Remember when President Harry S. Truman announced over the family radio that there was a growing threat on the Korean Peninsula? Me neither. But U.S. Army recruit Lewis Barton Sanborn must have been paying close attention, as he was going Airborne and was about to make his first jump. On April 18, 1949, he made that jump—a static-line from 1,200 feet—over Fort Benning, Georgia. That was a long, long time ago.

John LeBlanc, vice president at Performance Designs, loves “flying everything that can be flown.” He’s been doing just that for more than 40 years (since age 16, as a matter of fact), and he’s been designing parachutes for 35 of them. Over the course of those years of intense testing, LeBlanc has unsurprisingly suffered more than his share of openings that were slappers.

Photo by Jeff Donohue | C-36419

From top, Kyle Lobpries, Scott Callantine and Wess Sandler fly their wingsuits during the FYRE Boogie in Grand Bahama Island, Bahamas.

Tom Baker and Cameron McMahan perform a dynamic angle jump at Skydive Paraclete XP in Raeford, North Carolina.

Richard Garrett (top) and Kendall Sage of the Silver Wings Parachute Team fly a 2-stack at Skydive Atlanta.

Travis Mickle swoops the pond on his way to taking the overall bronze medal at Florida Canopy Piloting Association Meet 2 at Skydive City Zephyrhills in Florida.

Density altitude, to put it blandly, is pressure altitude corrected for non-standard temperature. What that means in English is that the air is the equivalent density (thickness) that you would find at x-thousand feet on an average day. So, if you are at a sea-level DZ with a density altitude of 4,000 feet, it will feel as if you are actually at an elevation of 4,000 feet.

The USPA incident reporting system has been due for a significant overhaul for some time now, and it is getting one. USPA members reported 4,277 reserve rides and 2,147 injuries that required medical care in 2018, but USPA received only 29 incident reports. Sit back for a moment and imagine the lessons lost to the skydiving community when all it would have taken is for each of those jumpers to have spent 10 minutes filling out a short report.

Local, state and federal agencies exercise minimal control and supervision over skydiving, recognizing that those most capable of regulating skydiving are those who do it. At the very core of this system is the USPA Safety and Training Advisor, an unpaid volunteer appointed by the USPA Regional Director serving that drop zone.

Michael Erickson (black and yellow rig) coaches John Kidd Sr. at Skydive Spaceland-Dallas in Whitewright, Texas.

Karen Bodin (purple helmet), D-37818, makes one of a series of birthday jumps organized by Kevin Kierce at Skydive Perris in California.

Firebird, maker of the EVO harness-and-container system, has issued a product service bulletin after a pillow-reserve-ripcord cable separated from the reserve pin during assembly on a newly delivered EVO. Although Firebird says it is confident that this is an isolated incident, the company has taken additional steps to ensure the safety of its users.

United Parachute Technologies and Sun Path Products are joining forces to co-sponsor the development, training and sale of the Mutant supine harness, which is geared toward highly experienced canopy pilots. This is the first time the direct competitors have worked together to this extent in the sport market.

At Skydive the Gulf in Elberta, Alabama, Leigh Miller makes a tandem jump with DZO Luke Church to raise awareness of sexual assault survivors.

At Skydive the Gulf in Elberta, Alabama, Leigh Miller makes a tandem jump with DZO Luke Church to raise awareness of sexual assault survivors.

Phil Mayfield, D-2629, first joined USPA in 1969. He made his first jump on March 9 of that year with four of his teenage buddies in Cedar Hill, Texas, and never stopped. Exactly 50 years later, he made a 2-way formation skydive with his son, Aaron, at Skydive Spaceland-Dallas in Whitewright, Texas, to celebrate the occasion. In the past, he’s also had the opportunity to jump with his other son, Jake.

Skydive Arizona in Eloy held its Elemental Easter Festival April 19-21. During the event, attendees played with the four elements: water (a swoop ‘n’ slide and Zorb ball), fire (a full-moon bonfire and fire dancers), wind (an LED night huck in the onsite SkyVenture Arizona wind tunnel) and earth (planting flowers in recycled art vases).

Rattlesnake Mountain Skydiving is a new USPA Group Member drop zone located in Prosser, in the heart of Washington, a place that has been dubbed the birthplace of the Washington wine industry. Seated in the eastern foothills of the Cascade Mountains, Prosser boasts more than 200 days of sunshine each year and, from full altitude, offers views of three of the Pacific Northwest’s most recognizable mountains, as well as the Columbia and Yakima rivers below.