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.