Chris Bickerdike's Skydiving Artwork

Chris Bickerdike was a US Army Parachute Rigger in the very early '80's, and an avid Raeford skydiver. If I'm not mistaken, he was one of the first CRW dogs at Raeford. I never met him - his time at Raeford was well before mine. I only knew of him from friends and co-workers, and talked to him on the phone on one occasion when he called my first unit looking for a job.

Chris has a lot of artistic talent, and had many skydiving drawings depicting jumpers with huge smiles on their faces. I know Ted Strong used some of Chris' work in his tandem manual at one point - maybe he still does.

I have attached one of Chris' drawings that I stumbled across last week. Does anyone have any more? It would be cool to collect them here in this post for posterity.

I have a poster Chris made for Metroplex Skydivers while he was living at the drop zone in Decatur, TX in 1982 but am too tech challenged to upload a picture of it.

I have the DZO's ph# from the now defunct Skydive San Antonio. He may have some of Chris' work.........

Chris designed the artwork for the SD San Antonio T-shirts..... awesome work..... I started flying there a couple years after Chris.... blue skies

Buck

We have that graphic on our Tandem Gift Certificates.

What a surprise to see Chris' name pop up after all these years. I was one of those early CRW dogs with Chris at Raeford along with a few others.

It's a long shot, but does anyone know how to get in touch with Chris' parents or any family members. If I recall, his family lived in San Antonio, Texas. His log book and log book bag was an art collection in itself. He illustrated many of his jumps in his log book. He's got me in their doing a 2 stack with him. Good luck and happy hunting.

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What a surprise to see Chris' name pop up after all these years. I was one of those early CRW dogs with Chris at Raeford along with a few others.

It's a long shot, but does anyone know how to get in touch with Chris' parents or any family members. If I recall, his family lived in San Antonio, Texas. His log book and log book bag was an art collection in itself. He illustrated many of his jumps in his log book. He's got me in their doing a 2 stack with him. Good luck and happy hunting.

PS - I did a white pages search on just his last name in Texas and, in the phone book at least, there are only 13 people listed. A couple were in the age range to be a brother or sister. 3 are in San Antonio.

I'm happy to say Bickerdike was a bud back in the early 80s. I have several log entries where he either drew something related to a dive I did with or without him. Some were strange dives, like the time I got my 28mm lens and went out hooked up with him while he was attached to a D bag static line! Here are the first five.

Picture five was the photo I took that is depicted in the type of dive in picture four. There's a print from a Kodachrome slide attached to the log entry of four.

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And, of course, this one.

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I'm happy to say Bickerdike was a bud back in the early 80s. ]


Following this thread has left me confused.
is Chris B still with us ????


bozo

bozo
Pain is fleeting. Glory lasts forever. Chicks dig scars.

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is Chris B still with us ????

No. He died in a skydiving accident in the mid-1980's. I'm not sure of the exact year - surely someone will elaborate.

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No. He died in a skydiving accident in the mid-1980's. I'm not sure of the exact year - surely someone will elaborate

Chris was still recovering from his self described achievement of becoming "Ground Plane #1". (Survived landing a down plane) He was jumping in cold weather with heavy gloves and a CAST on one arm. He went in San Antonio with nothing out. Took out part of a house too.

The attached photo is a shot of a drawing he did on a dry eraser board. It's me putting students out on rounds at Metroplex Parachute Center in Decatur, Texas. It's a classic, and I'm glad I photographed it.

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No. He died in a skydiving accident in the mid-1980's. I'm not sure of the exact year - surely someone will elaborate

Chris was still recovering from his self described achievement of becoming "Ground Plane #1". He was jumping in cold weather with heavy gloves and a CAST on one arm. He went in in San Antonio with nothing out. Took out part of a house too.

Thanks guys. I was hoping that wasnt the case.
I remember the story now....the gloves were the reminder.

bozo

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No. He died in a skydiving accident in the mid-1980's. I'm not sure of the exact year - surely someone will elaborate

Chris was still recovering from his self described achievement of becoming "Ground Plane #1". (Survived landing a down plane) He was jumping in cold weather with heavy gloves and a CAST on one arm. He went in San Antonio with nothing out. Took out part of a house too.

The attached photo is a shot of a drawing he did on a dry eraser board. It's me putting students out on rounds at Metroplex Parachute Center in Decatur, Texas. It's a classic, and I'm glad I photographed it.

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The story I got was that Chris had a total and the combination of his cast and the ski gloves prevented him from deploying his reserve. He went through the roof of a house into the living room where a guy was kicked back on his couch listening to his stereo.

Sad, but true. Chris died in either late '86 or early '87. I have his incident report from Parachutist in my log book somewhere. I also have the report from the Stars & Stripes newspaper. But I didn't write the date on them. Oddly, I learned about his death when I walked into work one morning in Germany while in the Army. One of my men handed me the Stars & Stripes newspaper and asked me, "Hey, Sarge. Did you know this guy?" I was a little shocked. It was a one paragraph obituary about Chris' death and military service. Since the Stars & Stripes isn't distributed in the US, most of the skydiving community didn't know that his death was literally reported around the world to every base and ship outside the US.
Sad, but I felt honored to have been his friend and found it only fitting that the world should know of his passing. I know when I go, a million people won't read about it.

Chris was still recovering from his self described achievement of becoming "Ground Plane #1". (Survived landing a down plane) He was jumping in cold weather with heavy gloves and a CAST on one arm. He went in San Antonio with nothing out. Took out part of a house too.



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