Basejumper.com - archive

On the way back form the Newhamshire Tunnel My grandfather was tell me about his airborn training. One of the stories was when they had to jump static line rounds off a 350 tower made specificly for jumping. Ithought thats amazing then he goes to tell me that the maitence guy used to take the parachute out and lay over the side and jump over it. I was li9ke no shit , also he used to throuhg it above him and fall... By the way it was 1949 sorry if I bored you I tohuight it was very cool to here these stories

Very cool, not boring at all. Thanks

 
This surprises me. It's hard for me to imagion one of the old silk rounds opening in that way from that altitude. Are you sure he wasn't pulling your leg? Wait do I feel a tug?

Lee

nope he wasnt I can promise you that plane jumps from 600 feet with time to kill

Even with a partial or total inversion you could land the thing right?

.... It seemed very plausible to me until you posted....

They're 150' - and we jumped them during Tower Week - AKA week #2. The apex of a Dash 1B is attached to a hook and the fabric is spread out around a big-assed hula hoop to ensure it catches air immediately upon release.

You're winched up into the air to the top and it releases. You glide 150' to a hopefully uneventful PLF.

Unless you're like me - and your right nut gets caught under the legstrap. Then you kinda pray for death for about 20 seconds until you go up, down, and crumple to the ground in pain...while your buddies laugh their asses off.

Ah the famous nut-under malfunction.. sometimes it's nice to be a girl.

no they are 250' and rumor is they have been jumped....

You are correct Sir...Typo.

And they've been BASEd many times. Allegedly.

Some AF Comedy Central (combat controllers) painted their green feet up there and hucked it waaaay back when - 1991. The black hats made a big deal out of it. One of those Benning urban legends.

Well, I've seen photos of several jumps where the jumpers just laid the canopy out and beside them and jumped off, notably Roderick Law from the torch of the Statue of Liberty in 1912, with a cotton canopy (I believe 16 ft diameter, supposedly landed a little rough); and and John Tranum from a sub-200 California bridge in the 1920/30's. Can't see why a silk canopy wouldn't react better.

In 1908 Bobby Leach, a Niagra Falls daredevil jumped from the Steel Arch Bridge (180ft or so) with a parachute.

Yeah. I've written articles about that that appeared in Skydiving magazine and also in Canada's magazine Canpara.

But Bobby Leach essentially static-lined from a pole extending up from the launch, from which the parachute was suspended unpacked. He sat under the unpacked but uninflated canopy and pulled a rope that cut the attachment cord. This is similar to the jumps that were done from London's Tower Bridge in 1917 to demonstrate the Guardian Angel. Again, they were static-lined.

Tranum and Law just laid the parachutes out beside them with no breakcord or attachments to the objects, and jumped.

Thanks for the info. I first learned of it at the Niagra Falls Museum years ago. He also did a jump from a plane over the rapids, but landed onshore and got booed according to lore.
Still a pretty big set of balls for 1908!
pm or e-mail the Skydiving Mag. info if you still have it.
Thanks!