The Golden Anniversary of freefall parachuting will be April 28 of this year, a hallmark in aviation’s short and often turbulent history. Fifty years ago one man became the harbinger of today’s advanced and sophisticated “skydiving” techniques, one jump changed the role of the parachute and those who were to use them. That momentous day was April 28, 1919 and the man was Leslie L. Irvin, truly one of aviation’s great figures.

Francis Rogallo, who had the original idea of using the “ wing” as a device to not only lower an object safely to earth but to allow man the ability to “ fly” longer between deployment and ground impact, has been working with this pro­ject since 1945. 

The Star Crest Emblem (eight-man star patch) stems from an idea that came to mind last year for the promotion of rela­tive work on a more refined scale and to commemorate the efforts of the late Bob Buquor who played a major role in the origin of star formation relative work.