skycruising

"SKY CRUISING"

by Joe Jennings

Hi! My name is Joe Jennings. Want to take a spin in my new convertible? It's a beautiful day and the sky is blue and I'll even put the top down so that the wind will blow your hair. I'll guarantee an exciting ride and we'll reach speeds of about 140 miles an hour too. Come on, jump in and sit in the back and take the ride of your life.

If this sounds like Nascar it isn't. And it isn't the Indy 500 either. Believe it or not if you take this ride you will be freefalling through space in an automobile with some other guys and the top will be down and the wind will certainly blow your hair too. You want to try it? Great! Jump in the plane and I'll explain everything as we climb up to 13,000 feet. Right now we are in a C130 cargo plane and back here is our "convertible" that we will ride out the cargo door when we reach 13,000 altitude. That's right! You and 3 other guys will be sitting in the car, the door will open and the car rolls out and falls to the ground. Sounds like fun, eh? Oh... I'm going to take pictures, so don't forget to smile and wave at the camera.

I'll bet you want to know more about all this so I'll let you in on it. We started doing these "car drops"as we skydivers call them for some companies commercials. I bought the first cars (Honda Civics) at Weisman's Salvage. They helped me put on inflatable tires, remove the motors, remove all fluids, remove the gas tank and cut the top off creating the "convertible" style. Back at the airport hangar we taped over anything that would snag, painted the car, bolted down the hood, trunk and doors and padded the windshield.We tried to think of anything that would present a hazard to our sky fliers.

We even prepped the cars, so that if they began spinning, the centrifugal force would throw the sky divers away from the car, rather than pinning them inside. Then there was the plane prep. We had to make certain that there was no snag points inside the plane. Once the car was rolling out the door, if it snagged on the door on exit it could cause the plane to flip. This is not a good thing. So we did as much prep to the plane as the cars. Please don't get the idea that we just fly anywhere and drop cars out where they could harm somebody.The landing area is a test drop area, a designated spot for testing the overload of parachutes and other equipment drop tests. We have spotters who scout the area for any people and animals and then they remain vigilant throughout the shoot for any movement near the landing zone. So, we take as much care on the ground operation as we do the air portion.

You'll notice we have the car secured with ropes to keep it from rolling around the cargo hold. We all sit up front until we reach jump altitude and then the four jumpers get in the car, I climb up on the hood to get a good exit photo and then the "pushers" roll the car out the door. Simple. We're getting up to 13,000 feet about now, so if you still want to come along you'll need your parachute. Don't be nervous, we won't make you steer. We have a professional driver for that. And don't look for your seatbelt either. We removed it. A lot safer that way.

The plane is beginning to fly an even pattern, we're almost ready for exit. All of us begin to get a strong adrenaline flow about now and everyone's focused. I'm going to get into position on the hood of the car and just ride the car out into space. Better shooting angle that way. Sometimes I get "run over"by the falling car, but since there is nothing but air behind me it doesn't matter. Don't forget to bring your camera. On the way down in freefall I'll explain everything about taking these pictures. READY???

Here we goooooooo! The exit was perfect. The car is rolling right above me and I've got the car perfectly framed for some great photos. My 35mm camera is mounted on my helmet with a wide angle lens. Since I can't see through the camera's viewfinder, I have a special concentric ring "framer" that drops down over my eye. All I have to do is frame the subject within the ring and I know that my camera is "seeing" the same view.

Cars are difficult to track as they sometimes spin, flip and move all over the place. So, as I'm freefalling I have to keep keenly aware of where the car is and also the fliers, who bail out when it is time for that maneuver. I'm shooting in shutter priority with a shutter speed of 1/500. I've got great depth of field with my wide angle all the way to infinity, so I'm always in focus with my flying subjects. I've got Velvia ISO 50 in this camera and that gives me very saturated, powerful colors in my images. We're getting really lucky on this jump. The car is maintaining a "wheels to earth" position. This is great!!! All the jumpers can stay inside a lot longer and enjoy the "ride" and I get lots of great images and film too. Wow! This is fantastic. The jumpers all tell me that riding the car is the best skydiving experience they have ever had. It's like Nascar only in the air.

There go the jumpers out of the car. Got to track them now and get some more great shots. I have to concentrate and not get too caught up in the photography and forget to deploy my parachute. Sounds silly doesn't it, but I've known cameramen who have exited the plane without a chute on, because they

were so psyched about taking the pictures and others who got their cameras tangled in their parachute cords. Others have had mid-air collisions with fliers and that is usually fatal. So, I'm about done with this session and I'm going to deploy. Pull the cord, Joe. Now I'm sailing, just enjoying the view and ready for the landing. How was that? Did you remember to smile for my camera?

Flying trucks, flying cars, skydiving, commercials, freefall cinematography, stunts, stunt coordination, parachute stunts, skydivers, aircraft, locations around the world.
F11.jpg (5127 bytes) F5.jpg (12377 bytes) Ford F-100

Flehner films from Buenos Aires, Argentina contacted me in '98. They wanted to film a truck in freefall and under parachute and wondered if I had any experience with that kind of thing. The closest I'd come was a Chevy Malibu station wagon and a bunch of Hondas, all of which, by design, bounced into sandwich looking metal chunks. I told them no problem. Sometimes you bite off more than you can chew and just chew hard. In the commercial, the F-100 (our US F-250) drives out the tailgate of a military aircraft and goes into freefall. It flies through the air and then opens it's parachute and glides toward the earth. Above the ground, it cuts away from the parachute and falls to the ground, wheels spinning, churning up dust as it peals away. Build Ford tough. Easy enough.

They sent me a copy of the story boards and I went to work to find ways to make it happen. I was happy to get the job, but realized the task I'd taken on was no small trick. The trucks, after preparations, cost around $50,000 each and there were only two available for the production. To my relief, word came that the entire production and rigging would be done in Argentina by the military there. They needed some advise, but they'd handle all of the rigging because the truck was exiting their C-130 and only they can rig things that leave their planes. The weight of responsibility had been lifted from my shoulders. I was scheduled to fly to Argentina, shoot for three days or so, and fly home.
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Two weeks before the shoot, everything changed. The deal with the military had fallen through and I had three weeks to set things up. Could I handle it? Again I said yes and with fingers crossed, and started to call my friends. Here's how it came together.

Todd Shoebothem and Anne Helliwell of Basic Research were in charge of the rigging. Gary Durice was their expert rigger of choice for this job. Along with Jerry Borquin D-22, he'd dropped and saved cars in Terminal Velocity and pitched an elephant in Operation Dumbo Drop. Still, the rigging was tricky. The trucks needed to freefall ten thousand feet before opening a parachute and then survive the opening shock at terminal. They weighed five thousand pounds without motors.

Jim Blumenthal in Kingman, AZ provided the C-123, and just about everything else. Although the trucks were rigged in Argentina, they still needed quite a bit of work, and we needed to set up the test truck (photo) to be as similar to the real trucks as possible. Jim did the welding, balancing, nailing, bending, cutting, sand bagging, loading, and so on to get the trucks ready to be dumped... then he did what he was hired for, loaded them into the plane to be dropped. If you ever work with Jim Blumenthal, stand aside, cause he's on a mission and unless you're working up a sweat, you're taking up space.

The old test truck

Weighed down to 5000 lbs.

So we dumped the test truck from 15,000' above sea level. I'd practiced hanging from the left side of the tailgate and found it easy to push my body slightly out to make room for the truck to just pass the tailgate before I let go. In flight, the force of the air racing by pushed me back directly in front of the truck's front tire. As the truck rolled toward me, I pushed even harder. The wind just pushed back and as the front bumper reached the edge, I tumbled away. In freefall, with a drogue, the truck flew well. I was surprised to find it's fall rate consistent. It tracked backwards pretty fast, but even that was consistent and relatively easy to chase. It was the biggest vehicle I've flown with to date. Even the new Fords were a bit smaller. It's always interesting to fall with an object that just tosses around in the sky. There's no dirt dive, no interaction, just the chase back and forth. Sometimes I chase the cars, sometimes they chase me back. This truck just kind of tracked in one direction and let me take it's picture.

Carl F-100.JPG (15346 bytes) Carl Nespoli and F-100 #1 inside Jim Blumenthal's C-123

The first new Ford flew pretty well except that it wanted to rock back and forth over it's center balance point. The drogue system was attached to four points, but the points were too close together and didn't offer much stability. Also, the drogue hung out in the truck's burble and bounced around a bit causing the main G-11 canopy to prematurely deploy after about eight seconds of freefall. Great for the helicopter waiting to take canopy shots, lousy for me falling away from it. I decided to keep rolling and get a few plate shots on the way down. The helicopter with Stan McClain on camera circled the truck hanging nicely under canopy all the way to the ground. The truck landed with practically no damage, so we still had two trucks.

Just before cutaway

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Cut away

Crash Landing

I decided to let the next two trucks bounce. We had the canopy shots and needed freefall, so the best option was to take them up with drogues only. The second truck also seesawed with the front a bit heavy. The seesawing and slight turning made the trucks move around lunging forward as if to run me over, and then backing away as it pitched up. I found myself flying hard to keep the shot. The visual of a large, metallic silver, brand new truck in freefall was perfect. The cars I shoot are beaters with dust flying all over the place. These F-250s were new and polished.

The third and last jump was with the truck we'd saved under canopy. We worked quickly on the rigging to beat sunset and loaded up for the jump. The sun was maybe ten minutes above the horizon when the truck and I exited the airplane. Golden reflections gleamed from the front grill as it rolled from the ramp. In my shot, you could read the Ford emblem and then we were airborne. Again the truck seesawed a bit and flew all over the sky. We tried moving the attachment points further from the center, but the director felt it would be easier to deal with the rocking of the truck than trying to erase cables around the truck.. I chased it, and then it chased me. I hated to end the shot, but we had to part our ways. I deployed, and floating under parachute, watched it plunge to earth. That was the end of a perfect day, and the beginning of what should be a pretty amazing commercial... jj

Hey Carl Nespoli and Eric Bangle. Thanks guys! yo gonna die......
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I wish you safe skydiving and
good shooting." Joe Jennings.