In May, Lee Baney, D-10487, received the USPA Regional Achievement Award for the Central Region during a ceremony at the Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum in Omaha, Nebraska.

In 1946, when legendary exhibition jumper Joe Crane founded National Parachute Jumper-Riggers Inc., he brought with him a licensing system for parachutists that he had earlier originated.

One night, as you’re reading a bedtime story to your young parachute, it will inevitably want to know the answer to the question, “Where did I come from?” A responsible parachute owner had better be ready with the answers.

It was a beautiful spring morning at my beloved DZ, Skydive the Ranch in Gardiner, New York. The air was cool and crisp, and the sky was cloudless. I was doing wingsuit hop-and-pops from 10,000 feet with the hope of generating interest in this new-at-the-time discipline.

Many members wonder what USPA does exactly, not only as an organization, but also for its members. Well, since USPA turns 75 this month, what better time to share how the organization works and where it’s headed from here?

Gotta say, this is an exciting issue of Parachutist. Although you’re not going to find much about what went on in the past month in the skydiving world, you are going to find a wonderful look back at a 75-year history of our organization.

Without Jacques-André Istel, the sport of parachuting would not be what it is today.

Barotrauma is injury that occurs as a direct result of changes in ambient pressure. Boyles Law states that at constant temperature, a volume of a gas is inversely proportional to the ambient pressure.

Executive Director Albert Berchtold updates USPA members on matters of the organization. Learn more at https://uspa.org/ OR https://parachutist.com/.

For many years, most jumpers regarded the parachute as a necessary evil. It was simply the device that stopped the freefall, allowing the jumper to survive the skydive in order to make another freefall.

I was about to ride 533 miles across Virginia—west along the Potomac River, then through the mountains to the famous red caboose in Damascus in the southwest corner of the state. It would be a multi-day ride with 33,000 feet of climbing. My stomach had butterflies.