Deaf Jumper Record
Jan Meyer
The Silent Freefall group lead by John Woo and Billy Vance set a new all
deaf skydiver record of a 15-way formation over Perris, CA on Sept. 13, 2003
Congrats to all and it was impressive to watch John & Billy in the post
dive.
Those guys are great!
They even did the 'pretend we didn't get it' routine.
Billy said it was hard to keep that grin off his face.
After all the post dive stuff & they saw that they set the record - all
the jumpers on the load had grins that won't go away for awhile.
Craig O'Brien has a sweet picture of the completion.
Congrats to all.
The tandem for Hobert (sp?) will be on Sunday.
Lucky4040
liv to luv
luv ro liv
lucky
>
>
>
>
>
Dan Rossi
> The Silent Freefall group lead by John Woo and Billy Vance set a new all
> deaf skydiver record of a 15-way formation over Perris, CA on Sept. 13, 2003
EXCELLENT!! Didn't realize Saturday was disabled skydiver record day.
Tell the guys I said congrats!
Flare when you hear the crickets.
--
Blue skies.
Dan Rossi
Carnegie Mellon University.
E-Mail: dr...@andrew.cmu.edu
Tel: (412) 268-9081
BVAskydive
5 days later after 5 days worth of jumps trying to keep a bunch of deaf base
misfits together on the exits! No really, they all did a great job all day
Saturday once everyone got themselves dialed in. Two of them had 80 to 100
jumps apiece, and another one had 95% of his 1100 jumps in classic freestyle
and accuracy! The 4th one is tall and lanky with 240+ jumps, so it was no
picnic in the early going. I put them in the base since their weakest skill was
diving after the base. On the very first attempt Saturday morning, we pulled an
ugly exit that rotated around 360 degrees but finally got stable, and all but
one of the divers got in their slots for 8 or 9 seconds! The base got better as
the day went along and a few of the divers had problems going low or docking
funny, but after a suggestion to some of them to change to their freefly suits,
they did better...
After we set the 15 way record, two deaf freeflyers set a world record freefly
2 way with many difficult docks and manuevers.
Next, was the night jump 7 way world record. Well, the base exit was supposed
to be a simple 4 way from the Otter. How hard can that be? It came off fairly
good but then two of us flipped under and we all flailed badly while hanging
onto each other for dear life for a few seconds before we finally righted
ourselves, much to the immense relief of videographer Craig O'Brien... I think
we gave him a pretty good scare! We held the 4 way for a long time before the
three divers finally got in to make it a 7 way round 5 seconds before
breakoff... Phew!
Sunday morning, it was time for Hubert Becher to re-introduce himself to the
blue skies after 23 years away from the sport. Some of the old timers from
Elsinore might remember him. He is the first deaf skydiver in history, having
made his first jump there in 1964. He accumulated about 225 jumps until
retiring in 1980. He made his tandem jump a memorable one for all of us fellow
deaf skydivers as we all were waiting on the LZ for him to land. His wife Judy
also did a tandem on the same load, her first jump of any kind! They are both
in their mid 70's, and the oldest deaf tandem jumpers ever!
On that same load with the deaf tandems, we put together a deaf 4 way that
turned a world record 18 points.
It was truly a memorable weekend, 5 deaf world records in a span of four loads!
Some pictures are already up on our website at www.deafskydivers.org. Open up
the website and you'll see the world record 15 way on the introduction page.
Click on the picture and you'll see a list just under the title of "Highlights
for 2003". There's a link to the 7 way night world record picture. Both
pictures by Craig O'brien.
Blue Skies!
Billy Vance
DWR Co-Organizer and Base Captain
Lucky4040
Way to go Billy and all the others sounds like it waz a great weekend
liv 2 luv
luv 2 liv
lucky SUMMOO #1
ynotssor
news:20030918200709...@mb-m10.aol.com
> Some pictures are already up on our website at www.deafskydivers.org.
> Open up the website and you'll see the world record 15 way on the
> introduction page. Click on the picture and you'll see a list just
> under the title of "Highlights for 2003". There's a link to the 7 way
> night world record picture. Both pictures by Craig O'brien.
Hey Billy, weren't you at one time collecting information about skydivers
world-wide? http://www.deafskydivers.org/StaInfo/FirstJump_1.html looks to
be U.S. only.
tony
--
use hotmail com for any email replies
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----
BVAskydive
>world-wide? http://www.deafskydivers.org/StaInfo/FirstJump_1.html looks to
>be U.S. only.
>
>
> tony
Those are easily verifiable. John Woo takes care of the updates on the website.
We have had a hard time finding other people who have done them around the
world. We know there are a bunch in Australia, but every attempt to find info
on them from their equivalent of USPA has been next to impossible. Also, our
visibility in foriegn countries are very limited due to a lot of censors and
website restrictions imposed on the people in some places. We know there are
people in other countries, but they have either yet to contact us or we have
yet to find them... There is, however two Americans who made tandem jumps in
Australia.
Anybody out there knows a foriegn deaf person who has made a first jump
somewhere outside of the U.S., let me know. I need contact info for those
people.
Blue Skies
Billy