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Brian Schubert was the closest friend I ever had. We worked together, jumped together and partied together when we were young way back in the sixties. He was the best man at my wedding 39 years ago and my wife and I named our son after him.

For those among you who didn't know him, Brian was a card-carrying people person, full of life, love and generosity to a fault. We who were close to him will miss him terribly. His many friends, children and grandchildren will be devastated by his absence in their lives.

Goodbye old buddy. We love you.



.

This puts it all into perspective....

I am sorry for your loss...

Thoughts to all...

I'm so sorry Mike. My heart sank up on that bridge on saturday. I only met Brian briefly last year but, he seemed like a wonderful person. My heart goes out to you and all of his family.

Mike,

I am very sorry you lost your best friend.

I am so sorry for your loss...My heart goes out to you and everybody that is suffering from his loss.

Mike,

I am so very sorry for you and everyone else that knew and loved Brian.

My deepest condolences.

Murray

Mike,

I hope you can sit on a quiet evening under the stars, look up, and say "Man, I can't believe some of the shit we did." And smile. Nothing will ever take THAT away from you.

God bless brother.

i would like to thank the both of you. For the pioneers that you are. I can not begin to tell you the amount of respect I have for you, and Brian.

Thank you,
Maggot

<<Mike,

I hope you can sit on a quiet evening under the stars, look up, and say "Man, I can't believe some of the shit we did." And smile. Nothing will ever take THAT away from you.

God bless brother.
>>
Thanks Chris,

I guess I have done exactly that a few times over the past 40 years and you are absolutely right. We did get away with a lot of shit.

Brian's family has assured me that he was never happier than he has been over the past few years since we reunited and that he was very excited about jumping together at Bridge Day in celebration of our El Cap jump.

What happened to him should never have happened to anyone who could count to three. I will never understand.

-Mike

Mike, it was good seeing you again at Bridge Day this year. We are all saddened by the loss of Brian.

It was an honor and a privledge getting to know you both this year and last; know that you and Brian forever changed how I choose to live my life by your leaps of faith in 1966...

Godspeed to Brian and best wishes to you Mike.

your friend always "Dork". (not a typo, inside joke between Mike and I)

my deepest condolences.
thank you for what you two did.

 

With your permission Mike . . . .

NickD
BASE 194

"The idea was neither mine nor Brian's. It was suggested to me by another skydiver I worked with at the time. I mentioned it to Brian, asking him if he would like to do something no one has ever done before. He was all for it. We spent the next month or so studying every scrap of information we could find on the El Capitan before we made the trip to Yosemite to make the jump. We were both Class C licenseholders at the time. I don't know if the USPA categorizes it the same, but when it was called the PCA, a C license was Jumpmaster status. The El Capitan was my 184th logged jump.

After the jump the PCA and the FAA grounded us from jumping for a full year. They sent letters around to all the area drop zones instructing them to notify them and the local sheriff's office if we ever showed up and requested to make a jump. Fortunately we had a friend whose only request was that we set up new log books with phoney names and we were welcome to jump at his DZ any time.

The newspapers made it sound like we were beaten half to death in the jump. I did have one small unfortunate mishap after I opened when I made a wrong turn to counter some erratic side winds, slammed into the face and fractured an ankle in the process. Brian landed in a downdraft and injured both of his feet. I think we were both jumping again a month later.

The freefall was incredible as you base jumpers all know. We had about a 10-12 second delay out of it. We used good old-fashioned military parachutes modified in a TU configuration. Obviously nothing like the squares you guys are jumping these days. We had the choice of a nice freefall and landing in the rocks below or a short freefall and enough float to get over the trees into the meadow. We both opted in favor of the rush of freefalling 20 feet away from mother earth.

I hope I've given you all the details you were looking for. You can email me any time at mike@destiny.com if you have any questions. Otherwise, I'll be checking into these forums now and then. It is interesting to find after all these years that I have been credited to have been a part of the history of base jumping and never noticed until Brian's daughter Tina started investigating.

Regards,
Mike Pelkey"