Jumping Russians

The stubby little biplane leveled off at 5,000 ft. over the tawny fields of Burgundy. In the rear cockpit, a Russian parachutist carefully checked his equipment. When he spotted a white chalk cross on the ground below, he stepped off into space. For 20 seconds he fell free. Then his nylon chute blossomed overhead and he began to drift downwind, past his target. Tugging skillfully at his suspension lines, he spilled air from his chute and slipped back toward the cross. He touched down only four yards short of the mark.

"That Russian was playing on his chute like an organist," marveled a pop-eyed observer at the Second International Parachute Jumping Championships of Saint-Yan last week. "Eto Nichevo," shrugged the jumper. "It was nothing. Everyone on my team can do it."

Everyone could. The suspicious, humorless Soviet crews arrived in France festooned with "secret" instruments (i.e., stopwatches, portable altimeters, audio-timers that would sound a warning buzz in time to pull the ripcord, safety devices for opening chutes automatically at minimum altitude). They brought along three political tutors: an army colonel, an interpreter and a Tass correspondent. They haggled endlessly over procedure, spent two hours on the ground discussing a maneuver in the air. But they put on an exhibition of fine precision jumping that won them the championship with ease. In second place: the Czechs. Third: the French defending champions. Among the also-rans: Switzerland, Britain, the U.S., Italy and Yugoslavia.

Relatively new as an excuse for international competition, parachute jumping is too full of spine-jerking thrills ever to become a popular pastime. But the careful jumpers in Burgundy last week seemed set on proving that a dive into empty air need be no more dangerous than a snappy game of table tennis.

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