wrote:
Don't THINK that was the first use, but it was definitely an early
use. The bucket could get into terrain you would never land a plane
in, and unteathered drops were too easy to lose.

The date I have here for Paul Beauchamp Legg in ZK-ARJ at the Hokitika
Air Pageant is Dec 11th 1960.

There's about a half-A4-page description in his book "West Coast
Memories"... taking off with 1500' of rope laid out on the runway ahead,
circling at 1000' and getting the bottom end securely attached to the
ground, and then attempting to slide a dummy down the rope, controlling
its speed by tension on the rope. Its not stated, but no doubt the
airshow crowd was told it was a real person descending the rope. Except
the dummy got snagged and the rope and dummy had to be cut away. He says
in the book that he'd done it successfully many times before.