From: bdaniels@ssf-sys.DHL.COM (Ben Daniels)
Subject: I'm not sure
Organization: DHL Systems, Inc.
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 00:44:46 GMT

Daniel Briggs  (dbriggs@nrao.edu) says

>With all this talk about landing big ways, does anyone else find it amusing
>that we are sort of moving the opposite direction towards the first
>deliberate non suicidal skydiver landing sans canopy?  Namely, I'm
>referring to the talk going around that a skyboarder with a big suit could
>land it on a speed skier slope.  It really, truly, is about the same speed
>and angle.  Just like the lambda point for a ski jumper, if you hit the
>sweet spot and match velocities correctly, it won't be much of a jolt.  Not
>that there's a lot of margin for error, though.  Unlike the 172 way,
>there's no extrapolation involved.  Of course, while I think that it
>actually could be done, it's a damned crazy stunt, and we may have to wait
>a good long while before anyone trys it.
>

God! Are they really talking about this? Yes, of course. It is obvious
now that you mention it. My heart jumped in my throat and my mouth got
dry as I read this and felt myself standing in the door of a DC3
looking out at blue sky and down at snow covered mountains, hands
on the sides of the door, face in the wind, one last correction...

There seems to be a fascination about doing what we do without using
a chute. It does seem kind of like cheating, doesn't it? I mean why
can't we just ... ? I know when I was a kid (was? did he say "was?")
I used to play being weightless out in space, and whenever I went
swimming I spent the whole day either jumping off the 24 ft diving
board or else swimming underwater being 3 dimensional.

Flying is one of the oldest human dreams and we're the first people
in history who are actually doing it. I was approached once about
going for a big airbag like the stunt people use. Gulp.
(Are you sure you could hit it? Yes, of course. From high altitude
with lots of uppers? Of course. Are you sure? Absolutely. Well then
would you do it?) I never had to answer that because it never came
through.

Would I do it now? No. I'm in a different phase of life. It is nice
to know the answer and be comfortable with it. Would I have done it
then? Maybe. Perhaps. Probably. Yes. Maybe. I don't know. I was
different then.

It would be a hell of a stunt though. Not too difficult technically
but a hell of a stunt. That's what I thought about Rod Pack's jump.

I believe it was 1965. He made a few practice jumps chasing Bob Allen
who was carrying a regular chest mounted reserve. They would pass the
reserve, he would put it on and then open his main. (He was wearing
a B4 harness and container.)

Then he put on some scuba diving weights to make up for the missing main,
went up to 14 something wearing just the harness, went out, passed the
reserve, put it on, opened it and landed.

Not so difficult technically but what a stunt. It certainly blew my
mind. There were two cameras on the load - Bob Buquor and Richard
Economy. I believe they each had an extra strap with a (reserve type)
hook added to their harnesses so that if the reserve got dropped or
something (erk!) Rod could hook to one of them.

The movies just looked like a couple guys doing relative work except
that one of them didn't have a chute on. eeeeeeeeeeeee. They passed
the reserve fairly soon and he had put it on well above 10 grand as
I remember. A few thousand feet went by and he started sitting up and
doing some practice pulls (he'd probably never used a reserve
before - HA!) and it wasn't tied down or anything. Then a flash of
white and he was open.

(to be continued)


Skratch

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