Of my thousands of skydives the most memorable (in a good way ) was a jump from a Super Connie in 2001 in the Mojave Desert. There were 80 of us and we sat on the floor watching the Flight Engineer at his station and the starting of each radial engine as they belched smoke and came to life in a rumbling purr and the fuselage shook and the whole experience became visceral. At jump time, we piled out the door like guppies from a mother fish and I immediately, turned around to watch that beautiful bird fly away with those four huge props turning so slowly it seemed like I could see each individual blade. And that marvelous triple tail framing the entire picture. The image is seared in my mind. The fact that my parachute malfunctioned and we had a mile walk afterwards thru desert and cactus is a just a blip on the memory scale.

It is such a beautiful airplane. Right up there with the P-38 Lightning IMO.

Excellent Robert, very jealous! My Dad tried like heck to get our family in a Constellation when travelling to/from Japan (Northwest Orient had Constellations for the trans-pacific flights) but was unsuccessful.

So we had to go by DC-7C. This was like forcing a life-long Ford guy to drive a Chevy (yuck). He said anybody could build an aircraft with a tubular fuselage, nothing special there. It took Lockheed to do it right as far as he was concerned.

Too bad you weren't wearing a camera (for both the exit and the malfunction).

Dan

It was before I started wearing a camera on my head and a very impromptu skydive. The crew had just finished having lunch at the Cal City cafe and heading back to Camarillo and said to themselves….look at all those skydivers out there…hey, at $50 a head we can pay for our gas to get us back home. It was one pass with 80 skydivers scattered in a loooong line across the desert floor.

Of course no good aviation story is complete without the FAA showing their ass

Just as we were boarding some faa inspector (who had just finished his lunch as well) decided to have his meal and day payed for, by doing a ramp check. I guess I could have found a camera and even learned to shoot video during that unnecessary delay.

To be fair to the FAA I didn’t actually see the guy finishing his lunch….maybe it was the big belly, burp, and the toothpick in his mouth that makes me say that. Lol..



Alright guys…I’m done now..