Nice one, Hank... I was just about to post the same vid. I like how Mikey tried to come in and help, realized it wasn't going to happen and bailed. I'm sure Bill fired the tandem master after that one.
We recently had some WWII bombers come through town. I pulled my son from school to check them out. He is too young to understand the horror of it all, but I wanted him to see these planes.
Credit: ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
I've always thought that being a ball turret gunner would have been especially terrifying. Imagine being 18 years old, probably never having been in an airplane before and being made to crawl inside this and having fighters swooping up at you? These gunners apparently had the worst rates of survival among bomber crews.
Credit: ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
This is looking forward to where the bombadier and nose gunner sat.
Credit: ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Maning the top turret.
Credit: ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Waist gunner
Credit: ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Credit: ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
It was really cool crawling through these planes. It was kind of intense seeing vets checking them out. I'm guessing some had not been in a B-17 or a B-24 since WWII!
Once my son got impatient working our way through a plane because this super old guy was touching everything and was having a hard time with the small spaces- obviously the guy had flown bombing missions. My son is 7 so doesn't get it all, but I told him to shut his mouth and be respectful.
Interesting and more intense morning than I anticipated.
this morning's arriving traffic at the International Space Station
i participated in the early planning meetings for this mission, briefing them on how to interface with ISS communication and control systems, briefed them on my SimStation Project and how to interact with Houston Mission Control, acted as a technical reviewer for all their planning documents submitted to NASA, acted as adviser on parachute recovery operations, and was a NASA observer for the first test firing of their operational configuration of nine Merlin main engines
Dragon Capture
Credit: TomCochrane
Credit: TomCochrane
Credit: TomCochrane
Credit: TomCochrane
meanwhile back in the NASA barn, we spent five years of our lives designing the Orion and Ares launch vehicle, and this is where it is right now:
Orion in the Vertical Assembly Building (with no more Saturns or Shuttles to clutter up the place)
Considering how much $$$ and effort was expended on the Ares I and Ares V, the abandonment of what was becoming a successful flight test program was utterly supid. Of course the present administration would rather spend the NASA budget on more failed "social engineering" programs. I'm a supporter of Dr. Robert Zubrin's "Mars Direct" concept, by the way.
Skip the Moon, and go straight for the Gusto: MARS!
It's been a very slow Saturday morning here in Wyoming; totally foggy and rainy! No climbing, no flying, but the internet surfing is great. I just went back through all this thread and enjoyed everything. A few comments:
Jack Herer-I just noticed that you fly out of CVO, Corvallis. I began my flight training at S12, Albany, 5 years ago. I've visited Corvallis umpteen times in a C-152, N25899. I've visited a fair number of airports in NW Oregon myself: McMinnville, Tillamook, Independence, Salem, Lebanon, Hillsboro, and Cottage Grove.
Tom-I particularly loved the U-2 footage and the 70,000 feet! I've been to 51,000 feet onboard a C-135 back in 1964, and the curvature of the Earth is distinctly visible from that altitude, as well.
did something come undone when they were fighting to get out the door?
No, nothing came undone. She was curled in a ball when the instructor exited, forcing her leg loops to slide down towards her knees. They could have been a bit loose but this wouldn't have happened if she wasn't fighting, sitting down and curled up like that. The tandem instructor shouldn't have exited the plane, he should have gone back to the seats and let others go and try to calm her down. If that didn't work they should have gone down with the plane.
I'm not a tandem instructor but have seen ten's of thousands gearing up, exiting, landing, etc. This is just my observations.
I agree Ammon. You can even see in the video the orange warning sticker on the passenger that should be tight to the TM chest. It almost looks like she's also coming out of the top of the harness.
Of the 3 DZ's I've jumped at this vid was a shocker. Not one of the TM's at each DZ would have exited the plane with her fighting that much.
Hope to see ya soon.
p.s.
I wonder if she was even conscious during FF? People do pass-out and if she was that scared, her sympathetic system in overdrive just shutting her down.
Pretty crazy stuff. maybe the instructor was ex military jumpmaster and not used to dealing with the civilin type situation where a boot in the arse is not always the best solution?
I haven't tandem skydived. I did static line to free-fall progression.
But I can't help but think that once a paying (or non-paying) passenger has second thoughts sitting in the door about taking "The Long Lonely Leap," isn't an instructor obligated to stop and back-up? How can he just fight over this decision and jump anyway? Seems unethical and morally wrong.
Also seems the tandem harness needs to be redesigned so no passenger can back-out of a harness or wiggle out no matter what they do.
My buckle-less "Thin Redline" paragliding harness is very difficult to get into, and when you have everything secured properly, I'm not coming out in any direction. In case of a water landing I will have to cut my way out with a cutaway knife.
Man that was a scary video to watch. I thought she was going to plummet sans harness, instructor, and parachute. Yikes!!!
going back down with the plane can be WORSE! I did that on an "observer" ride,,,once..The crazy cowboy we had as a pilot,(Pat Weatherman) would race the last one out to the ground, and often won. I have noooo idea how tha ol 180 tail dragger held together under the Gs he put her through.
Yeah Ron, I know what you mean. They sent a whole load down once at the Couch Freaks Boogie a few years back because of too many clouds. I was GRIPPED! Thought we were going to crash.
Usually, on an observer ride they dive the plane for about 10k' because they make more money the faster they can pick up more jumpers. Pretty thrilling but quite scary if you don't know it's coming, ha haa.
I love Bill's comment on the Yahoo report: "This happened a long time ago and everything worked as advertised," said Parachute Center owner Bill Dause in a statement to ABC News. "No one got hurt or injured."
Too funny! No wonder he's been in a bad mood lately.
Definitely, but then so are climbing, motorcycle riding, skydiving, adventurous chicks in general. My lady's cousin flew either F-14s or f-16s. The pictures are pretty cool.
I could never fly and especially couldn't pilot high performance jets with my motion sickness propensity.
As for grandma, she survived and wasn't even that butthurt about it.
But of course all of the comments on the video say to sue.
The instructor probably didn't tighten the harness too much because
she was not some hot chick he wanted to grind against I'm thinking.
Any tandem instructors want to comment on that?
Hank, they can't pull the plug on the video. It's gone viral, so there are
way too many copies out there now.
El Cap, you're the late one. I edited it out already! ;-) I thought there would be more discussion about it, so didn't look above this page at first.
I saw a vid of her interview on CNN. She's all happy and looking forward to
doing something else on her bucket list like riding in a race car. Hope she
didn't mean a NASCAR car. Aint got no passenger seat in them things.
Let us know!