Accessing Adventure
The Remote Area Medical Airborne Camp
By Karen Hawes

A student's cargo bale drifts to the ground. Photograph by Bryan Burke.

A new style of sport skydiving began recently at Skydive Arizona in Eloy. March 16-19, nine students attended theinaugural Remote Area Medical Airborne training camp to learn how to safely skydive and drop cargo into remote areas around the world so they can provide humanitarian aid to those in need.

The three-and-a-half-day camp trained students in multiple skills, including cargo bale preparations, cargo chute packing and mounting, cargo spotting, skydiver spotting and landing in difficult areas, field medicine and remote-area survival skills.

Three skydivers who are also RAM volunteers taught the camp. S&TA Bryan Burke taught the core material for the course, including spotting, cargo bale preparation and cargo bale air drops. Rene Steinhauer covered the medical skills needed in the field. Karen Hawes organized the course and taught topics specific to women and travel.

Camp participants included Lou Chamales, Marios Christodoulou, Scott Gould, Michael Gregg, John Kelly, Alex Loucks, Averil Loucks, Stuart Pearson and Jeff Smith.

RAM Airborne seeks skydivers who fly canopies with low wing loadings to minimize injuries and ensure the safety of the entire team of volunteers. RAM requires solid and safe landings and does not allow high-performance landing maneuvers.

RAM Airborne needs jumpers to consistently perform poised exits, with chest into the relative wind. One of the focal points of the RAM Camp was how to exit the plane and maintain on-heading openings at low altitudes.

The RAM Camp trained students in the lost art of spotting, not only for a plane load of people but also for bales of cargo that might contain survival supplies and medical equipment.

More information on RAM appears at www.ramusa.org. More information about RAM Airborne and future RAM Camps is available by e-mailing Hawes.

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