During the early 1960's, there was little knowledge of sport parachuting in Australia.   Claude Gillard searched the world for the written word on the subject.   In the beginning he was restricted to English speaking countries and the great bulk of what he found was in the USA and Canada.   In Lyle Cameron's "Skydiver" magazine he found an article on the "Deflecto-Spill" capability of the C-9 with a "TU" modification.     The patent was held by Loy Brydon and so Claude wrote to Loy asking for information on the use of the "Deflecto-Spill" method.    To paraphrase the correspondence, part of it went like this:

Claude:    "How do I use deflecto-spill to obtain better accuracy results?"

Loy:        "Approach the target downwind using the toggles as a braking and directional tools"

Claude got the gist of it the first time he tried it.   Everybody at Pakenham was amazed at the efficiency of the method.    However, on the next jump Claude's chin collided with his altimeter panel that was made of sheet metal and off to the local physician to get the wound stitched up.   After two more similar landings, Claude designed a fibre-glass instrument panel with no sharp edges to cut his chin and wrote to Loy.

Claude:    "The accuracy method is fabulous but the landings are very hard and my instrument panel hits me in the chin half of the time."

Loy's reply:    "What kind of pit are you using?"

Claude's reply:     "What's a pit?"

At that time, the target was placed on the Pakenham Ex World War 2 Airstrip runway, which was graded gravel and had absolutely no give in it.   The photo below shows the target being used at the time.  A little research and the secret of the loose pea gravel target pit was discovered and within six months Pakenham had a great pea gravel pit and some years later Loy paid a visit there and scored a couple of dead centres on it.

In the period between implementing deflecto-spill and the exchange of the above mentioned letters; Claude designed and had built the fibre glass instrument panel shown in the second photo, he reasoned that it would better to get bruises rather than cuts that require stitches.

Claude carries the scars under his chin from those landings to this day.