Skydiving Moments

This 231 page 'Skydiving Moments' book is mainly a pictorial book with a multitude of colour images and some black and white ones. The aircraft used were a mixture of Cessna 172’s, 206’s, 207’s, Skyvans, Beech 99’s, Cessna Caravans, Pilatus PC-6 Porters, PAC 750’s, Dornier G92’s, RAF Andovers, RAF Hercules C130’s, Twin Otters, Wessex, Puma, Sea King, Augusta 109 and the Hiller UH-12E helicopters. Although I have been skydiving for over 52 years in various countries namely, the USA, UK, Cyprus, Masirah, Norway, Denmark, Hong Hong, Turkey and Spain to name but a few, the images in this book have been captured in the USA, UK, Cyprus, Hong Kong, and the desert on Masirah Island which is off the east coast of Oman; and dating from 1972 to 2023. In the 70’s we were mainly jumping round parachutes like the C9-LL, TU, and Para Commanders but later on moved onto the Para Plane and the 5-Cell Strato Star square parachute. Our reserve parachutes were I-24’s which were front mounted and our altimeters were the large ones that were normally fitted to aircraft instrument panels. Our skydiving instrument panel consisted of the altimeter previously mentioned and a stopwatch as a backup. Much later on the Altimaster came into service and which certainly reduced the bulk size of our skydiving instrument panels. AFF had not come into the scene and neither had tandem parachuting, and the usual progression system was static line jumps, then onto dummy pulls - whilst still on the static line - and if successful the student moved onto 3 second delays, 5 second delays, 10 second delays and so on. The maximum jump height in those days was 7,000 feet due to the climb capability of the aircraft which were Cessna 172’s. When jumping them we had to climb out onto the starboard wheel and hold onto the wing strut - later a step was put over that wheel - and the Jumpmaster’s command to the pilot was, “Cut and Brakes” to remind him to apply the wheel brakes otherwise the jumper would fall off the turning wheel. And now how things have changed! In-flight doors and climbing up to 14,000 feet is quite normal. I have filmed several World and UK Record Attempts, for example the POP’s, SOS and JOS Attempts; including the UK Record that we achieved in 2018 and with images of all those jumps included. Also included are some images of military parachuting including jumping out of the RAF Hercules C130 aircraft at 800 feet and with a 80 Lb CSPEP container which we later dangled on a 15 foot rope and jumping the RAF Andover from 12,000 feet. Other images include Relative Work skydives of both large and small formations - this is now referred to as ‘Formation Skydiving’, CRW or Canopy Relative Work, Static Line parachuting from 2,000 feet, Tandems, Group and Individual photographs - including some old-timers - and a multitude of badges and stickers plus an assortment of extra skydiving images. Memories are certainly brought back and skydiving to some of us keeps us alive and hopefully out of the care-homes and playing bingo. Life has a special flavor for us that some do not experience. Blue Skies.