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Broadwick - 14

over here." And the thrill of knowing I could drop without having to look out for trees, telephone wires, churches and steeples -- why, it was the nicest thing that ever happened to me!

I was thrilled at the fact that so far, nobody'd ever heard of such a thing, that I was going to be able to do something like that. And of course, this was a success, and I learned to love it -- not as much as my  hot air balloons, but I liked it a great deal.

Q: The plane was at 1000 feet when you jumped?

Broadwick: I think it was a little more than that. I don't know what they said in the papers then, but I think it was over 1000 feet. It was a biplane. The plane was going about 70 miles an hour when I jumped --  not over 75, anyway. I was seated out front on the plane.

I was sitting right beside Martin, on the wing. I had a little seat built on this wing. Glenn sat up here, away from me, and the ailerons were over here and all the wires. I had a little trap seat, that when I was ready to go -- my parachute was folded up underneath that -- when I was ready to go, I reached over here and released this stick and that let me go straight down. That was just about all. There were no strings or anything to fly around and bother anyone. I went straight down and my parachute opened beautifully, and I landed wonderfully, and had my picture taken in a real honest-to-God ground landing on my feet. I was always so proud of that. It's one of my best pictures.

Q: Is it true that Mr. Martin went down with you, swinging his plane around, following you down?

Broadwick: Oh yes. After I made my first jump, whenever we went up, we always circled, went around -- it made it far more interesting.