YOUR single most dangerous jump.

Here's mine. It was in the mid 70's. The California Aerial Circus was jumping into the Treehouse...a nudist colony. We jumped there for the Miss Nude U.S.A. contest. It is located in Devore, CA just next to Glen Helen Regional Park. The pilot was Bob Jones from Perris and Elsinore. I think we had 4 jumpers on that load. We left the airplane on single passes. When it was my turn to go, just Bob and I were in the plane. I climbed out on the ladder, turned to jump and my right leg got caught in the bottom rung of the ladder. I was hanging upside down NUDE. Bob could not help me cuz he was flying the plane. Boy did he get an EYE full! He has a glass eye. I grabbed the ladder and proceeded to do pull ups. Imagine weighing 105 lbs and trying to pull yourself and all your equipment up. Meanwhile the Treehouse was getting further and further away. I was pretty good at accuracy so I didn't care where I landed. I just wanted to get off that plane. Bob was yelling stuff, but I don't know what he was saying. I did pull ups for what seemed an eternity. I was getting really tired too. After about 10 trys I finally turned into SUPER WOMAN, and pulled up just enough to get my leg off the ladder. Freefall never felt so good. I made it to the Treehouse just off the target. I was pretty shook up. I bruised the back of my knee. Big old bruise too. Later that night is when I really got scared. I kept thinking of all the other things that could have happened. What I thought of the most was..WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED HAD I NOT GOT MYSELF OFF THAT LADDER . This is a TRUE story. I'm sure some of the OLD gang remember. Especially BOB...He really got his EYEFULL on that jump.....SANDY

Jumped once with nothing but a silkworm and a knitting needle....

Ms BD,
Do you know how to contact Bob? I met him at the 1st Pops World Meet in '90 in Australia and about a year or so later at his place in Hemet.
I'd like to get in touch with him again.

My attempt at recurrency to get back into the sport... What ever you do, never quit skydiving. It's dangerous and expensive to quit...

I came to Elsinore to my old friend Jim Wallace to get current after a 5 year layoff. He made me use student gear which had an FXC on it. I had never jumped with an AAD before this. Well I did fine on the dive untilll it was time to track away and in doing so I noticed we were kinda high so I took it down a little farther before dumping. OOOPS... forgot about the AAD. There I was with 2 canopies out. I landed them both with a good downwind PLF in no wind. But I had to do the whole jump over again and pay for the whole thing over again on top of a reserve repack and an FXC recharge... That was a very expensive day.

july 1967

quan try rvn

fun jump from c-130

mid day

exit altitude 900 feet?? I think it looked lower

south china sea to the right
mine fields and barbed wire to the left

fun jump with some sf types

upon landing found 2 bullet holes in round

place was called wonder beach I think it was long ago

HOOAH youall

My single most dangerous jump is always the next one... Look who I jump with! :p

Fremont street. Las Vegas.....for a bowlgame.As the Flying Elvises
Directly on 1st and Fremont street ,which is now a pedestrian mall.
The organizers promised us we could have the street to the south and the street to the north as outs if the wind changed . Coming in to land, I see that all the outs are full of either people to the north or the Ball State marching band to the south. Nowhere to go but deadcenter in the intersection.
It doesnt seem like much in the telling....but I had nine other guys behind me.
I went to brakes...did a nice easy flat turn and settled into the middle of the street. That asphalt was hard .
My stress level was on overload.
I know I have done more dangerous... but that particular jump stays in my mind as the one.

bozo

Numero UNO. First one.

Jumpmaster was my co worker who had a hundred or so jumps and a C licesnse. FJC was sufficient and conducted over a two week period.

On the jump, he put me out (on a cheapo round) short of the target on a windy day.


I blew across a four lane hwy backwards and landed in a powerline in someones yard.

I recall saying to myself, "I will NEVER do this again!!!)

Oh well. Chit habben.

When I finally did my Nekkid dive, it was on a round. I don't consider it dangerous because I had over 100 roud jumps.

I have not seen Bob for 25+ years. His number is in the phone book. My Mom lives in Hemet also. Last time I was there I looked up his number, but have misplaced it. Just call information and ask for Hemet, Ca. The area code is 951. I don't remember if he is listed as Robert or Bob Jones. Good Luck. If you call him tell him Sandy Calliham said Hi.

I just did a yahoo search and there are about a half dozen candidates for R, Robert, or Bob Jones in Hemet, CA. Happy hunting!

My first night jump was pretty wild. I opened up right over the top of a small town and didn't know where the dropzone was. By the time I found it I was too far away to make it back. Had to decide whether or not to land near lights or in a blacked out area. I chose to land in a blacked out are that I thought might be empty. Turned out I was right and it was a soccer field. I was really sweating that choice But it was very exciting. Landing in the dark was a lot easier then I thought it would be. Looking down at all the lights and trying to decide where to land was very scary.

efs4ever's jump made me think of a similar one of my own that, although perhaps not the one with the most severe danger potential, was the one where I got hurt the worst.

I was at a Charlotte (Midland) NC club. The weather had been suckish for weeks, and everyone was suffering from the skyhornies. We got an unexpectedly clear morning, so several people showed up early. We put a load together, made a pass to toss a WDI, and it just sort of disappeared into the distance. We figured that we'd climb to altitude, "go long" upwind, and see what happened.

I'm certain that it was an all-round jump, since that's about the time that I saw my first square, a Parasled. Some of us had cheap-os, though, and some PCs.

Once we got to altitude, the agreed upon "spot" was the dividing line between a massive, dark, cloud bank and clear sky. It was like jumping past the edge of God's dining room table.

We all opened a bit higher than normal, and were glad we did so. Once under canopy, three things were immediately obvious: 1) we were long; 2) the wind was blowing like hell (zipping over the trees below); 3) the only option was to run for the DZ, because there wasn't anything below us but trees. What we had to do was clear the woods, get over a 2-lane country highway, clear some powerlines, and we'd be on the airport property.

The guys with the PCs, and one of the cheapos that opened a bit higher than me, barely made it over the powerlines. I was literally holding my legs up, so that the pine trees wouldn't hit my ass. I knew I could clear the trees, but not the powerlines. No problem ... I could hook somewhat into the wind and land on the road, which I started to do ... only to see that there was a car coming in that lane. SH**!!

I avoided the car, but landed in the far lane, crabbing. I did one of the best (and one of the only) PLFs of my life, but still slammed into the road (the altimeter mount on my chest reserve got bent up). My canopy kept inflated, dragging me off the road and into the ditch, then flopped over the power lines. I grabbed one of the suspension lines (made a lucky guess at which one), pulled it in enough to collapse the canopy, so that it slipped under the wires, then cut away one side as it started to reinflate.

Then I realized how sore I was, and that one elbow was bleeding. One of the guys drove me to the local emergency room, where a doc sewed me up. In the course of the suturing, we talked about how I got hurt. Turns out that he was a former Army MD who had been attached to an airborne unit, so he also signed my logbook.

Single Most "Dangerous" Jump...


I've had my fair share of Scary jumps, but one comes to mind that I knew was dangerous before even boarding the aircraft.

We were scheduled to do a night pyro demonstration jump into downtown Atlanta. It was sponsored by "Bell South" for the "Golf Classic" tournament and was meant as promotional entertainment for the participants and staff of the match.

Bell South's CEO had an amusing idea that was in the planning stages for close to a year and was spending Boo-Coo Coin to make it happen.

He'd gotten the idea during the preceding tourney, when another demo team had opened the Golf Match by jumping on the course minutes before tee off.

He'd mentioned that he always wanted to make a parachute jump and that 'one of these days...'

We'd arrived several days early to assist with the pre production of his plan.

The big banquet was to be held in the penthouse of one of the downtown high rises. The tournament starting the morning after. On the last 'practice' day, the CEO was out on the links and stayed behind to supposedly "get in the back 9" and said he'd see everyone at the banquet.

A local news channel was of course covering every angle of the event, and was going along with and helping pull off our "gag".

We had to be there to help with the film that would be used, and it looked like a really cool promotion...not just for them but us as well.

The night of the party, everyone (almost) was in the huge penthouse...open bar... big screens on the walls showing Golf stuff and the games big stars being interviewed etc.
The camera cuts to the CEO...still on the links messing around when a "live" call comes to him on his cell...It's his assistant at the party, speaking from the podium, 45 minutes before dinner starts.

She's chastising him for running late, saying to stop 'playing for the news camera' and get back to the city and his guests.
Saying he realized he was running late, he'd already arranged for a "quick ride in".

Suddenly a chopper lands on the green and he,
with our assistance (arriving with the Helio) puts on a team jumpsuit and rig...climbs abroad and away we go!

All this was of course filmed a couple evenings earlier.


Cut to the day of the jump...

It's been severe weather for two days with thunderstorms moving into and out of the area every few hours. We pretty much had carte blanche from the city on the effort, and were using it to try to ensure success.
The landing area was to be the top of a five story parking garage, the ONLY area downtown even close to big enough for four of us to set down with the pyro.

During a lull in the weather the afternoon of the jump, we each went to the roof of a different high rise building surrounding the LZ and popped M-18's to get a general idea on what the winds were like with all the obstructions.

I'm standing 30 stories up watching all the different colors of smoke spin, dip & rise in a wind ballet that only served to widen the ever growing lump in my stomach. The only thought going through my head as I watched the patterns of smoke squirrel in every direction was....

~Fuckin' "Shorty" took the EASY way out, scratching off this one~

Referring to a long time friend and team member that had been scheduled for this but tragically had died scuba diving not long before.

We're geared up and waiting in the rain at a local airport for the rapidly approaching jump time, hoping for a window in the weather. With the amount of time and expense going into this we were going to make every possible effort to pull it off.

The appointed hour arrives and the rain has let up,
winds are marginal and the ceiling low...but we crank and taxi, if nothing else we can make a better decision over flying the site, since with the way the clouds are moving...there may be a workable hole over the city.

Our night pyro jumps are technically hairy enough with several types of hot 'explosives' strapped to each leg...as well as a heavy and cumbersome belly wart systems of steel cable, chains and even larger fireworks.
The usual performance exits at 5500' with only a short delay...opening high to get situated and organized then working to set everything off in a choreographed display. We all knew there was no possible way we would get that kind of altitude tonight, and had gone over a few possible contingencies that might work in this instance.

Mine...I thought was the most viabale~

Jump out, pull silver and land as close to the bus station as I can, catching the first thing smokin' outta town!

Over the LZ the team leader is hanging out the door, ceiling is at 1500' broken with a solid layer a few hundred feet above...he looks back in at us and says, "I think we can do this, I'm going...follow me if you want.."

We set up on jump run right around 1500 feet, telling the pilot to firewall the throttle...at the team leaders signal, he is to stay on heading and pull back the yoke till the stall horn squeals and she starts to buffet!

Yours truly...being the biggest guy, is at the door...going first.

A short few seconds into the climb I roll out, basically throwing my pilot chute at the tail of the roaring 206 as I hit the wind stream. I'm in the saddle a touch under 2 grand listening to the sound of other canopies open as the pea soup thickens around me.
About this time I start thinking how this whole Golf playin' gig is starting to look REAL good as an alternative form of free time entertainment!

Leaving the brakes on and rear risering away from the sounds in front, I went on automatic pilot "Double Time"...armed, deployed and set off the whole 80 pounds of fiery inventory strapped to me. Popping the brakes and doing a 180*, I have everything burning and am finally far enough below the shit to make out a few city blocks and draw a bead on the roof top LZ.

To say the approach in was 'bumpy' would qualify as one of the century's gross understatements! My total concentration was focused on the landing site and the position of the other jumpers. We usually tend to stagger our landings when we need to go into a tight area.

The pyro is still quite hot even 10 minutes after landing, and those down first need to clear it away so the following jumpers won't land on it. Concentration was broken momentarily when I heard the screams coming from behind the windows of the party we doing all this for as I flew past...
THAT'S how close to the building I was under canopy 1/2 block away
from the obviously soon to be CROWED landing area.

Because of the low altitude, we were ALL going for the same place at the same time...and NOT from the same direction!

It was a scenario we'd discussed and the plan was to divide the rooftop into quadrants...and take the closest 1/4 to the respective line of flight. The bad part is...not only has your target gotten significantly smaller...it's even tighter than it looks because with almost 50 feet of cable below you...the jumper needs to be far enough past the edge lip of the structure so as not to foul the steel "tail" and go out of control.

With my best accuracy face on, I'm transfixed on an invisible point at least 1/2 way into my chosen quarter of the suddenly minuscule parking garage, trying to ignore the two other canopies approaching at the same altitude 90* on my right.

In 1/2 to 3/4 brakes...canopy still bumping and rocking all over from the vortices, I cleared the close wall of the building and seemed to be on an angle to auger in just a bit ahead of where I'd planned to...

The roof top was of course wet and slippery from all the rain, I was maybe 30 feet up and into my flare when I caught sight of another jumper sliding along the concrete in the section to my right...

Into a full flare...the old Excalibur 260 is in slow flight, wavering on a stall...but NOT DROPPING.
The expended pyro "tail" is dragging along...I can hear the chain slapping against the cement...but still I'm floating 10-15 feet up, chewing up precious runway like a Tomcat on a Flat Top!

Less than 50 feet from what WAS the far end of the building...I let go of the toggles
and grab double front risers...

I slammed down hard, the toes of my once polished jump boots being the first
point of contact, and getting destroyed in the process. The second point of contact
was my right shoulder, but only after I'd done a front flip over the deflating
nose dived nylon.

The sound of the metal pyro bracket on my leg grinding into the hard - wet surface
was almost deafening...
I'm on my side sliding, trying to get belly down...

~For Two Reasons...

One, so I can claw with BOTH hands to stop the slide.
And two...
I really don't wanna see the underside of the single iron rail as I slip underneath
and go over the side!

Less than ten feet from the edge...I jerk to a sudden stop.

I get up to my knees and see one of Atlanta's Finest SWAT Team members,
standing there with a handful of Red, White & Blue F-111...
...looking at me in amazement.

He'd grabbed on as I rumbled by!
* Several of them we there to assist with security and our equipment.

"You Okay?" he asked...
My mouth was to dry to answer so I just nodded.

Still kneeling down because I figured I was shaking too much to stand just then,
I'd pulled the Q-R's on the leg brackets throwing them aside and was working
with vibrating hands on the helmet buckle...when this Fire Plug of a Cop, with forearms like Popeye,
pulls me up to my feet.

"NO FUCKING AMOUNT OF MONEY would get me to do THAT!" he said grinning at me.

"NO SHIT"...I answered, "You guys taking applications?!" I asked...


Half an hour later...

The jumpers and the CEO are standing at the bar in the banquet room.

All of us still in our jumpsuits, we walked in together, the CEO leading the way
since apparently to everyone there...he'd been with us on the load!

We touched glasses in a toast, the 'Boss' asking our team leader how long he would need
to practice before being ready to "Really" do a jump like that...?

We all just looked at each other and turned to the bartender...grateful it was an open bar~


..........And closing time was still four hours away!

You gotta write a book. That was great story.

Crap ... after reading this one, I'm thinking about deleting mine!

Getting out of a Lockheed Lodestall at Zhills that had "lost its lift" at 15K

But on the other hand,some night loads I went one with scary,unaware,clueless people were probably the MOST dangerous

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Here's mine. It was in the mid 70's. The California Aerial Circus was jumping into the Treehouse...a nudist colony. We jumped there for the Miss Nude U.S.A. contest. It is located in Devore, CA just next to Glen Helen Regional Park. The pilot was Bob Jones from Perris and Elsinore. I think we had 4 jumpers on that load. We left the airplane on single passes. When it was my turn to go, just Bob and I were in the plane. I climbed out on the ladder, turned to jump and my right leg got caught in the bottom rung of the ladder. I was hanging upside down NUDE. Bob could not help me cuz he was flying the plane. Boy did he get an EYE full! He has a glass eye. I grabbed the ladder and proceeded to do pull ups. Imagine weighing 105 lbs and trying to pull yourself and all your equipment up. Meanwhile the Treehouse was getting further and further away. I was pretty good at accuracy so I didn't care where I landed. I just wanted to get off that plane. Bob was yelling stuff, but I don't know what he was saying. I did pull ups for what seemed an eternity. I was getting really tired too. After about 10 trys I finally turned into SUPER WOMAN, and pulled up just enough to get my leg off the ladder. Freefall never felt so good. I made it to the Treehouse just off the target. I was pretty shook up. I bruised the back of my knee. Big old bruise too. Later that night is when I really got scared. I kept thinking of all the other things that could have happened. What I thought of the most was..WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED HAD I NOT GOT MYSELF OFF THAT LADDER . This is a TRUE story. I'm sure some of the OLD gang remember. Especially BOB...He really got his EYEFULL on that jump.....SANDY*** Confucious say woman who fly upside down have hairy crack-up!!!!...Sorry, I just couldn't resist that one.

Sandy

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Mine was so stupid that I've become aware of it's danger 20 years after the jump itself. It was my first freefall, I had some 17 military (static-line & drogue chute combined jumps with only two jumps in my club before the army). Well, after I've served I continued to fly sailplanes but I wanted to jump, so my friend (a chief instructor in my club) said, hell, no problem. At that time our military pilots had some night dropping excersises and they asked civilian jumper to do the jumping, which of course all of the clubs in the country excepted gladly.
It's been more than two years since my last (static-line) jump and but the problem was those jumps had to freefalls - the planes were AN-26s and the exit speed was 200 mph (I jumped those in the army but only with that static-line/drogue chute combination). I said OK, no problem and there I was in the middle of the night with the T-4 on my back and the Z-5 reserve on my chest (a russian round which was old even 25 years ago). Of course, the night was dark as hell, no full moon or stuff and the landing zone was far out on the plowed fields (don't ask why) disected with those water cannals. There were no ground lights, no nothing. The ramp opened, the jump run begun, a dim red to green lihts fired and there I went, with that warm smell of jet fuel and a mighty whooooooosshhhhhh (you have actually to slow down to terminal after exiting that AN-26). Of course, I've tumbled, didn't see a thing but I felt the wind and the sound changing around me. The altitude was 4 grand so after a 4-5 seconds I pulled and that T-4 smashed me good but I felt extatic with joy. It was pretty windy down there (way above the legal limit for round night jumps) and I hit some rock hard hump of plowed dirt and - of course broke my leg (actually, I find out that it's broken the other day - so full of adrenaline I was, we had to walk over a mile that night but that ment nothing to me).
The whole thing was ilegal big-time and I was aware of that but everything went well. I started to jump again as soon as my bone crack healed and didn't think much of the whole event - but if you ask me now would I let someone to do the same thing I'd be scared shitless, I wouldn't have the guts as my instructor friend had back then. Hvala, stari, srest cemo se opet!

3 way. One guy was pulling at 4500. I forgot. My fault.

Exit went tits up.

At 5000 DIRECTLY above him, saw him wave off, canopy deployed. Shut my eyes and tracked.

On the ground, the guy said he heard a 'swoosh' go by his canopy and felt the canopy shake (obviously me tracking past).

Both thought we were gonna die. Never again.

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turned to the bartender...grateful it was an open bar~


..........And closing time was still four hours away!

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THAT'S the MOST dangerous part!

Skydivers and a FREE booze!

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3 way. One guy was pulling at 4500. I forgot. My fault.

Exit went tits up.

At 5000 DIRECTLY above him, saw him wave off, canopy deployed. Shut my eyes and tracked.

On the ground, the guy said he heard a 'swoosh' go by his canopy and felt the canopy shake (obviously me tracking past).

Both thought we were gonna die. Never again.

I had one jump kinda like that. It was 1996 or 1997 at West Tennessee... It was a 6 way I think. We're turning points, and then all of a sudden the formation funnels at around 5000 feet, and some of us get separated vertically as much as 30 to 40 feet, and there was one girl directly below me. For some reason my eyes fixated on her. She seemed to be grabbing her helmet. Then she reaches back for her PC and for a split second I'm thinking what the fuck? OH SHIT! And immediately tracked ahead just in time before she shot up less than 5 feet behind me! Boy was I MAD when I got on the ground!

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I climbed out on the ladder, turned to jump and my right leg got caught in the bottom rung of the ladder. I was hanging upside down NUDE. Bob could not help me cuz he was flying the plane. Boy did he get an EYE full!

Where's a long-armed pro bowler when you need one?

My 9th static line (ok, I was a rotten student) in 1973. I exit and execute my best dummy ripcord pull yet and.... nothing, I just keep falling. I have 8 previous static line jumps now and I know when the T-10 opens and it hasn't. I throw the dummy ripcord away, reach for and grab the reserve handle on my chest mount (no pilot chute, you just throw it out) and the main opens....

In the plane, my jumpmaster is freaking out as the piece of type-8 webbing with the D-Ring used to connect the static line to in the C-182 had finally worn through and the whole thing had followed me out of the plane!

Since he saw me going for the reserve, he cleared me for my 1st (2nd ?) freefall right then. Z-Hills also amended their static line procedures to hold a byte of the static line and deploy the main without stressing the connection in the plane.

Hi Larry....I know all those you jump with. I fully understand your comment. BE AFRAID...BE VERY AFRAID Sometimes danger is fun. Why else would we keep jumping??? The fear factor and danger keeps us coming back, just to see if we can cheat it again. *** A friend once told me, if you like something, do it till you get enough. Looks like AIR TRASH just can't get enough. That's a good thing .....SANDY