Clarence R. "Butch" Thorne, a free-lance graphic specialist from Washington, D.C. created this month's cover design to symbolize the long history of the Parachtue Club of America and its successor, today's United States Parachute Association.  PCA's emblem—the "triangle" so familiar to old-time jumpers—was based on a sketch found in the notebook of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), who visualized a way to get man down out of the sky before man had learned to get up.  Da Vinci neither built nor tested his design.  Surrounded by a freefall formation is today's familiar USPA wings emblem.  Artist Thorne, 36, also designed the very popular 1980 and 1981 National Championships emblems—all without ever making a jump himself.  "And I have no plans, either," he says.

Gus Wing, D-7117, a frequent contributor to PARACHUTIST, supplied this cover shot of Karen Milliken, D-5984, exiting the DC-3 Mr. Douglas over Palatka, FL.  Gus also supplied the color photos for the feature story on funnels on page 22.

Gus Mattia caught this shot of George and Harriet McCulloch, one of the most unique teams in skydiving today.  Mattia's story about the McCullochs appears on page 17 of this issue.

Erick Vickery of Bedford, MA caught this shot of the Golden Knights opening the 1982 National Para-ski Championships in Great Barrington, MA.  (Story on page 19).  The Knights choreographed the demo perfectly—they touched down just as the last notes of the National Anthem sounded.

From the "Please Release Me, Let Me Go" department comes this photo of Jorma Oster and what's left of his canopy, being dropped from a tri-plane over Malmi Airport in Helsinki, Finland  Oster used a Nikon camera with a wide-angle lens mounted on his leg to get the photo.  Oster, 28, has about 700 jumps, most of them with a camera, and is editor of Finland's "Laskuvarjourhirlu" parachuting magazine.