Back-Tracking highlights interesting, lesser-known moments in skydiving through the years. These photos are often unearthed from boxes in the attic, old photo albums and dimly lit DZ closets. Please send submissions to communications@uspa.org.

“This is the famous Willard Joseph Smith of Syracuse. The Navy sent me to Syracuse University for a couple semesters in 1969-70, and I was doing a story for the local newspaper’s Thanksgiving magazine. We shot a number of different ideas in freefall for the cover. This was a reject.”

—Chip Maury | D-865

“We made several skydives to do the photo essay that Chip sold to Empire, The Herald-American Post-Standard’s Sunday magazine. He suggested I write the copy as well as the captions, main bar, etc.

The cover ended up being Smitty with his teeth in the turkey. I was a 20-year-old sophomore journalism student at Syracuse University, and it was one of my first bylines outside the student newspaper, The Daily Orange.”

—Doug Garr | D-2791