The Formative Years

My essential need for speed, that incredible sensation of blurred motion, was nurtured early in life.

My father's shoestring relation by marriage, Carl Sisskind, along with my grandfather, Harvey Lippincott, landed a Cessna 172 unannounced on State Highway 14 in front of our house one warm, sunny Sunday in February 1955. They taxied into our yard and before Carl left he had convinced my parents to let a five-year-old boy and his seven-year-old brother Jerry make a 70-mile return flight to Kearney, Nebraska. Carefully hoisted into the backseat, my brother Jerry and I were buckled in. Carl did his run-up in the driveway and then taxied toward the highway as my parents watched from the yard. When he was sure that the road was clear of traffic, he rolled onto the two-lane blacktop, and we took off to the north, away from the power lines.

We accelerated at a fantastic rate and when it seemed we could go no faster, we began to float in the air. My heart raced with the increase in altitude; it was fantastic! I couldn't take in everything at first in the three-dimensional adventure. The view from above was so unusual that I wanted more. From a bird's-eye view, I recognized most of the neighboring countryside. I had just "slipped the surly bonds of earth," for the very first time! This adventure remains one of my most memorable and life altering to this day.

The big blue Midwestern sky was clear of clouds, and the wind was calm. My nose was riveted to the plexiglass window on the left side in the back seat behind the pilot-in-command. It was truly exciting to see how small the cars on the highway appeared and that the farmhouses and barns all seemed miniaturized but still very real. The topography was laid out in an organized fashion and the roads stretched like guitar strings to the horizon. The rolling incredible vast expanse of farmland patchwork was the very essence of the Midwest. From my seat, I believed that I could see the "whole world" as never before. It looked more like a giant sized 3-D map of infinite dimensions.

At that moment the seed of flight was planted in me. I knew that someday I would take flight as the sole pilot at the controls. In less than the one hour that the trip took, I was captivated by the idea of aviation and all things related. The fact that my older brother was throwing up in the seat next to me did nothing to dampen my experience.

I remember my grandfather turning around in his seat, smiling with satisfaction and patting my knee with his huge warm but soft hand. Then our cross-country flight came to an abrupt halt when we started our descent to the airport. The airplane seemed to stand still when at altitude, but closer to the ground, I could tell that we were moving very fast. Then I saw the runway approaching as a blur; seconds later, I heard the sound of the tires chirping as they first touched the concrete. The ride was over but, my brain was still cataloging all the new information: The view, the machine, the pilot's effortless actions, the sensations of acceleration, flotation, and seemingly motionless, just sitting in the air. Wow, that was a lot to take in for a five-year-old.

After we had landed in Kearney, Harvey and Carl drove us to the Greyhound Bus Depot in the back of a red 1950 Studebaker pickup truck. We were deposited there after lunch to wait for the next bus that would take us back to Central City. Alone and unsupervised, we were still in a state of overwhelming amazement and giddy excitement. To experience my first airplane and a bus ride at age five wasn't bad for a Sunday in Nebraska! That was truly exciting stuff and the genesis of my unending desire for exploration and adventure — a voyage that has lasted a lifetime.

In October 1957, I stood in my pitch-dark yard looking up at the night sky and got my first glimpse of the Russian satellite, Sputnik, as it crossed the Milky Way slightly to the south from West to East. It was awe-inspiring! I will never forget the way my realization of a manmade 23-inch sphere in orbit made me feel and the fact that we could hear it beeping on our radio. How could a gadget launched from Earth look like a star and stay in the sky night after night? Although Sputnik only continued to circle the earth for the next three months, it crossed the night sky every 93 minutes and was traveling at a colossal rate of 18,000 mph. This was the beginning of the space age, and it was like nothing man had previously embraced. It was thrilling, and I wanted to be part of it. I started hyperextending my neck as a kid, looking up at fluffy clouds, airplanes, contrails, and nighttime satellites. I was, as many had been before me, fascinated with flight.

America responded to the launch of the infamous Russian satellite. Werner Von Braun, the Father of Rocket Science, was employed by the United States Government to help us gain an edge in our ballistic missile design. Tasked by President Kennedy, we fully embraced the Space Race and were right in the middle of the Cold War.

On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy stood before Congress and proclaimed that "this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

My personal parachuting journey actively started at a very tender age on the top tier of my father's windmill, just below the large galvanized weathervane. I fabricated small parachutes for various qualified feline candidates, climbed the imposing metal structure to the top, deployed my little unauthorized experiments, and watched them oscillate safely to the ground. It was great fun, and most of them opened nicely. Occasionally there was a water landing in the horse tank if the wind was particularly squirrelly or the "volunteer" did not cooperate fully. I would repeat the effort with different sizes, weights, and shapes of parachutes, each time making a careful note of the particular performance. These efforts occupied many hours of my youth, and I learned basic aeronautical principles by trial and error.

Others I learned by accident, such as being thrown from a speeding three-wheeler into a wet reed-filled ditch on the way to school when I was in the second grade. My older brother was driving and accidentally flipped the scooter on the gravel road near our one-room country schoolhouse. This happened immediately following my climbing around Jerry (while underway) from the unauthorized "jump-seat" position, over the steering wheel, and into the front cargo box. It was the first time that I was ejected through the air for any distance.

Some principles were learned from observation. At school, the older student Aaron Petersen constructed a fantastic hand-made kite and left it tied to a fence post at recess. When school was dismissed, it was still hovering patiently in the sky. Kites definitely had a place in my quiver of activities. Aaron also demonstrated the fantastic whirling nature of a short wooden lath launched through the air and its unusual buzzing sound. All of these cumulative exposures laid the groundwork for my propensity toward freefall.

At age 13 I tried "distance jumping" on my red bike in our long gravel driveway at home. With each effort, I tried to improve my airborne distance and speed. Halfway up the narrow but stout plank, I ran off the side and smashed directly into the massive unmovable stump the board was resting on. The front wheel was crushed all the way into the hub. Spokes were bent and broken, and the wheel rendered useless. The result was additional freefall time but, that adventure ended in a very painful displaced right wrist fracture as well as a mangled bike. I was given a general anesthetic to set the fracture, but it took several days to pick the embedded rocks out of the skin on my back. And no, I had not been wearing a shirt! The old plaster cast sure dampened any fun I would have had at summer camp that season. Over the years, I have used that injury, in addition to both fractured collar bones, as an excuse for my poor cursive penmanship.

During my youth, I became fascinated with building and flying balsa model airplanes that I made from scratch. They were both glider and gas-powered with the Cox .049, the standard size gas engine that fit my budget. It was wonderfully intense, made for meticulous work, and instilled a sense of mechanical and aeronautical aptitude in me. When not on a mission, these treasures hung from the ceiling in my bedroom as incentives and constant reminders of what lay ahead for me. And yes, I watched and was inspired by the old black and white TV shows of both Sky King and Ripcord. The dreamer in me believed that one day, I would pilot a real plane and jump with a parachute ... a long way off but how thrilling that would be!

I always sought adventure and thrills on the farm even if it was pretend. In my enthusiasm for all things aeronautical, I constructed a full-sized rolling plywood cockpit simulator in the barn. I equipped it with various discarded dials, gauges, and control levers that made up the instrument panel and throttle quadrant for my "realistic" simulator. The single ejection seat was an interchangeable inverted empty five gallon can; no seatbelt or shoulder harness was required. No need for power, fuel, flight manual, or a windscreen as my imagination took care of all of that for me. Yes, it was the first F-22 Raptor — way ahead of its time. The simulator was so realistic that, years later, my little brother told me he believed that it was no kidding "fully operational."

My first combined solo flight and freefall occurred in 1964 when I was 15. A harrowing experience of being violently dislodged off my Honda 150 motorcycle put me in freefall, near "terminal" velocity. A massive Chrysler New Yorker slammed into me at 65 mph. It would have maimed or killed a "normal" person, but God intervened in this truly supernatural event! This "jump" has gone unlogged for well over 50 years and like Luke Aikin, no parachute was required. Neither was it my first nor last closed-head injury; some were due to excessive speed, some to inattention, and some to contact sports.

At 16, I was a licensed student pilot of my father's airplane that could easily exceed 120 mph. At 18, I continued to push the envelope when test driving a Norton motorcycle that easily did an honest 140 mph on the local blacktop. Fortunately, my parents did not recognize the blur when I unexpectedly passed them in the opposite direction on the two-lane highway in broad daylight! I was only testing the water as my father had done at my age.

My earliest truly exciting organized adventure was an actual unimpeded (intentional this time) freefall at age 19. The jump was a coup d'état for me! Later, I realized that this experience was my first genuine love — perhaps even an obsession. Candidly, I didn't care about anything else. Most likely this was because it was my first quantitatively predictable exposure to the natural drug — adrenalin. I could live, eat, and breathe skydiving! Freefall was my genuine passion. I remember my brother Jerry being frequently perturbed with me because all I ever talked about was skydiving! I had expectations of standup landings, my first valid benchmark of 100 total jumps, opening a private drop zone (DZ), and holding multiple skydiving records. For example, the number of jumps in a 24-hour period (which currently is an unbelievable 640 held by Jay Stokes), the highest altitude, and any other esoteric concoction that I could fathom. Any hard earned money spent on skydiving was summarily justified. All I wanted to do was to hurl my body, from some form of an airship, at most any altitude, toward the ground.

There's no way to defy gravity. Falling or climbing - it's always the pull that makes the activity worthwhile. To me, gravity provides contrast to the most important task, finding the levity to remain happy while you're scared, to remain smart when there's danger and remain excited when faced with so many unknown factors. To exercise a very tiny amount of control while being aware that full control is totally beyond your capability and purpose — that's when I feel the lightest! Gravity will just keep pulling on me, but I think that's just a reminder to let something within me float....

— Abbey Leroux and Bill Voelker

I had an innate desire to jump and loved freefall — the more, the better; the higher, the better; the faster, the better. My father gave his permission for me to start jumping, and his enthusiastic support of skydiving and facilitation through his piloting our very own jump aircraft, runway, and DZ acted as my springboard. The summer of 1969 was truly my time of exploration.

In those early years, I made mistakes and had some close calls but survived my clumsy efforts. Completely unlicensed and unsupervised, I even jumpmastered my 15-year-old brother for his first static line jump with my father's consent. After all, Dad was flying the airplane, so it had to be alright! These were the pioneering years of the sport. However, it was a different story when my mother discovered our little illicit soirée. Of course, I have always lived by the adage that it is easier to "ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission." We were family and always tried to stay within the law, have a splendid time, and even entertained some neighbors along the way.

Fear Is My Friend

Skydiving is primarily a mental activity with the laws of gravity thrown in for good measure while fear and panic are close brothers. The first must be controlled to contain the second. Fear in skydiving is essential, and it can be a real motivator. Without apprehension, you don't develop a healthy respect for the sport and, therefore, longevity in the activity. Fear keeps you safe. The dread of serious real consequences helps focus the mind on the details. Specific principles, that when left unattended, can and have led to injury and death. Trepidation will prompt you to read fatality reports, because the same mistakes are committed over and over, only the players change. To err, after all, is part of the human condition. Ironically, panic has absolutely no room in parachuting and specifically in freefall. Conversely, you must never become complacent but rather walk a fine line between the two. Like scuba diving, you must plan the dive and dive the plan! The inner persona of skydiving transcends the fear of falling or potential injury. It is not necessarily a macho thing.

To understand and conquer fear, you must first acknowledge that you have it. You need to accept it not only as reality but also as a natural emotion, but one that is controllable. Since I had already experienced a prior worst-case-scenario with my motorcycle and was willing to improve on that, I was prepared to give my full measure. I had no problem moving on with absolute confidence and without distraction. I believed that I was potentially just as capable as anyone else! If others could perform the specialized task, then so could I!

Starting with small experiences (like indoor skydiving for example), you can build on that and increase self-confidence. My initial static line jumps and those that followed helped my confidence grow. They aided in the transition from the "normal" world to the transient interruption of gravity during freefall. Then, with repetition, I developed muscle memory, so if an emergency occurred, my automatic reaction would be pure reflex. Ground school and mock-up practice make for both mental and muscle memory, helping you safely work through any anxious moments.

Anxiety is much like the anticipation of fear, only not as intense; it is often manifested as "butterflies in your stomach." One may find comfort in activities of repetition, and overcome apprehension, but first, you must "get your mind right." President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed the subject of fear in his first inaugural address:

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is ... fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

The study of fear in humans has shown that it can be overcome with proper training and desire. Learned fear can be reversed by repeating a positive result over and over, thus overwriting the bad memory. It is easier to overcome a fear of falling when you learn and accept skydiving at a young age. I didn't know any better, and that comfort level and attitude never wore off.

Recently; I had an unexpected "fearful" experience at home in Scottsdale, Arizona, while walking back from the community swimming pool. I was in my swimsuit with only a towel over my shoulder when I heard an ominous rapidly approaching buzzing noise. A massive, unprovoked swarm of bees was headed right for me. Somehow I remembered what a beekeeper had told me only a month earlier. He said that bees sense fear (the natural chemical release of adrenalin) and aggressively respond to it. As long as I was not afraid of the imminent onslaught, and above all did not run, I would not be stung. I slowed to a stop, stood still, shut my mouth, closed my eyes, kept my arms at my side, and slowly started to exhale and relax. I was instantly enveloped by the massive swarm. In mere seconds, though it seemed much longer, the swarm of stingers "the black wind" cleared me, and the sound faded as quickly as it had appeared. With swim trunks as my only attire, I controlled my fear and was rewarded. After "swimming" in a sea of bees, I was not stung once!