In 1962 Bill Molloy, Don West and Kathy Henderson were the first team to represent Australia at the 6th World Parachuting Championships at Orange Massachusetts, USA.  Claude Gillard was also a member of the team but did not make it to the world meet because of family commitments.

Claude and Bill were both paratroopers with the Australian Citizens' Military Forces.  Claude with 2 Commando and Bill with 1RVR.

Claude had established Southern Cross Parachutes, a parachute loft and equipment dealership and had joined with Bill Sparke and Charl Stewart to establish Southern Cross Skydivers, a non-profit club. Bill Molloy was one of the first applicants for club membership.

Claude and Bill were firm friends with a common desire to bring sport parachuting to the masses, the  possibility of a partnership to establishing a parachute centre was first discussed over after dinner drinks at the Military and Naval Club one Friday evening.

In 1965, Claude was Chief Instructor of Southern Cross Skydivers and Bill Molloy was his deputy. Although they were both club oriented, having to compete with the social needs of the club to purchase training aids and equipment influenced their decision to establish a commercial dropzone. Australian parachuting was a weekend activity and they dreamed of operating a full time parachute Centre.

The first parachute descents onto the Labertouche airstrip had been made on the 22nd of January 1961  by Claude Gillard and Steve Filak when they made a display jump for a farm day there. They jumped from a Piper Tri-Pacer without the door removed and did ten second delays from 2,000ft (Opening height rules had not been promulgated yet). Gordon Mills was the pilot and later when searching for a dropzone, a meeting was arranged with Horrie Austin, Graham Austin and Gordon Mills of Gippsland Air Charter to use its Cessna 172 VH-GCM as a jumpship and through them they met and negotiated with Jack, Bill and Mary Alcorn to operate their agricultural airstrip at Labertouche as the dropzone.

To put it in perspective, there were very few jumpers in Australia at that time. Most dropzones found it hard to fill even a small aircraft. This was not akin to Parachutes Incorporated in the United States with huge amounts of money invested.  The two partners put in £100 ($200) each and pledged their land titles to obtain loans from the bank and relied on Southern Cross Parachutes to supply the equipment on credit. They retained their connection with Southern Cross Skydivers and over time encouraged it and a number of other clubs to operate at the Centre.

A few weeks of mowing the airstrip, building packing tables, dumping sawdust for the target area, fencing an area beside the hanger to keep the cattle off the ground packing area, building country toilets and grading the track that led from the road to the airfield saw them ready to commence operations and Labertouche Sport Parachute centre was born in early 1965.

Six students participated in the first basic course and most of the experienced jumpers came from the two other Victorian clubs to make it a gala occasion.

The jump prices in 1965 were:
Student jumps including training and gear hire $5.00
Jumpers with their own rig: 3,300ft $1.50  6,800ft $3.00
Training jumps for the Port Pirie Nationals were; Accuracy $1.00, Style $3.00.
All separate runs.

At the time the Centre was established, aircraft ownership was an impossible dream and so aircraft were hired according to need.

Southern Cross Skydivers' members enjoyed their visit to Labertouche on the opening day and six months later decided that the club should move there.  The club's building at Pakenham was sold to the Victorian Parachute Club and Southern Cross Skydivers then operated at Labertouche until the Centre closed.

The Centre provided the facilities, Labertouche Skydivers conducted aircraft operations and training. Southern Cross Skydivers conducted the social activities in a purpose built building provided by the Centre.

In October, a 100 year old cottage built of large wooden slabs and located four kilometres north of the DZ was opened as the Centre's overnight accommodation and catering facility. A place to take cover and eat one of Jean Gillard's huge steaks. The jumpers named the cottage “Slab Lodge”.

Early in December full time operations commenced and interstate teams took advantage of the facilities to practice for the Australian Championships which were to be conducted at Port Pirie, South Australia over the Christmas/New Year holiday period. The Winning Team, Queensland; (Jim Cox, Murray Cosson and Bob Morrison) trained at Labertouche, as did West Australians, Danny Wright, Bob Stafford, Lew Ayres, David Lock, Bernie Brosnan and South Australian, Bruce Bond; together with a swag of Victorians. Over the training period, Jim Cox cut 1.5 seconds off his style time and many others reduced their style times by a second or more.

About this time, Sport Parachuting in Australia was transitioning from "Touch and Go" relative work (baton passes) to link-ups and was about to take a leap forward in to the building of 4-Man and then 10-Man stars. After that, the only real impediment to progress was the lack of larger aircraft to lift more jumpers to altitude.

The full time parachuting operation was ahead of its time and proved to be unprofitable. Few people were prepared to jump midweek and the cost of staff, pilots, instructors and other overheads were too high to be recovered from the cash turnover. Bill Molloy's broken leg at the Port Pirie Nationals forced Claude and Bill to face up to the financial disadvantages of a full time operation and they went back to weekend jumping and filled in the weekdays conducting a number of full time mid-week courses for Instructors, Riggers and Judges backed up by training camps prior to major competitions and what are today called "Boogies". They gave them names like "Labertouche Spectacular" and "Team Jumpathon". Later the Centre was also used as the location for a number of film ventures.

During 1966 the Alcorn Family offered the use of an old house on Labertouche Road to replace Slab Lodge, which was two miles from the dropzone. The Centre prepared it for use as a jumpers retreat and as it was on the planned track into the airfield, it was called the Gatehouse. The planned track never did get completed because building a bridge to cross a large drainage ditch was a daunting task that always had a more urgent project and when the farmer upgraded the initial track from the side entrance it became even less important but it was still known as the Gatehouse until the Centre left the property.

In 1967 Bill Molloy volunteered for service in the Vietnam Conflict and made arrangements with Claude to continue his participation in the Centre when he returned.  Bill served as a Company Commander in Vietnam and on his return to Australia in 1968 was offered the post of CO of the Army Parachute Training School if he joined the Regular Army. He accepted the offer but died as a passenger in a car accident a few weeks later, leaving Claude as the sole proprietor of the Centre.

There were a number of Clubs that chose to operate at the Centre and contract the student training to Labertouche Skydivers.  Amongst them:

Southern Cross Skydivers

Monash University Skydivers

Melbourne University Skydivers

Swinburne College Skydivers

Eagle Skydivers

ParaSport

This poster was displayed in all Melbourne suburban train carriages

By 1968 the Centre had grown to three aircraft operating each weekend and in excess of 7,000 jumps per year. Not very impressive by today's standards but the largest sport parachuting operation in Australia at that time.

The same year a British Army Team, The Peregrines, decided to enter the Australian Parachute Championships expecting to practice with the Australian Army at Williamtown, NSW.

However, the Australian Army were not conducting parachuting operations at the time, so the Team Leader, Major Robin Letts, decided to conduct the team's training camp at Labertouche, the site of the Championships. After the meet, on their return home to the UK, letters were printed in the BPA magazine "Sport Parachutist" followed at the end of the year by another article from the Singapore chapter of the Joint Services Sport Parachute Association that competed in the 1968 Labertouche Cup gave the Centre a worldwide reputation as a "Happy Dropzone". A place where the emphasis on fun gave way only to the emphasis on safety.

Major Robin Letts later transferred to the Australian Army as CO of the Parachute Training School and put in place a co-operative program between military and civilian parachuting.

The Centre was approached by students from Monash University to help in the formation of a university skydiving club. Claude negotiated with the Monash University Union Warden and Monash Skydivers was born.

In an effort to create a University Parachuting League,  Melbourne University was approached and Melbourne University Parachute Club came into being.

The University of Southern Queensland took part in a Inter-University competition at Labertouche in 1969 but the university clubs did not follow up on the idea of a university league.

On the 22nd March 1969 the Centre organised its first night jumps. The Department of Civil Aviation was still imposing harsh regulation on anything out of the ordinary and would not accept any of the regular pilots to fly night parachuting operations and Mr. Lindsay, a Department Inspector of Aviation, was considerate enough to pilot the aircraft. The exit point was over the local hall and tennis club, so the lights at the tennis courts were turned on, making it easy to recognise the exit point.

In the beginning, the Centre used army drill halls in Melbourne to conduct the ab-initio training on Thursday and Friday nights, followed by training on Saturday and Sunday before selecting which students could make their first jump on Sunday afternoon. 

Later, it opened an office and large training hall on Park Street, South Melbourne, a stone's throw from the Shrine of Remembrance, close to the central business district of Melbourne. Training was carried out on Thursday nights in Park Street and then continued at the dropzone on the weekend, with students making their first jump as the course instructor decided they were ready.

Most students were ready to jump by Saturday afternoon, some trained through until Sunday and others who did not reach the required standard (about 2%) would be required to come back the next week to the following course. A small percentage of these never did reach the standard and if they failed a third course were told that parachuting was not something that they should be considering as a pastime. Much later when tandem jumps became possible, the few people who got to this stage were given their choice of a tandem jump or no jump at all.

Bill Molloy volunteered to serve in Vietnam and extended his stay more than the normal one year tour there. On his return, Bill was given the opportunity to join the regular army and have his majority confirmed. He was also offered command of the military parachute school. He discussed this with Claude and it was agreed that Bill would opt out of the Centre to pursue his military options. Before Bill could take up the posting, he was killed in a car accident on the way home from a Queensland dropzone and Claude became the sole owner of the Centre.

From the beginning, the Centre took on the role of coaching the more advanced jumpers who excelled in their field. Amongst them: Shane Sparkes, Tony Curl, Tony Duckworth, Julie Ward, Robin Rose, Wendy Rose, John Fraser, Jim (Jock) Moir, Rod Wilson, Colin Holt, Richard McCooey, Janine Hayes, Tony Hillman, Roy Taylor, Natalie Faine, Robin Judge, Robyn Philips, Dave Badyk and many other achievers who have become household names in Australian sport parachuting.

The Centre continued as Australia's premier skydiving Mecca for many years but as skydiving grew, Claude's honorary work as president of the Australian Parachute Federation and other aviation bodies took up an increasing amount of his time, and he scaled down the first jump student operation so that it could be handled more easily by his loyal instructional crew while he spent most of each week running the Federation office and an increasing amount of time travelling interstate and overseas to represent Australian skydiving.

Labertouche was known for its professional and cheerful environment, tight regulation coupled with fair discipline, Gatehouse jumping, Jean Gillard's good tucker, Claude's intolerance of drug users and as a place to have fun with like spirits, whether jumping or filling-in downtime.

Five Australian Parachute Championships were held at Labertouche. The exploits of Australian jumpers like Bruce Towers, Danny Wright, Roy Marker, Trevor Burns, Jim and Faye Cox, Susie Carnell, Dave McEvoy, Bob Morrison, Leigh Witheridge and overseas visitors such as: Loy Brydon, Susie Rademakers,  George Goetzke, Gus Gutshall, Hal Fostervold, Bob, Candy and Sonny Ranney, Denny Clarke, John Clark and Jock Yule are all gems in Australian parachuting's ledger domain.

Most jumpers drove to the Centre on Friday night or early Saturday morning and spent the weekend jumping and left on Sunday night.  Following a tradition started by the Victorian Parachute School in 1960, the staff ate together in a hotel in Berwick and later at restaurants that had a big enough table to seat everybody on the way home on Sunday night.

As the numbers grew to where there was insufficient space at the Gatehouse to cater for everybody, the jumpers who ate at the gatehouse on Saturday nights no longer partied there but adjourned immediately after dinner to the Longwarry Pub to join those who had eaten at the pub. They had a large room at the hotel reserved for them and they partied until midnight.  The numbers grew so large that the hotel would fill all rooms and have people sleeping in every nook and cranny in the pub.

On the 6th of August 1970 Labertouche Skydivers was featured on GTV-9's In Melbourne Tonight program. Featured were: John Blackley, Gene Birmingham, John Parker and Russell Jones.

On the 24th of April 1971 a Scottish Twin Pioneer (VH-AIS) was available at the Centre and did two loads, one to 11,000ft and one to 14,000ft.  As it was only available on that one day, it was treated as a novelty and no great advantage was gained from its presence.

By 1972, the Centre had a large number of "Fun Jumpers" performing relative work and a team was organised to attend the unofficial World Relative Work Meet in Masterton, New Zealand.  A number of visiting teams came to the Centre to practice for the international meet and on the weekend prior to the Masterton meet a number of gamblers started a card game called "In Between".  There were some big losers and one of the staff was unable to attend the meet after losing the money saved for the trip in the card game. 

Scratch Garrison, a leading American Relative Work Tutor, called by the Centre on his way home from the Masterton Meet and he and Claude spent a day at the Gatehouse comparing their Relative Work Training Syllabi.  As a result, 'no contact' relative work (take up a position in a formation and hold it without touching each other) was introduced at the Centre as part of its Table of Relative Work Training Jumps. 

The first record of a sequential relative work jump at the Centre was a 5-Way Butterfly to a Maltese Cross on February 2nd 1975.  Jumpers were: Gary Aberdeen, Jim Simmonds, Robin Rose, Wendy Rose and Tony Curl.

On the 10th of May 1972, Bob Courtenay and John Parker took part in the "Monash University Skydivers' Jumpathon" at the Centre.  The record at that time was 50 jumps in one day, set by Ted Harrison at Wilton, NSW.  Bob and John each carried out 52 jumps between 0648 hours and 1730 hours, setting and sharing a new record.

In 1981?, when the last of the two Alcorn brothers died, the executor of the two wills was a local farmer and he maintained the close bond between the family and the skydivers. Two years later, for reasons unknown, a new executor of the will was appointed who considered that the parachuting operation detracted from the value of the farm and he informed the Centre that when the current lease expired, the Centre must go. The day after the lease expired a fence was built across the airstrip and soon after that the "Gatehouse" was bulldozed.

Claude purchased a property at Shady Creek, about 20 kilometres further along the Gippsland Highway.  The dropzone was christened by Colin Holt, Tim Cousins, Adam Williams, Ross Barstow and John Chapman on the 17th of July 1983 but the DZ was lost after a three year battle with town planners to establish a sport aviation centre there. 

In the knowledge that it would be moving, Labertouche Skydivers became Eagle Skydivers (to take advantage of the well known image of its display team) and eventually migrated to Pakenham to sub-let the old Southern Cross Skydivers building from Commando Skydivers, (Commandos had inherited the building from the Victorian Parachute Club) and the Labertouche jumpers enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship with Commando Skydivers at Pakenham until all avenues for another dropzone were exhausted.

Not having the Gatehouse for accommodation at Pakenham, Eagle Skydivers put the duty staff and pilots into a motel on the highway for Saturday nights and many of the jumpers would also stay at the same motel - the motel was a very lively place on those nights.

During the stay at Pakenham, George Creecy was contracted to carry out the Accelerated Freefall training and John Chapman was contracted to operate the Tandem operation.

In November 1987, after losing the town planning battle at Shady Creek, Claude grew impatient with the search for a new dropzone and sold the aircraft and parachuting equipment to retire and follow his love of sport parachuting as an honorary administrator.