Canopyflyer

How about...

Inside the damn airplane. It was a Beech 18 with Pratt and Whitney Wasp Jr engines used for skydiving operations. The pilot was also the drop zone owner (DZO). The DZO normally kept 3 loads worth of fuel in the plane and I got on the 4th load.

We take off and are on climb out and about 200 feet off the ground it gets... quiet. Did you catch the previous paragraph where I mention the plane had two Pratt and Whitney Wasp Jr engines? I mention that, because those engines are loud... Like really really loud. We crashed in a corn field off the end of the runway. It was like being in a car accident, except a whole lot more noise and grinding metal and quite a bit scarier. With that said, no one was hurt and there was no fire, because there was no fuel in the plane.

All but one person in the crash got out and jumped into the other Beech 18 and did our jumps.

Yeah, skydivers are a bit of a different breed, no doubt about that.

As far as closest to an airliner accident. I saw the remains of United 232 in Sioux City IA about 4 hours after the crash. My parents and I were on the way to see my oldest brother and his family that lived in Sioux Falls, SD at the time. We passed by the airport on I-29 which is less than half a mile away. It was far enough to see the debris and rescue crews working, but not close enough to see the victims... Thank god.

Seeing that accident, plus a strong love of aviation ignited an interest I have had ever since to learn as much as I could about aircraft incidents. I probably should have pursued a career in aircraft accident investigation, not sure why I never did.

That's awesome!

I live about an hour away from Lake Geneva, WI, which is Gygax's hometown and the birthplace of D&D. I worked with someone that worked at TSR during the 2e days and he has a lot of stories. (The only thing he has to say about Gary Gygax is; "The guy owes me money.") Last April I attended a conference in Lake Geneva at the location of the very first Game Con. The Wisconsin Historical Society sponsored it. It was a great time and will be going back again this year.

My books look in great shape... From that angle. LOL... They have thousands upon thousands of hours of playing behind them over the last 40 years. Every page has smudges on them from where they've been turned again and again.

Here are the older edition books I have. My 1e DMG and PH have been lost to time. That copy of the Monster Manual is one of the originals. The Deities and Demigods though is NOT one of the issues with HP Lovecraft's monsters in it. I have seen one of those editions, one of my local games stores has one for sale for over $300, but that's not what I have. Not shown are all the 5e stuff I have. In my youth it was a challenge to save up enough to buy material when it came out. As an adult, especially since I got the wife playing, yeah... I've indulged quite a bit.

I had two full rigs, both containers were Sunpaths. One Javelin and one of the first Odysseys off the production line (this is going back a ways.) Both rigs had PD mains and PD reserves, plus CYPRES AAD's. On top of several jump suits, including three that were competition quality with larger grips and reinforced seams. I competed in both 4-way and 8-way.

I am overstating things just a bit with the down payment on the house, but I did pay for the wedding and honeymoon to Maui by selling most of my gear. I actually still have my Javelin container. It's from 1995 and lacks the bridal protection that the later containers all have, so even back then it was obsolete and wasn't worth much.

54M here. Rolled my first D&D character in 1978. Played GURPS, Twighlight 2000, Traveller, you name it I probably have at least dabbled in playing it.

Today I play D&D 2024 and 5e, Call of Cthulhu, Castles and Crusades and a few others. Some on Roll20, or Foundry VTT (which is awesome BTW.) My primary gaming group is all fathers and mothers spread out across the country.

As far as actual Computer games, I used to be into Flight Sims, but dropping $500 plus on JUST a graphics card is just not something that is going to happen. It's not the wife acceptance factor, it the sheer balls the graphics card manufacturers have charging that much for their crap. I still dust off MS FS 2004 and run it on my Dell Precision laptop, but my machine won't run the latest version. I would like to see if it would run Battlestar Galactica Deadlock though.

Otherwise, I have had a home server for many years. It runs Proxmox and I have containers running Plex, Homeseer, SMB (acts as my NAS), and it provides backup services for every other computer in the house.

For reference, I am an IT Professional, with about 30 years in the business.

I have several direct antecedents that lived over 100. The last was my paternal grandmother, who died in 2004 at the age of 103. She was born in 1901 and outlived 3 of her 6 children (one child was stillborn). Her last child, my Dad, died just this past February at the age of 88. He was the youngest.

I live in Wisconsin and have a co-worker that lives in the general Tallahassee area. She sent me some photos of her making snow angels. She has a LOT more snow on the ground than we do.

It's rather disturbing.

Former skydiver.

Performed a lot of Demonstration jumps into everything from airports, race tracks, professional sports stadiums, high school sports stadiums, golf courses, and a few other places that required skill and knowledge to land in safely.

Also, spent a lot of time teaching canopy skills to up and coming jumpers.

I KNEW IT!

I'M A LESBIAN!!!!!

I've known my whole life and it's a relief to FINALLY to be able to come out officially.

THANK YOU PRESIDENT RUMP!

Both my competition and Demo teams decided to call it quits, for various reasons. One was we were all burnt out and it caused some of the deep seated interpersonal issues in the teams to explode. That actually all happened in 2004 and I jumped another two years. However, by that time I had met and started dating Mrs Canopyflyer, who is not a jumper. No, she did not force me to quit. Being with her just made me realize that there were other things I wanted to do in life. I'm also neurodivergent, so when I burn out, I tend to burn out completely and have to leave what ever activity that caused me to be in that state. So I sold my gear, turned that money into a wedding, honeymoon, and down payment on a house. We've been together 20 years and have two kids.

Today, I'm old and have a bad back so there is no going back, but I have no regrets.

They can go as high as they have fuel and oxygen for. The highest skydives ever were all done from balloons, although they were helium and not hot air balloons.

I'm in the USA, so a BASE rig would be illegal to use from a Balloon. Any jumper exiting from an aircraft must carry two parachutes, one of which is packed by an FAA Certified Senior or Master Rigger. The other chute must be packed by a Senior, or Master Rigger, someone under the direct guidance of a Rigger, or the person who would be jumping the chute. BASE rigs typically do not carry a reserve as there typically isn't enough time to deal with malfunctions.

To specifically answer your question, yes I used a sport skydiving rig. The lowest was from 2500 feet, so essentially I pulled my pilot chute right as I exited the basket (at least that's the story I tell). I've jumped from as high as 5k on other balloon jumps. Early in my career I jumped a Sunpath Javelin J2. Later I had a Sunpath Odyssey. The only BASE jump I've ever made was off the bridge in West Virginia and even that was using a sport rig where the main parachute was modified with a mesh slider and a BASE pilot chute.

My favorite was being the only jumper going up. There were 4 or 5 other passengers plus the pilot. She took off from the DZ and the DZO told her if she used his airport, yes he owned it, then she had to take at least one jumper up. No one else was ready to go, as it was really early in the morning, so I got to go. The eyes on those passengers when I jumped... Oh man you would have thought they were seeing someone killing themselves. I was probably safer than they were.

I've been retired from skydiving since 2006.