Photographer Norman Kent has been a busy and well-traveled jumper recently.  He shot this month's cover—showing his wife Diana, fellow photographer Pedro Barroeta and members of the Chinese Team over Acapulco, Mexico—during the Pan Am Parachuting Championships and First International Open Cup of Parachuting in Uruapan.  Not too long thereafter, Kent was in DeLand, FL where he shot video and stills of the 90-way formation built at the end of DeLand's Easter Boogie.

Gus Wing, D-7117, was one of four jumpers to make a demo into Virginia Polytechnical Institute in Blacksburg, VA as part of a pre-game show for the football game against Virginia Military Institute.  Pictured are Phil Matthews, Buzz Connor and Tinker Hillman over VPI's Lane Stadium.

John Rodgers of San Diego, CA is a graphic artist and illustrator with more than 10 years' experience in the field.  This painting, entitled "Shuttle Jump," was inspired by Rodgers' interest in space and his friendship with Randy Forbes, B-9040, an avid skydiver.  "Both Randy and I were delighted to see Michael Carroll's 'Skydivers Over Jupiter' in PARACHUTIST...when I saw (it) I thought to myself...perfect, now I can bring that same sort of felling a little closer to home."

Frequent PARACHUTIST contributor Tom Sanders captured this month's cover photo of David Altenberg descending through a quiet and colorful sunset at the San Diego Air Sports DZ in California.

Craig Fronk got the top cover picture of teammates Kent Lane, Dave Wilds, Irv Callahan and Mike Sheerin.  The fivesome, with only a few practice dives together, nonetheless managed to bring home a silver medal in the 4-way event at the World Championships of Relative Work in South Africa, Dec. 9-19.

Team Leader Dona Reilly took the picture of the U.S. 8-way Team that took home not only the gold medal, but a world record as well.  Standing left to right are Mike Sheerin, Dave Wilds, Kent Lane, Scott Meek and Irv Callahan; kneeling are Danny Peters, Mike Parnell and Craig Fronk.  Not pictured are team members Ken Crabtree and Mike Gennis.

Jack Tillitson, D-8539, leaves a Stearman biplane piloted and owned by Craig Bliss over Weiser Airpark in Houston, TX.  Ron Cole, D-8530, was the man behind the camera who grabbed this shot from a World War II vintage "Birddog" chase plane with a zoom lens.  Cole is an obstetrician and gynecologist in Raytown, TX.

Robert McQuilkin took this photo of an unidentified jumper over Innsbruck, Austria during a U.S. Ski Association presentation.  McQuilkin, who has made some seven jumps ("The club went defunct but I'm a great admirer of the sport," he says) is a photo-journalist from Wheaton, IL specializing in adventure sports.  His photos have been published in the New York Times, Field and Stream, Ski, Backpacker, Outside and other similar publications.

Mike Swain, D-2078, took this self-portrait over Florida with the help of photographers John Cloud and Dick Dickinson (non-jumpers who are "very successful with mounting cameras in unusual places," according to Swain) and a motorized Nikon with an extreme wide-angle 8mm lens.  Swain is the director of photography and vice president of Hack Swain Productions, a motion picture studio in Sarasota, FL and has been a member of USPA for 15 years.

Gus Wing, D-7117, caught this exit shot of Linda Walczak, Martha Scott and Kathy Embrey and photograher Rick Snow leaving the Firestone DC-3 during a women's world record attempt at Palatka, FL last May.  Although this 32-way attempt was unsuccessful, another one attempted at Freeport, IL in August was, and has been submitted to world parachuting authorities for official recognition (see Paragrams, page 6).

Commercial artist Guy MacLachlan, C-10352, of Oceanside, CA was commissioned by USPA for the official 1983 Nationals emblem that appears on this month's cover.  MacLachlan's design also appears on the offical Nationals T-shirt, an order form for which is on page 11 of this issue.

Tom Sanders rigged up a camera on a boom to get this shot of him and Mike Quinn leaving a hot-air balloon piloted by Dave Dickson over Southern California.  Sanders was gathering video footage for a JVC film on video use in air sports.

Don Caltvedt got this shot of James Bond (Jake Lombard, doubling for actor Roger Moore) and the evil Gobinda (B.J. Worth) battling it out atop a Beechcraft as a Helio-Porter chase plane films for the movie "Octopussy."  For more on how Worth, Lombard and others put the sequence together, see this month's story on page 19.

April 4, 1983: Shuttle Launch

Norman Kent of Los Angeles traveled across the country Easter week to cover the invitational 72-way meet in DeLand, FL (see story, page 25).  The day after the meet, Monday, April 4, Kent got this shot of a group of jumpers over DeLand with the space shuttle Challenger blasting off in the background from Cape Kennedy.

Eric Vickery of Bedford, MA, got this shot of an accuracy run during competition at the 1983 National Para-ski Championships at Gore Mountain in upstate New York.  More of Vickery's shots—along with the story and results from the meet—begin on page 27 of this issue of PARACHUTIST.

Craig Fronk snapped this shot of the Divine Dragons skydiving team of Taiwan making a demo jump together with the U.S. 4-way team into Taiwan Stadium before some 25,000 spectators.  For more on the U.S. Team's historic trip, see Fronk's story, which begins on page 19.

Kevin Donnelly takes in the view of the Grand Canyon from the top wing of a Stearman biplane during filming for the movie "Flyers."  See page 25 for Donnelly's story on how a special airplane-to-airplane transfer stunt for the movie was successfully pulled off.

Gus Wing, D-7117, caught this shot of the Tubesteak Boogie group forming a 24-way donut flake over Brooksville, FL at sunset.  Wing jumps regularly at the Orange drop zone in Charlottesville, VA.

Doug Sayre, D-7967, mounted his helmet camera backwards to catch this shot of Chuck Prodey exiting a C-180 over the Pelicanland DZ in Ridgely, MD.  Sayre works extensively with the Accelerated Freefall program at Pelicanland, shooting video and stills of AFF students. as well as shooting fun jumpers.

Dave Waterman of the British Parachute Association captured Geoff Sanders and Rob Colpus in a stack over the Swiss Alps near St. Moritz.  The jumps were part of a television production for Milk Tray chocolates.

Perhaps using a Navy LST for a jump platform isn't the same as leaping out of a DC-3 at 12,500 feet but Phil Murdoch and photographer John Noak, D-6410, figured it was the best they could do at the time.  Noak shot the photo during survival training for Air Force personnel in Biscayne Bay south of Miami, FL.