FW: chuteless jump (fwd from Greg Gasson)
Photo Dude
Forward from Greg Gasson in response to the "who's that Girl" post...
Brent
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This is something I wrote a few years ago for Parachutist and Jason
Bell used it as a basis for his article on my "chuteless" jump. I
think it appeared in the April 94 issue of Parachutist. Joe Jennings
reshot the stunt on 35mm film to be used in his upcoming video called
"Good Stuff".
The Madness to the Method
Strangely enough it did not seem unusual the first time I jumped
out of a plane without a parachute on my back. You probably think
that I am psychotic, but I will try to convince you otherwise.
In October of 1991 I met Mike McGowan who had just moved to my home
DZ, Skydive Arizona. I had a video of myself hanging upside down
from the legstraps of my rig by my feet. Mike liked it enough that
he wanted to get some footage of it for his video "On the Fun Side".
After he finished up the video he asked me to start thinking of
something for his next project. My original idea was to jump out of
the plane without wearing the rig on my back and then put it on in
freefall. So I called up the FAA and asked them if I need any
paperwork to build an experimental harness. They told me as long
as I was a master rigger and was the only one jumping the gear that
I didn't need any. The next few months I kept running through the
stunt in my mind and it just seemed to be lacking something. Then
I was going over it again and thought of a twist to the stunt that
would really raise some eyebrows. What if I did not put the rig on
at all but instead deployed the main while holding onto the rig.
Now that I had an image of what I wanted the stunt to be I had to
figure out how to do it safely.
The first thing I needed to do was to design a harness that could
be concealed under my jumpsuit. I went over to Bob Sprague's and
he and I spent about an hour discussing various types of harnesses
and what we came up with was very similar to a climber's seat
harness with extensions that could be run up through the sleeves
of my jumpsuit. The harness was built out of type 7 webbing. At
the end of the extensions I put a large 3-ring. The 3-ring attached
to both of the B-12 snaps on my rig which made an even load bearing
point for attachment. I did not want to attach it to just one side
since it would probably cause a turn after deployment. Since I was
attached to the B-12's I needed to be able to cut away and deploy
my reserve. I made some modifications to the rig to do this.
The best way to keep the rig stable in freefall would be similar
to an AFF dive with the rig as the "student". For the first attempt
I wore another rig so that we could get an idea of how the jump
would go. My partner in crime was front float, the rig was center
and I was was rear float. The exit went well and the rig was very
stable in freefall. At 7000 ft I reached for the pullout and deployed
the main. The opening was fine and the rest of the jump went without
a hitch.
Now it was time to do it for real. I felt like a first jump student
all over again. I got some very strange looks from out-of-town
skydivers on the ride to altitude who didn't know what we were doing.
Ready, Set, Go!!! We exited without a problem, leveled out and
geeked the camera. My fall rate was a bit slower without the weight
of the rig on my back. At 7000 ft I deployed. The opening was nice
and soft. I kicked my legs up and put them through the legstraps
up to my knees. Since the harness is attached to the B-12's and
runs under my jumpsuit I had to take off the left side of my jumpsuit
so that my left arm was free. When I got my arm free I reached up
with both hands and grabbed the harness under the cutaway and reserve
handles. I pulled myself up so that my legs were all the way through
the legstraps but my body was still outside the container. I
unthreaded the lateral adjustment on the right side of my rig so
that I could lift the back of the rig open and squirm into the
rest of the harness. Not too bad for the the first try.
On the second jump the right brake line unstowed on deployment so
the canopy was spinning to the left. No problem. Since I'm not in
the harness it is easier to hang all of my weight on one side in
order to slow the spin down. Then I just unstowed the left brake
and all was well. We made several more jumps without any problems.
I met Derek Thomas from Sun Path at the 1993 World Meet in Eloy and he
was very interested in the stunt I was doing with Mike. I asked him
if he could help build a rig with better modifications than the one
I had built. So we sat down one afternoon and I showed him what I
had done to my rig and asked him for his suggestions. He came up
with a much cleaner method of cutting away and deploying the reserve
than I had designed. It's great when you can talk to the owner of the
company directly. I also met John LeBlanc from PD who was kind enough
to let me borrow some canopies for the stunt.
In order to get footage of me climbing back into the rig I jumped
by myself with the rig on, then climbed out of the harness container
and then back in again. On the first jump with the new Javelin I did
not loosen the legstraps enough. When it came time to climb back in I
could not get my feet through the legstraps. The previous jumps I
was barefoot to make this part easier but it was to cold to jump
without shoes. I landed outside of my container hanging from the
legstraps. Fortunately I was prepared for such fun. I was using
a PD-235 7-cell. I landed in full flight with no flare and did a
PLF. Now this was a great jump to add this to my NSTIW (no shit
there I was) stories. We made seven jumps where I climbed out then
back in again. We made thirteen jumps where I exited without the
rig on my back. On two of the jumps I had such soft, slow openings
that I am convinced that I could have hung on without using a harness.
So for this particular stunt I was out of my harness twenty times.
On the stunt for the "On the Fun Side" video I climbed out of the
harness ten times. I've got about thirty jumps now with my body
completely outside the harness container.
Don't worry the next stunt will be better than this one.
Blue Skies
2
G
WMALAWIV
Geez, and I thought I was nuts. To pull this off youv've got to be good
and crazy,both.
Wild Bill C-27352
Phil Captain 3D McNally
In article <Pine.SUN.3.95.970618185537.6190A-100000@sade>,
Photo Dude <bfi...@sade.eco.utexas.edu> wrote:
>Don't worry the next stunt will be better than this one.
:-0
Gregg Ariss
Phil Captain 3D McNally wrote:
>
> In article <Pine.SUN.3.95.970618185537.6190A-100000@sade>,
> Photo Dude <bfi...@sade.eco.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
>
Yeah, how about a chuteless jump with free-fall kangaroo boxing into a
large pile of marshmallows. No, wait! Not dangerous enough. That would
be boring. Remember to put a ferret down your trousers too. At least
it'll put a smile on your face for the camera.
--
Gregg.
The NoT NoRMaL! Skydive Team can be found at....
http://www.tec.puv.fi/~s97116