Finally got my bro to come out and do a tandem the other day. It was snowing through the grapevine on our way to Taft, but luckily it cleared up enough to jump. So f*#king cold!
We used to run a low-level flight in the desert of Oman, called Star Wars Canyon.
Here is a low-level flight in the same bird I used to fly. The route is the VR-1355, takes you right over Glacier Peak. The fastest I ever flew the VR-1355 was 550 knots (632 m.p.h).
NORTH BEND, Wash. (AP) — A more focused search for a skydiver who vanished during a jump above Washington's Cascade foothills failed to locate the Florida man as darkness fell Saturday.
About 145 searchers combed the Mount Si area east of Seattle for 29-year-old Kurt Ruppert, who disappeared Thursday afternoon after he jumped out of a helicopter at 6,500 feet.
King County sheriff's Sgt. Cindi West said they looked specifically in a quarter-mile-square area near the summit, but kept searching other areas as well.
At the time of the jump, Ruppert, of Lake City, Fla., was wearing a special wing suit with fabric under the arms to allow him to glide like a flying squirrel. The suit is brown and green, and likely blends into the terrain, though his parachute was reportedly blue.
He was skydiving with two friends, and they were taking turns jumping from the helicopter. The friends were waiting at a grassy landing area, but no one saw whether Ruppert's chute deployed.
West said they made the decision to narrow the search area based on the flight pattern of the helicopter he jumped from and information from his cellphone's location just before the jump.
She expected the search to resume at dawn Sunday.
Searchers were hoping Ruppert was stuck in a tree with his parachute or perhaps lost in rugged state-owned land around 4,200-foot Mount Si, West said.
Ruppert has been skydiving seven or eight years and is good at handling a wing suit, said a friend, Art Shaffer, owner of Skydive Palatka in Palatka, Fla.
Shaffer jumped with Ruppert at midnight on New Year's Eve and said Ruppert left Tuesday to jump with friends in Washington.
Ruppert is not married and once owned a landscaping business, said Shaffer, who is in contact with Ruppert's family and friends.
Could only smile into my tea at about 4:00 of your first link.
I'm kinda partial to the part at 5:00-5:25 in the first video.
In college I was trying to figure out what to do when I grew up. I received a recruiting postcard in the mail of a picture of a Navy jet and it said, "This desk does Mach 1."
That's all it took. I signed up that afternoon. (:
One of several heavy helicopters used in wildland firefighting today. Though they can't carry near the payload of a Skycrane their large fuel tanks and speed work to their advantage. They seem to work especially well in the lowlands of Texas with typically long distance initial attacks. The machine in this photo was born around 1961.
The POTUS flies in an S-61.
Tragically, in August 2008 an S-61 crash killed nine wildland firefighters in northern California.
Sikorsky "Skycrane" with 2000 gallon fixed tank and snorkel
Credit: the albatross
Though these machines are extremely expensive to operate (near 100K for a full day of work), they are one of our most effective firefighting tools today provided water and fuel are nearby. They burn something like 450 gallons fuel an hour and typically carry 1000-1400 gallons of water.
These babies are awe-inspiring crafts all the way around.
Probably born around 1960.
A friend of mine was ferrying a Crane back from the FL wildfires in 98 or so and watched as his two colleagues in front in a similar aircraft lost a main rotor blade and plummeted to their end in the CA deserts.
OTE that's an Sikorsky S-58T.
I don't recognize it, but its probably still flying. They are apparently very reliable. Born late 1950s. That Sikorsky was an incredible genius in the helicopter world.
Whoa Albatross- I used to be a smokejumper and got sent to Florida that season to do ramp management stuff- we were qualified to work around aircraft. Anyway, that ship worked out of the airport I was at and I remember hearing about that accident after I returned to my base. Sad!
OTE after hearing rumors for a decade or more about the Crane accident, it was thought provoking to hear the story from the man who witnessed it. I think being a wildland fire pilot is one of the riskier professions around. Almost as dangerous as driving a motor vehicle to a fire.
Nice pic of the Bell 205s, lots of those mid-late 70s models still hauling us around.
Bell 205++. This aircraft is one of most useful all around aircraft on a wildland fire. Carries around 320 gallon bucket or can move 5-8 persons and tools or 3000 pounds of cargo.
Credit: the albatross
Ocala National Forest, FL
Credit: the albatross
Sikorsky S-61. This aircraft flew over 600 hours on the Texas wildfire siege of 2011. We celebrated her 50th birthday in 11/11.
Let us know!