YOUR single most dangerous jump.

mjosparky

***Well... In my case I hope it was actaully the last one. Tried a Lightning, didn't dare hold the fronts low enough, got no flare out of it, was an idiot, broke my wrist. Yeah, yeah. Shit happens.

I've heard several people say that.

I remember watching a British CRW team train at Perris years ago. They would fly in and land a 4-stack with the team leader calling the flair from the top slot.

Every single time they would come in: [smack] [smack] [smack] [perfect landing]. Got to be that everyone would stop to watch whenever they were coming in.

A few years ago, I was at a boogie, we were doing a 36 way formation load, I was in the lead plane, a sky-van. My exit position was on the starboard corner of the ramp/tailgate. My position in the formation was just outside the base. On ready, set, go, the guy next to me launches sideways, instead of backwards, slamming me into the side of the plane. I brushed that off and flew to my slot. Little did I know the impact had popped the pin on my main. Fine fitting rig that it was, there was no indication anything was wrong. I flew the entire dive with an open main container. We broke at five grand, I tracked away and had a normal deployment, though the container felt a bit mushy when I pulled. There was a guy with a camera helmet docked on my leg. The L.O. asked him if he had seen who had the open container, since the dedicated video guys had all seen it, but didn't know who it was. The guy on my leg said no, but he would check his video. As Gomer Pyle would say, surprise, surprise, surprise.

It was a long winter and someone had the brainstorm to make a jump in January.Would have been 1977. The only plane we could come up with was a Cherokee six. We all discussed the concept that if it was colder than minus 30 we would call it off. We lined up snowmobiles in case of a off field landing and a couple of 4x4 trucks.

After alot of BS Saturday comes around and its minus 35. But after all the headaches of organizing everything we decided to go. Whats an extra five degrees? The dz is about forty miles from the takeoff airport because the regular runway is snowed in for the winter.

Somebody's friend is up in the co-pilots seat for his first airplane ride ever. About a half way there he gets airsick so pukes out the door. Subsequent to getting back to the airport we had to put the airplane in a heated hanger to thaw and clean off little bits of carrots and peas which had frozen down the side of the plane.

So at those temperatures there is no playing around about clothes. I had on about everything I owned and every square inch of flesh was covered. I'm trying to spot the load out of a partially open aft port door, about 7500'. But my goggles keep fogging up. Finally we decide that our goggles would all clear up in freefall and after a quick four way we would try to all land in a group together.

So out I go and after a bit I can sort of see out of a corner of my goggles. Never saw another jumper the whole jump and after opening realized It would take everything I had to get to a vehicle as the whole intended landing area was snowed in. All the vehicles were next to the highway a 1/2 mile further downwind.

So downwind I go urging the paracommander to go as fast as it could. Gradually loosing all feeling in my hands and feet. My goggles are alternating becoming clearer and fogging up again. I did a quick turn into the wind, land and my canopy starts pulling me under the power lines right next to the highway.

I run like hell through the knee deep snow to collapse the canopy. Then zoom ,zoom two cars go by on the highway about forty feet away. While I try to wrap the canopy up.

Everybody came out of the affair OK but it took almost fifty minutes to retrieve the last guy. We all decided never to waste our time doing anything like that again and no one would admit to coming up with the idea in the first place.

Years ago......Steve Fielding was organizing the night record attempts and we were trying to get a 16 man, it finally got together and I looked across at Bud Kruger and he waved his arms up and down which was the signal; to track away and dump, I turned around and tracked for a bit and looked down and thought "shit we're over the Ortegas"  but it was ground rush, I had one hard pull, I was using a borrowed rig, and grabbed the Rip Cord with both hands and had a normal opening.  I had maybe 5/10 seconds before landing and there were 3 or 4 others just a bit higher.  Allen told me "Larry, don't you tell anyone how low we were"

I’ve had a few “dangerous jumps”, most from self inflicted stupidity. But this one is weather related. Herd Boogie mid-late 70’s. Sky Van jump, weather was bad most of the day, solid low thick clouds and windy, occasional holes and some low jumps. Then a long hold for about 6 hours.

A very large break in the clouds was coming our way, so everyone is looking to jump. The manifest hustles a few loads and 1 plane takes off. Our group figures a 20-way makes sense and now it’s our turn. As we’re climbing, the clouds roll in FAST, we’re in dark solid clouds at around 7K, we decide to split into 2 10-ways. The 1st group huddles near the door and literally disappears into the clouds, we can’t see the ground and decide to wait. The pilot has been descending and now we’re below 5k after a brisk go-around but still in clouds, we split into 2 5-ways and our group exits. We are immediately engulfed in dense clouds and never see each other till we break out under 3.

 To our surprise we’re right over the middle of the airport, YEAH BABY! I know it’s windy so I pull low, (for safety of course), around 1300’ w/ a Strato-Star. Canopy opens nice and I do a turn to check ground speed. I’m backing up & ascending, I go up to about 1500’, backing up as fast as I’ve ever gone downwind. I watch the airport quickly fade away & start looking for alternates. I now see my jump buddy’s doing 360’s looking for places to land, except for Al Jacobs jumping a Starlite,(round PC like canopy). He’s just backing up and goes by underneath me. We are fortunate that it is open country w/ lots of farm land. I turn downwind to look for a field and there’s a big one waaayy ahead of me and on my wind line too. I know this is my spot, I’ve now descended below opening altitude w/ some hard 360’s and “running” towards the field. I’m watching smaller fields on either side of me whizz by and I’m overtaking cars on the highway below me, I see Al in his Starlite going almost as fast. 

The field is huge and looks level, I figure this is cake! I’ll do a Qtr turn, crab into the field and then a deep, smooth 270 for landing. I’m now under 500’, start my crab before the upwind fence line and lose some more altitude. Thinking; this field is long I can’t miss it, there’s high trees and fences at the back end and I don’t want to mess w/ those. I snap a couple hard 360’s, losing more altitude and about half the field and now I’m low & going backwards really fast, plan A is scrubbed. I see Al off the field in the trees, I cheat a tiny turn to see what’s behind me and It’s fences and trees. I use the ol’ accuracy trick, deep brakes and full release. My canopy dives into ground slams me down face first, (despite a good PLF), then re-inflates goes back over my head and starts to drag me, twisting and bouncing me over 200’ into the fences,(split rail). The canopy starts to look like it’s gonna take-off but now I can at least cutaway. I’m beat-up but no serious injuries. My jump buddy's landed in the trees about another 1/4 mile downwind of me. We landed 5 miles away from the airport after we opened LOW, right over the top. The other load that took off just before got to 5K and aborted, landing at another airfield. The 10-way managed to land on the DZ/airport in high winds, most got dragged but had ground help and all OK. The 5-way behind us never jumped and the SkyVan had to land at the alternate airport. The winds had gone from 25 knots to 50+ when we exited / opened. No one got seriously injured but we all got beat-up pretty good and had repairs to do on our gear. Big Al finally bought a square :)