But if you were inclined to read up on the latest techniques in a sport which, even in the US had only been around for about five years, you could turn to this now classic publication.
In fact, Ted Harrison, the founding father of SA sport parachuting, credited the Sellick book as one of the few sources to which he and others referred when they made their almost blind leap from military style static line jumps to the uncharted domain of freefall.
“Skydiving: the art and science of sport parachuting” by Bud Sellick, was first published in 1961 and became, over several re-prints, a must-have reference source.
Sellick, a pioneer of US jumping, wrote and published the book to dispel public misunderstandings of the infant sport and to help novice parachutists.
In his introduction to the 250-page book he noted that sport parachuting was worldwide and as common in some European countries as baseball is in the US.
“Russia, France and Czechoslovakia have developed parachuting into an art and consistently score high in international competition,” he said. Look no further than Lower Light’s Vlasto Zamecnik for confirmation of the Czech content of this observation.
Sellick’s book cannot be under-estimated in what it contributed to public perceptions of skydiving in Australia in the early days. On sale in major bookshops and available in the bigger public libraries, it presented a measured, sensible picture of skydivers.
"Skydiving" featured numerous photographs and graphics, illustrating correct freefall and landing techniques and showing how parachutes were designed, constructed and worked.
This was at a time when virtually all sport equipment was either military surplus or adapted from that basic gear.
A few extracts illustrate the type of gear South Australia’s early jumpers used and how far the sport has come. (Click images to enlarge)
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