides myself for the same reason. Also had some friends with Racers who had their own pud problems.

By Thanksgiving 1980, which coincidentally was the only time I ever met jeanni, pud totals were so endemic that manifest at Perris (Jack Ballard to be exact), lost his temper and promised to ground the next pud total, after something like 3 of them had happened in one afternoon. I still rmember him yelling on the PA, "You people get those damn things fixed !" I converted to a Hank Asciutto p/c system the very next week.

Tom,

Floating puds were a very bad problem. Fortunately, I was aware of it, and as soon as I received my Racer, I modified the deployment system to a leg-mounted pilot chute. I never had a problem with it, and encouraged (strongly) everyone I met, who had a pud, to convert. I even modified a few along the way for some.

Lisa

On my first jump on a racer in '84 I had a floating pud with a semi-low pull. The very next jump, same thing happened again!!

Fortunately, my buddy taught me the way to trace the bottom of the flap to the bridle. I've only jumped a pud once since then.

Nice thing about going low on a racer, you're not distracted by actually "looking" for anything. You can just look at the ground until you're scared enough to pull your reserve. Hopefully

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On my first jump on a racer in '84 I had a floating pud with a semi-low pull. The very next jump, same thing happened again!!

Fortunately, my buddy taught me the way to trace the bottom of the flap to the bridle. I've only jumped a pud once since then.

Nice thing about going low on a racer, you're not distracted by actually "looking" for anything. You can just look at the ground until you're scared enough to pull your reserve. Hopefully

SST Racer. People used to call them Struggle, Struggle, Thump.

Sparky

Or Super Sonic Total....

Hi Petey!
Actually jeannie drove a Sky Blue Morris Minor, complete with license plates "SKYQN" and with pinwheels attached to the antennae.

(I had a '67 cherry RED VW bug (plates: "TGND" :)

jeannie traveled with her two little Shih Tzu dogs, wore little jingle bells on her tennis shoes, and she wore a bikini with pride in her fifties...

jeannie was funny, irreverent, classy, and "one of a kind"!! RIP jeannie.

(Did I mention "tough"? jeannie was Captain of The Stardusters All Women Exhibition Team, and one year at the Reno Air Races she was sporting broken ribs, but she had people wrap layers of duct tape round and round her chest so she could suit up and do the exhibition jumps anyway --)

"Mike was an amazingly good gymnast too and helped our team win a lot of competitions. He was a nice guy in high school, not stuck up like some of the star athletes."

One time Mike told me he got pulled over for DUI and the officer asked him to "walk a line" as a "sobriety test" -- Mike's response was "Sure, Officer, I can do that on my HANDS" -- and he proceeded to do so. So the officer let him go.

Mike always said he could walk on his hands better drunk than sober...
RIP Mike

I met jeannie at the Nationals in Tahlequah in 1971. She was such a hoot; really friendly, great skydiver, and a legend. I think she had one of those vans (everybody seemed to in those days), and she had a tonneau-like cover outside the sliding door, where she held court and offered anyone who stopped by a cold brew.

wasn't there another skydiver named jeanie McCombs out there ? i seem to remember some thing like that.....

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wasn't there another skydiver named jeanie McCombs out there ? i seem to remember some thing like that.....

Are you thinking of the 2 Jan Davis's?

She was a classy lady. Somebody's gotta have some pics of jeannie to post here.

I was at the drop zone when she went in, and there was a lot of scuttlebut that she was depressed because a good friend of hers had gone in not long before and had done it on purpose. I knew her and had jumped with her from time to time and thought that was just BS.

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D4021, C8295, California Parachutist ID card #237, USPA ASO WE/10 7022 7202. Never did send my NSCR from '73 in but still have the old paper work filled out.

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I hope this doesnt come off strange but I am a manifest/Office Manager here at NorCal Skydiving in Cloverdale, CA and I received a call from a woman who found an autographed photo of jeanni at an estate sale and she is desperate to find her family to give the picture back. If you could please lead me in any direction to get this photo to her family I would greatly appreciate it! You can PM me here or email at [email protected] or even call me at 707-239-0769

Could you post the picture please?

I remember Jeannie had a son. The Elsinore jumpers from the 70’s may know where he is.

Jeanni had a daughter...I have posted a couple of photos of her on Vintage photos...There is one with Ann (Curtis) Gardner, Betty Burkett, Sheila ?

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posted photo

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s

of Jeani on vintage photos.

Issue #19: 05/31/1981

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I'd always heard that it was a belly band, interesting to hear this new info.

She did have an incident with a Belly band.

She was jumping "Gutter gear" for Style at the Nationals. An APT3 main container and a Chest reserve. The belly band from the chest reserve pulled on the base of the main container causing the bottom grommets of the 3 pin main to lock on the cone.

She had a total, I packed her reserve so she could make the next load. She never checked to identify the cause of the first total nor repacked her main and she had the same thing on the next jump. I had to pack her reserve again.

This was Jennie or as it said on the back of her jacket:

"Jeannie McCombs; Lady Parachutist You Bastards"

I jumped with Jeanie at Pope Valley a few times...was a new and inexperienced jumper. She was very positive and supportive of new jumpers...not to mention she was a very attractive mature woman (long time ago and I was recently married skydiving with my wife who Jeannie was very good to,btw) Was not there the day she died but I had a very similar malfunction on the type of rig she jumped...hand deploys from your leg strap were relatively new then...still involved in skydiving but not like before.

Had not seen Jeanni's name in years.

Greg

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Hi Madjohn
Think it was a leg strap deploy from a relatively new Security rig called the BASIC...related to the UNIT 7 cell. Had a similar issue at Eagle Field shortly after Jeannie died and while sorting out issue decided to pull reserve rather than F with it...very low opening on reserve resulting in a severly broken ankle... ask Ray F he was on jump! back in 1981...early

I fly the jump planes from time to time with Ray.
G[email]