Jon Anderson wrote:
On 4/15/2011 2:32 PM, Larry Jaques wrote:

Water skiing (self-stopping) vs hurtling 90+mph down a hill of
ice/snow with no brakes? Me, too.

Self stopping? LOL! I was a self taught downhill skier, took me a lot of
mental effort to overcome my instinct to lean back.

One summer some friends took me water skiing for the first time. Didn't
get much instruction on what to do once up as they didn't expect me to
master that right off. But I popped right up first time.
I'm sorta leaning forward a bit, and thinking "something's not right
here..." as the line goes slack. An instant later, I'm looking at the
bottom of the lake in detail. Dazed, I roll over and look at the skis
floating above me, with the surface well above them. About then it hits
me I'm sorta in trouble. Was close enough to the bottom to push off, and
combined with my life vest, I just broke surface as the urge to breath
won out. Don't know how long I was under, but it was long enough to
scare the crap out of my friends.

When I first went water-skiing, they told me two things: Let the boat do
the pulling, and if^H^Hwhen you fall, let go of the rope! ;-)

Cheers!
Rich

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 12:18:51 -0700, "Steve B"
wrote:


"Jon Anderson" wrote in message
...
On 4/14/2011 6:56 PM, Pete C. wrote:

Tandem here, from 14,000'. Definitely spectacular and I doubt there is
much of anything else like it. Certainly something to be sure to try at
least once in your life.

Read once that only 2% of those that try skydiving ever make more than
the
first jump. Thought if ever I was going to try it, I'd do 2 jumps just
so
I could say I was in that 2%.
But given my fear of heights.... lol


Jon

The first jump is total fear and adrenaline. The next few have declining
fear and adrenaline. Once you get off static line (if you make that many
jumps), the real experience is experienced for the first time. Or at
least
that was my experience. I have 44 sport jumps. Back in the sixties with
POS military surplus chutes. Never had a soft or stand up landing.

Steve

Heart surgery pending?
www.cabgbypasssurgery.com
Heart Surgery Survival Guide

12 for me.

Airborne!!

I live about a mile from a fairly popular skydiving club at the local
small airport and see 15-20 people hanging air all at one time
regularly.

They have some sort of big twin for a jump plane.

Ive thought about going back 35+ yrs later and jumping
again...but..after two back surgeries, 2 healed broken legs/knees..etc
etc etc...it might be fun..but the landing would likely be a bitch for
days afterwards

Gunner

The twin Beech's were popular for large numbers of jumpers. But I am like
you, I just don't want to press the envelope any more. I did it. It was
fun. I've done a lot of things the average man has not. I have those
mental pictures, and the pride of having done them. That's good.

Steve

Heart surgery pending?
www.cabgbypasssurgery.com
Heart Surgery Survival Guide

In article ,
"Steve B" wrote:

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 12:18:51 -0700, "Steve B"
wrote:


"Jon Anderson" wrote in message
...
On 4/14/2011 6:56 PM, Pete C. wrote:

Tandem here, from 14,000'. Definitely spectacular and I doubt there is
much of anything else like it. Certainly something to be sure to try at
least once in your life.

Read once that only 2% of those that try skydiving ever make more than
the
first jump. Thought if ever I was going to try it, I'd do 2 jumps just
so
I could say I was in that 2%.
But given my fear of heights.... lol


Jon

The first jump is total fear and adrenaline. The next few have declining
fear and adrenaline. Once you get off static line (if you make that many
jumps), the real experience is experienced for the first time. Or at
least
that was my experience. I have 44 sport jumps. Back in the sixties with
POS military surplus chutes. Never had a soft or stand up landing.

Steve

Heart surgery pending?
www.cabgbypasssurgery.com
Heart Surgery Survival Guide

12 for me.

Airborne!!

I live about a mile from a fairly popular skydiving club at the local
small airport and see 15-20 people hanging air all at one time
regularly.

They have some sort of big twin for a jump plane.

Ive thought about going back 35+ yrs later and jumping
again...but..after two back surgeries, 2 healed broken legs/knees..etc
etc etc...it might be fun..but the landing would likely be a bitch for
days afterwards

Gunner

The twin Beech's were popular for large numbers of jumpers. But I am like
you, I just don't want to press the envelope any more. I did it. It was
fun. I've done a lot of things the average man has not. I have those
mental pictures, and the pride of having done them. That's good.

Steve

Heart surgery pending?
www.cabgbypasssurgery.com
Heart Surgery Survival Guide



Larger sport jump operations now mostly use Twin Otters and Sky Van's...
with a handful of King Air's, Cessna Caravan's & Turbo Porters scattered
around for good measure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Otter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyvan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Air

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_Caravan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilatus_PC-6

Some Pacific Aerospace PAC 750XL's are also starting to appear... these
were developed with jumping as one of it's prime missions. (I've heard
these things can rocket 4 full loads round trip to 12,500 feet and back
in just over an hour).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAC_750XL

There are some others as well, but not many utilizing radials anymore.
They're to expensive, slow and finicky.

Smaller operations still use mostly Cessna piston pounders.

Erik

Larry Jaques wrote:

Fast driving and fast women are more my speed. I vaguely remember
the latter...


From watching their tail lights as they left you in the dust? ;-)


--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a Band-Aid™ on it, because it's
Teflon coated.

On Sat, 16 Apr 2011 12:11:34 -0700, Erik wrote:

In article ,
"Steve B" wrote:

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 12:18:51 -0700, "Steve B"
wrote:


"Jon Anderson" wrote in message
...
On 4/14/2011 6:56 PM, Pete C. wrote:

Tandem here, from 14,000'. Definitely spectacular and I doubt there is
much of anything else like it. Certainly something to be sure to try at
least once in your life.

Read once that only 2% of those that try skydiving ever make more than
the
first jump. Thought if ever I was going to try it, I'd do 2 jumps just
so
I could say I was in that 2%.
But given my fear of heights.... lol


Jon

The first jump is total fear and adrenaline. The next few have declining
fear and adrenaline. Once you get off static line (if you make that many
jumps), the real experience is experienced for the first time. Or at
least
that was my experience. I have 44 sport jumps. Back in the sixties with
POS military surplus chutes. Never had a soft or stand up landing.

Steve

Heart surgery pending?
www.cabgbypasssurgery.com
Heart Surgery Survival Guide

12 for me.

Airborne!!

I live about a mile from a fairly popular skydiving club at the local
small airport and see 15-20 people hanging air all at one time
regularly.

They have some sort of big twin for a jump plane.

Ive thought about going back 35+ yrs later and jumping
again...but..after two back surgeries, 2 healed broken legs/knees..etc
etc etc...it might be fun..but the landing would likely be a bitch for
days afterwards

Gunner

The twin Beech's were popular for large numbers of jumpers. But I am like
you, I just don't want to press the envelope any more. I did it. It was
fun. I've done a lot of things the average man has not. I have those
mental pictures, and the pride of having done them. That's good.

Steve

Heart surgery pending?
www.cabgbypasssurgery.com
Heart Surgery Survival Guide



Larger sport jump operations now mostly use Twin Otters and Sky Van's...
with a handful of King Air's, Cessna Caravan's & Turbo Porters scattered
around for good measure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Otter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyvan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Air

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_Caravan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilatus_PC-6

Some Pacific Aerospace PAC 750XL's are also starting to appear... these
were developed with jumping as one of it's prime missions. (I've heard
these things can rocket 4 full loads round trip to 12,500 feet and back
in just over an hour).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAC_750XL

There are some others as well, but not many utilizing radials anymore.
They're to expensive, slow and finicky.

Smaller operations still use mostly Cessna piston pounders.

Erik

http://www.skydivetaft.com/

http://www.yelp.com/biz/skydive-taft-taft

Gunner

--
"If I say two plus two is four and a Democrat says two plus two is eight,
it's not a partial victory for me when we agree that two plus two is
six. " Jonah Goldberg (modified)

Erik wrote:


Some Pacific Aerospace PAC 750XL's are also starting to appear... these
were developed with jumping as one of it's prime missions. (I've heard
these things can rocket 4 full loads round trip to 12,500 feet and back
in just over an hour).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAC_750XL

The PAC's are really really awesome planes.

We have two at my airport. They can make
a midfield landing or takeoff, get up to
12-14 thousand feet, lose the jumpers and
get down on the ground before they do.

It's brutal on the pilots, going from 100
deg F on the ground to 40 deg f and back
that many times a day, along with the noise
stress and G forces.