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Southern Cross Parachutes supplied six military surplus student rigs to start the Centre off. GCM carried three jumpers; so with an instructor and two students this was sufficient for three student loads. Although the Centre was set up as a student dropzone, from the very beginning there was always enough competition jumpers and fun jumpers on site making it easy to keep up with packing. As other aircraft were used to supplement GCM, the surplus equipment built to 20 backpacks and 10 reserves before the Pioneer LoPo became the student canopy. The Centre canopy colours were black and white candy stripes with a red lobster tail. An Irvin 32ft Ultra Low porosity canopy was available for heavy jumpers and the C9 canopies were continued to be used used for light jumpers. In the early 60s, Claude had spent considerable time modifying surplus canopies for sport use and he was working on a design he called "The Gilstar". He often discussed the need for a non porous student canopy with net skirt and low rate of descent with Joh Chitty, a partner in Paradynamics and from these discussions Joh designed the Argosy 30ft canopy. Paradynamics also designed a student harness/container system and these became the Centre's student rig. At the time the Centre lost its lease of Labertouche Airfield fore and aft student equipment was being phased out and ram air student rigs were starting to be introduced. Southern Cross Parachutes Pty Ltd conducted a parachute loft and retail outlet at the Centre. It introduced the tandem "Piggyback" system to Australia in addition to many rigging and packing innovations, including the "California" static line system, the static line to pilot chute base tie, "Roll" packing of chest mounted reserve parachutes, the rotating arrow visual canopy handling aid for students, the "Shot and a quarter" Capewell release modification, ground to air student radios, automatic parachute activation devices, interactive suspended harness emergency drill trainers, aircraft mounted student critique cameras and many more safety and training aids. |
Equipment Picture Gallery
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Steve Filak on a 7TU C-9 Cheapo |
Labertouche PC |
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Argosy (Gilstar) Mk I |
Argosy (Gilstar) Mk 2 |
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Steve Filak's Tooth's Beer Cloud |
Mike Timewell's Thunderbird |
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