History of Maytown Sport Parachute Club

- By "Handsome" Dave Dewolf

In 1968, I transferred to the VA Out-Patient Clinic in Harrisburg from the VA Hospital in Philadelphia. In those days the weekend jumping was either at the York Club or United. The club at Riegel Field in Palmyra was also jumping on the weekends and on Wednesday evenings. So everybody around here jumped on Wednesday evenings at Palmyra. The Club was called the Falling Stars. One day a man came up to me (Carl Miller) and said some skydivers were starting a club at the Donegal airport and they jumped Tuesdays and Thursdays during the week. They had about a 6 meter pea gravel pit (accuracy was big at that time). The club was called “The Flying Dutchman”. It had been started at Garden Spot Airport (not there anymore) and had moved to the Maytown area since the airport would supply the plane and the pilots. It was a real nice Cessna 180 (222D) and this worked out good for the club.  The people who started the club at Garden Spot, that I remember, were Jay harsh and John Hendricks. Carl lived in Columbia some place. Carl was quite a guy. He put a pea gravel pit in his backyard and he owed a Cessna which his wife could fly also. After work every day that we were not jumping at the airport, they would drive over there and Eddie would drop him out.  In any case, they were the good old days since now you could jump 5 days a week…