General
Randy Kerr and Bor Korbus made a stack formation using canopies hooked up to fly backwards. They needed five attempts on September the 2nd. The place was Littleton, CO.
The first fatal CRW accident happened during the summer in the USA.
Records
The first official 10-stack was built in Xenia, OH in June. Quite soon the record was broken by jumpers that built an 11-stack during a USPA Boogie in Richmond, IN. They actually completed a 12-stack but it was complete only for 35 seconds. The formation was built by jumpers from Xenia in July.
The next day there were two teams set to break the record on the same DC-3 load. The first to exit were ”Cheap Trick” from Richmond, IN. They built a legal 10-stack. Next came the jumpers from Xenia. They made a legal 12-stack and held it for 1 minute and 41 seconds before it was broken into a 5-stack and a 7-stack. Andy Spurlock’s double wrapping technique apparently injured (broke?) his ankle on this jump.
In Canada, local jumpers built an 8-stack in Sincoe, Ontario in August.
At this time jumpers started making a distinction between stack and plane formations. In Limerick, PA ”The Other People” built two 9-planes. Those jumps were made in September. Before that they had made five 8-planes on their home DZ, Stormville, NY. The first 10-plane was completed in Zephyrhills, FL in November, but it flew only for 56 seconds.
The first 8-stack in South Africa was done in December. The DZ was Oribi airfield. Earlier record was 6-way stack – formed twice before, once at Mooi River and once on the Rand.
Competitions
People were also starting to hold CRW competitions around this time. The first major CRW competition, ”The Pumpkin meet”, was held in Zephyrhills, FL. There was a rotation competition and an 8-way speed stack competition. The competition was held October the 28th to November the 4th. There were eight rotation teams and two 8-way speed teams, all from the US.
In the same competition we saw two unofficial world records. Rotation team ”The Plane Old Folks” made 8 points inside 5 minutes working time and ”Cheap Trick Revival” built an 8-stack in 2 minutes and 58 seconds.