The Case for the Parachute

"You just let go of the plane and suddenly you've changed elements. You start to drop but you don't feel anything--only a marvelous sense of control. It's like being immersed in light water. Then you bring your right arm up and you make a turn, just as simple as that. It's an incredible sensation."

Thus runs the evangelical message of Jacques Andre Istel, 28, a black-browed ex-Wall Streeter and dedicated prophet of parachuting in the U.S. His gospel: jumping, without emergency, out of an airplane can be a safe, exhilarating sport, not a devil-daring performance for iron-nerved musclemen. Europe has been convinced since World War II, and there thousands of men and women of all ages happily spend their weekends halfway between plane and earth. It is time for the sport to flourish in the U.S., says Istel. "There's no more to parachute jumping, done right, than jumping in a swimming pool."

The Practiced Preacher. So convinced was Istel of the sport's future that last week he went to Washington to talk to the Civil Aeronautics Administration about safety regulations for parachuting for fun, similar to those in Europe, where jumping instruction is as rigidly controlled as the classics course in a French lycee. At this stage, Istel fears, a major accident would probably give the sport back to the country-fair stuntmen. His gospel spread to another important corner. Istel hustled back to his exurbanite home in New York's upper Westchester County to practice what he preaches. This week Istel will lead an American team of four parachutists to Yugoslavia to compete in an invitational meet against some of the world's best jumpers.

The technique that tamed sport parachuting, according to Istel, is sky diving, in which the jumper controls his body as he hurtles toward earth before pulling his ripcord. The skillful sky diver leaves the plane spread-eagled, looking somewhat like a highboard swan diver, his body horizontal. Despite falling speeds up to 120 m.p.h.. the body is remarkably stable in this position. Properly executed, a sky dive is spinproof (accidental spins can whirl or tumble the body up to three times a second, black out the jumper) and keeps the diver on his belly, so his backpack chute can open without fouling. In addition, the sky diver becomes a sort of low-efficiency glider. By moving his arms and legs, he can change position in flight. even pull off a figure eight by use of hands and arms before cracking his chute and drifting to earth under its canopy.

Dive in the Sky. Istel knew nothing about the sport when he took his first jump in 1951 while learning to fly two years after graduating from Princeton. He rented a chute for $20 from an ex-paratrooper, arid just pushed himself out the plane's door. One jump made him a convert. He carted along parachute gear during a tour with the Marines in the Korean war, but not until a trip to France in 1955 did he learn the rigid formalities of sky diving. Back in the U.S., Istel taught the rudiments of the technique to a handful of American spot jumpers (who try only to land on a target) and, on shoestring financing, led a team of six to last summer's World Championship of Parachuting in Moscow. Against the well-drilled European squads, the U.S. team managed to finish sixth in a field of ten (the winner: Czechoslovakia), did surprisingly well in such tricky events as a double figure eight during a 30-sec. delayed pull.

To drum up new recruits. Istel toured college campuses last spring, set up the nucleus of sky-diving groups at Harvard, Williams and Princeton, even managed to put on an informal intercollegiate meet. Despite the relatively high cost (the regular chute plus safety chest-pack alone costs about $550), Istel is so sure that the sport will catch on that he helped set up a small company to design and sell special jumping gear. But profit is his secondary interest (he has an independent income). "In our kind of society," says Jumper Istel, "there's a great need for a sport that's exciting and that allows the individual to prove himself safely."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.