William H Bailey

Blind Spots William H Bailey

In 1960 I dropped out of my sophomore year at University of New Mexico to volunteer for three years with the 101st Airborne. Due to the superb professionalism of the training standard and the outstanding leadership we experienced there my fellow troopers and I survived the Cuban Missile Crisis along with a few other heart stopping threats. Some of us learned to skydive, and I for one was hooked but good. When I returned to Albuquerque to complete a BA at UNM, I joined the fledgling Falling Angels Sport Parachute Club that consisted of a handful of fellow skydiving fools. There were fewer than a dozen of us in all of New Mexico at the time. We were able to build on that small number, and establish a stable base for skydiving to become the vibrant sport of today. Over the next twenty years a few of us went barnstorming all over the Southwest. In 1964 for example we participated in an Air Show at the Gallup, NM airport, met Chuck Yeager, and had him sign our log books. I was fortunate to skydive in Panama, Mexico, and Canada, as well as many other of these United States when the sport was young. In 1967 I competed in the Mexican National Parachuting Championships where a friend and I won the team accuracy event. There were both hysterically humorous events, and exciting, at times even terrifying, experiences. The author has done his best to put them into readable form. You can't have better fun with your clothes on than I did, so I hope you enjoy reading this book even half as much as I did living it.