30 PARACHUTE DESCENTS

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28372, 3 September 1957, Page 2

30 PARACHUTE DESCENTS

Record Of Woman Instructor ( [BP SUSAN VAUGHAN) LONDON. Almost any Sunday, at a Cobham airfield, Surrey, you might see a young woman floating down out of the sky. Her name is Sue Burges and she is Britain’s first and only woman parachute instructor. On week days, Miss Burges, aged 22, works as a shorthandtypist in a London office no more than 50ft above the ground. At week-ends she flies 2000 to 3000 ft above ground to make jumps by parachute. Miss Burges is Irish-born, tall and slender, with dark hair and large blue eyes. She merely jumps for joy, because she finds it “so wonderfully exhilarating.”

It is expensive, too.' You need about £l5 for equipment—boots, flying suit, helmet, gloves, stopwatch. And each jump costs 30s or more.

Miss Burges saves her pocketmoney carefully for week-end parachuting and has now made nearly 30 descents. Only very

occasionally is she likely to be paid for jumping at a big air show, and she finds the sport so costly that she cannot afford to insure herself.

But she prefers parachutejumping to any other sport. She took it up a year ago after she had become a qualified gliderpilot and is now one of 40 members of the British Parachute Club.

Her favourite jump? The one she has enjoyed most was made over the sea; she landed in the water off the coast near Clacton. But her proudest moment was when she jumped recently for Prince Philip during his visit to an airfield. Afterwards, he had a long chat with her.