My first jump was 17 March 1973 at Jump West Parachute Center, Star, Idaho from a Cessna-180 using a military surplus 28 foot canopy and a chest mount 24 foot reserve with a Sentinal AAD. My instructor was Mike Winston (D-2813), and the jumpmaster was Wallee Lange. My last jump was on 6 March 2010, with my teammates from Tesseract, and other friends, at Sebastian, FL, from 13,500 feet out of a Twin Otter.
About to land under my Pilot 168 canopy in Raeford, NC. Photo: Marie Rudd. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Conventional Rig, jump#63, Aug '73, Star, ID. Me in conventional gear, 28' surplus 5-TU main, 24' reserve. Photo: Crazy Ed Pancoast | |||
Watermelon dive, jump#69, Sep '73, Star, ID. Me with watermelon, Pete Hill closing, and Herbie Gibson close behind. This was my first Paracommander jump. The rig is borrowed, maybe from Ron Gulley. Photo: Crazy Ed Pancoast | |||
Devil Babies 4-way team. Jump#815, Sep '76, Athol, ID. A promo shot before we went to the World Cup in South Africa. Tail- Emmett Florea, Left wing- Brad Dunkin, Right wing- Randy Houck, Point- Me. Photo: Joel Anderson | |||
| |||
Getting pied after my 1000th jump, 30 April 1978. The load was out of our Twin Beech (D-18) from 9,000 feet. We made a 9-way facing diamond with me point. | |||
Idaho 20-way, Athol, Idaho, September 1978. Jump#1090. | |||
Tesseract 4-way team getting the gold at the 1979 US Nationals. Brad Dunkin, John Culler, Emmett Florea, Ron Urton, and me. Photo: Lynn Florea The competition was out of C-182's and used ground-based video judging. Dirtdiving in Athol, Idaho, June 1978. Photo: Ted Idlof. After the Last round at the 78 Nationals, Richmond, Indiana. Photo: Ted Idlof Jumpsuit used in winning the 1978/79 Nationals 4-way competition. The 1979 Divepool, page 1, page 2, and page 3. | |||
The US team delegation to the World Meet, Chateauroux, France, 1979 Tesseract team photo at the World Meet in 1979. Team photo at the practice site in La Ferte Gauche in France, 1979 | |||
Stealth Canopy, bi-modal airfoil, 160 ft2 made out of really weak fabric, since it was cheap, and I wanted to experiment with more radical canopy design features. I jumped it once, the day Mt. St. Helens blew up. We jumped in Moscow, ID (Actually closer to Pullman, WA). During climb out we could easily see the huge "wrath of god" cloud of ash, highlighted with lightning. The FAA called us on the radio and said "you shouldn't be up there..." so we jumped. I got a nice stand-up landing in a front yard. Serious ash fall started shortly after we landed. | |||
Critical Mass 4-way team in an accordian and a bow. Wayne Page, Scott Weed, Keith Rudd, and me. Photos: Keith Wilbur | |||
Gravity Bomb 10-way team in a Wright Flyer. Photo: Barry Chase. | |||
2000th jump. 11 May '03, St. George, SC. A mystery dive I organized. I'm in red. It was also Keith Rudd's 1000th jump (he's catting me) Others: Wayne Page, Scott Weed, Rich Whitney, Kami Price, Marie Rudd, and Don Lee photo: Dale "Freak" Michaels | |||
42-way at Skydive Carolina in Chester, SC, Halloween 2003. Photo: Terry Hopkins | |||
My friends at the Harvest Moon Boogie, in October 2005. Photo: Cajones | |||
Me under my Pilot 168 canopy in St. George, SC. |
email comments or Send me a web-based email | updated: 3 Nov 2012 - jlw |