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Southern Cross Skydivers was born out of 2nd Commando Company Skydivers, which was formed when Warren Hutchins approached the Officer Commanding, Major Phillip Bennett (later to become General Sir Phillip Bennett AC, KBE, DSO and Governor of Tasmania) with a proposal to form a unit parachute club. The club was formed but because of liability worries; it did not allow members to make parachuting display jumps under the name of the club. Unaware of Commando Skydivers 'no displays' policy, Charl Stewart arranged a display for the club at Corryong in northern Victoria. When Warren vetoed club participation in the display, Charl Stewart, Bill Sparke and Claude Gillard solved the problem by calling themselves Southern Cross Skydivers and proceeded to carry out the display. Warren took part on the second day by invitation. The name "Southern Cross" was taken from the Southern Command shoulder patch worn by 2 Commando Coy and 1RVR. If you are wondering about the name "Charl" Stewart, we mostly Called him Charlie but he preferred that if his name was shortened that it should be to Charl. In respect for his wishes we remember him as Charl because we know he would have liked that. Charl, Bill and Claude had travelled together in one car to Corryong and on the way home from Corryong, having learned from Warren that 2 Commando Company Skydivers would not accept Bill Molloy as a member, even though he was a qualified military paratrooper; they decided that sport parachuting needed every qualified jumper available and to form Southern Cross Skydivers into a fully fledged sport parachuting club with the objective of training civilian sport parachutists and supplementing the efforts of the few pioneers developing the sport in Victoria at the time. Upon arrival in Melbourne Bill Gully and Bill Molloy were contacted by phone and the club was formed with Charl Stewart as President, Bill Sparke as Secretary and Claude Gillard as Chief Instructor on the 25th of April 1961. Charl Stewart, Bill Sparke and Bill Gully, three of the founding members of the club had all been on the first civilian parachuting course in Victoria under the guidance of Squadron Leader Vic Guthrie at McKenzie's Flying School, Parachuting Wing. So Victorian sport parachuting started out with a 75% retention rate from the first civilian parachuting course. Foundation Southern Cross Members also included Hans Magnusson, Steve Filak, Joe Finta, Paul Komaromi and Bob Thomas. The club quickly became one of the premier parachute display entities in Australia and after putting together equipment and training aids for a Basic Parachute Training Course, it commenced student training in the 1 RVR Drill Hall in Footscray and the first jump day was on the 25th of June 1961 at what is today the Tooradin Airfield. In those days it was known as the Koo-Wee-Rup Airstrip. The first student jump
day was on the 9th of July 1961 and the participants in jump order
were: A total malfunction on the first student jump because a snap hook without a locking mechanism that was in regular use throughout Australia allowed the ripcord cable to escape from the snap caused consternation in the club. The student carried out perfect emergency procedures and landed safely on the emergency canopy. Claude ordered a large quantity of static lines with built in trooper snaphooks from the USA by air freight and after considerable research; changed the clubs parachutes to the "California" static line method; with the end of the static line attached to the base of the pilot chute. This proved to be the safest civilian static line deployment system that had been devised. This was before the use of radios on students and the only student landing area was on the airfield close to the sea. The club found the proximity to the sea and the Nepean Highway, combined with the low performance canopies then in use made it desirable to look for another dropzone. On the 10th of September 1961, Southern Cross Skydivers was the guest of 2 Commando Co. Skydivers at the Air Force Day Airshow to make two jumps from a Royal Australian Air Force C-47. The stuff that dreams were made of. Photo On the 23rd of September 1961 Charl Stewart, Bill Sparke, Claude Gillard and Hans Magnusson went to Adelaide to attempt an Australian Height and Freefall Record and obtain publicity for the newly formed South Australian School of Parachuting. On the 24th, with all preparations in place for the attempt, the winds were too high to jump. When it became obvious that the wind would not abate, the four jumpers made the decision to take-off and rely on the winds to abate as forecast. They jumped from 23,600ft and created a new Australian Height and Freefall Record with a 125 second delayed opening. The winds were over limit when they landed and Bill Sparke broke his leg. The next day, Bill was to drive his car to Barmera, near the Victorian border and Charl, Claude and Hans were to fly from Adelaide to Barmera and make a display jump into the Show Grounds. With Bill in hospital, Charl drove the car and Claude and Hans made the display jump. They arrived over the airfield dropped a wind drift indicator from 2,000ft, climbed to height noting that the WDI had landed in the oval and so they made their jump directly over the top of the oval. They had no drift in freefall and experienced no wind effect from 2,000ft to 800ft and were setting up to land in the centre of the oval when they dropped into a high ground wind, something they had never experienced before. They were blown backwards over the grandstand and over a built up area. Claude landed in the Mayor's tennis court at the back of his house and Hans landed on a nature strip a block away. The Mayor was driving into his driveway as Claude landed, got out of his car and ran to Claude with a big smile, held out his hand and quipped "Glad you dropped in". Hans was also greeted by a householder and both of them were driven immediately into the Showgrounds where the South Australian Governor, Lieutenant General Sir Edric M. Bastyan, KCMG, KCVO, KBE, CB was waiting to greet them. Later that day, Charl turned up with Bill's car and the three of them returned to Melbourne. The opportunity arose for the Club to share Pakenham with the Victorian Parachute School and on the 27th of October 1961 it moved to Pakenham. Both Charl Stewart and Bill Sparke were builders and the club soon set about building a packing shed and social room on the Pakenham East Airfield. All club members were directed to be at the airfield for two weekends for a working-bee to build the shed. The first weekends were well attended but as the early work was mostly skilled, there was not a lot for them to do. Saturday lunch-time, one of those without anything to do suggested that the unoccupied people could go ice-skating, which they all did. At the end of the day when the manpower was needed to push the walls up, there were few available to help, making it hard work. For a long time, anybody who would not pull their weight with club chores was called an "Ice-Skater". The club packing shed was the first purpose built civilian sport parachuting structure in the country. Later the club acquired two Nissan Huts that were used for campers to doss in during winter. As time went on, the Victorian Parachute School closed and most of its members formed the Victorian Parachute Club. On the 3rd of December 1961, the Club opened a satellite dropzone on the Geelong Common. Alison Baxter made her first jump onto the Common. On the 28th of January 1962, the first Victorian Baton Pass was made when Hans Magnusson took a baton from Claude Gillard. The next day they repeated the performance with Claude taking the baton from Hans, then Charl Stewart, Claude Gillard and Hans Magnusson all made their 100th jump together. The Club organised the 1st Victorian Parachute Championships at Wangaratta over the weekend of 10th 11th of March 1962. This was the first competition in Australia to include a style event and although it included the full style series' even the next Australian Championships included only a half series (Turn - Back-loop - Turn). On the 14th of April 1962, Claude Gillard, Hans Magnusson and Bill Molloy pulled a 3-Way Star formation from the door of a Cessna 185 over Pakenham East dropzone. In September 1962, 2 Commando Co Skydivers invited the club to again participate in the RAAF Air Force Day Air Pageant, performing a mass-drop from a C47 Dakota. The C47 was made available for practice jumps over the weekend prior to the Air Pageant. It took off for 12,500ft as often as the jumpers could fill it and many of the Southern Cross Skydivers members improved their free fall techniques because of the opportunity to iron out problems while the feedback from the previous high altitude jump was still fresh in the minds. The following weekend, the display at Laverton Air Base was a great success. There was some drama when Claude Gillard experienced a line over malfunction and had to throw his reserve. The Laverton Base Officer Commanding sought expert opinion as to whether the parachute malfunction should be reason for denying civilian jumpers permission to jump from military aircraft. Fortunately the expert's report was that such malfunctions could occur to any parachutist and that the emergency had been dealt with by the book. The club was invited each year to jump on RAAF Day at Laverton and sometimes East Sale Air Base until someone at Williamtown Air Base advised the top brass that civilians jumping from military aircraft could be a liability problem and orders came down to can it. Setting up a parachute club in the 60's was a difficult task, to operate economically it was necessary to have sufficient instructors and students to amortise the cost of equipment and taking an aircraft away from whatever was its regular income. This and other pressures brought about the amalgamation of clubs to manage overheads and operations. Just as 1RVR Parachute Club merged with Southern Cross Skydivers, others followed suit. Latrobe Valley Skydivers found a slightly different answer to this situation. They joined Southern Cross Skydivers as a branch and became known as Southern Cross Skydivers - Latrobe Valley sharing the one Chief Instructor. On 28th October 1962 it held its first student jump day. Jim McLean made the clubs first jump on its new dropzone, Latrobe Valley Airfield on the 10th of March 1963. Later, similar arrangements were made with other clubs. At Pakenham on the 17th of February 1963 a triple baton pass was completed by Len Hunter, Ted Harrison, Bill Molloy and Claude Gillard having exited from two aircraft. Victorian Parachute School closed down in mid-1963 and the Victorian Parachute Club came into being in August 1963. When the military decided that there was no tactical need for military parachute clubs, 2 Commando Company Skydivers changed its name to Commando Skydivers, became a civilian club and was welcomed to move from Laverton onto Pakenham airfield. Changing its name to Commando Skydivers, it was to became the biggest skydiving club in Australia. Victoria's first civilian night jumps were held on the 2nd of December 1963 at Edithvale. The first civilian night jumps in Australia were made at Wilton NSW on the 20th off October 1963 On the 30th of January 1964, Southern Cross Skydivers and Newcastle Sport Parachute Club came together at Pakenham to attempt a 5-Way (6 person) Baton Pass (The only previous performance in the world at that time was a 5-Way Baton Pass made by the US Army Golden Knights on a jump from 35,000ft.). This jump was made from a Twin Beech at 13,500ft. The baton was passed from Beryl Blakemore, to Len Hunter, to Andy Keech, to Colin King, to Claude Gillard, to Bill Molloy. This performance remained the best in the world for some years. Photo In February 1964, Charl Stewart and Bill Sparke became aware that every Sunday, both Trans Australia Airlines and Ansett Airways kept a DC-3 aircraft and crew available at Essendon Airport as a standby aircraft in case of mechanical failure to one of their scheduled flights. As it would require more jumpers than could be supplied by any one club to fill the aircraft, the club put a proposition to the Victorian Parachute Council that provided all scheduled flights had departed and the aircraft and crew were available, the Council should hire one of these aircraft as a jump-plane for the rest of the day. The Council agreed and the event was arranged for the 29th of March 1964 and Warren Hutchings was appointed DZSO. All licenced jumpers were invited and there were enough jumpers for two full loads. The first load was ferried to Essendon Airport by wives and girlfriends and the jumpers (geared up, ready to jump) stood in a queue to be issued with boarding passes for the flight from Essendon to Pakenham, then proceeded in single file from the ticket counter to the aircraft that had the door already removed. The flight attendants chose to go along and served tea or coffee and biscuits during the flight. When the aircraft arrived over the dropzone, it was at 12,000ft but so far off the run-in line that it had to go around. Warren Hutchins was spotting and he gave the order from the door to "Go around maintaining height", Claude Gillard relayed this order to Bill Molloy, who was standing in the cockpit doorway relaying to the pilots. Bill relayed the order as "Go around, keep it climbing". In that one circuit the aircraft climbed to 15,000ft and the jumpers left the aircraft in one long stick moving together in small groups as planned, to do their own thing. The spot was good and all landed on the airfield, mostly close to the target. When Warren found out that the jump had been from 15,000ft he was very upset and as DZSO decided that as punishment all jumps for the rest of the day would be from 10,000ft and ruled out all passes over the target at lower altitudes to put out advanced students at their legal exit heights. Southern Cross had a large number of advanced student members and had invited interstate jumpers in this category and having structured their jump runs to accommodate these jumpers, protested the ruling. A disagreement between Warren and Claude about the ruling resulted in the club withdrawing from the event and on future occasions, arranging the same DC-3 jumps at Pakenham as club events after that. This incident put a dent in the close co-operation between the two clubs for some time. In February 1965 the Club sent Claude Gillard, Lennie Hunter and Jimmie Davis to perform at the Hobart Regatta. It was the last of the great Southern Cross Skydivers Display Jumps and it went off with a bang. The Team was so successful that Hobart gave them the status of celebrity pop stars. They were signing autographs until they got on the plane to go home the next day. Southern Cross Skydivers remained at Pakenham until late 1965, when it shifted to Labertouche Sport Parachute Centre. The club maintained its interests at Pakenham for some time after moving to Labertouche but eventually the club building was sold to the Victorian Parachute Club. Without the existence of Victorian Parachute School, Commando Skydivers and Southern Cross Skydivers, Labertouche Sport Parachute Centre would never have existed and we are all grateful to these organisations for the role they played in our history. The Club remained at the Centre until LSPC lost its lease and moved back to Pakenham. While at the Centre the Club was provided with its own building on the dropzone in return for conducting the social aspects for those attending the Centre. The Club was very well run by those who held office. In the beginning, Ron Pearsall was the main driving force and after he moved out of the area, the job of Secretary was taken over by Chris Smith. Unfortunately, most club records were lost when Chris disappeared in the mid 60's and we have not been able to trace the clubs master log of ab initio students from April 1963 when he absconded and the club relied on Labertouche Skydivers master log after that, so all of the events listed here after 1963 are oral history with back up from log books, newspaper clippings and magazines. The Secretary's job was taken over by Tony Hillman, Tug Molony, Steve Filak with Claude Gillard as President until Alex McQuibban became President and later still Roy Taylor took over from him. We are seeking help from those who were Southern Cross Skydivers members to give us information from their log books and pictures from their photo albums. If you have any information, even just first names for those that are missing here it would be appreciated greatly. |
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Original Graphics and website design by Thom Lyons
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