TAMPA --- Skydiving has been an escape for Wil Charette from his Army days through three decades with the CIA. Now he's project manager of a team aiming to set a new record free-fall from the stratosphere.
   The Stratoquest project hopes to take Cheryl Stearns, the most successful competitive skydiver in the world, to 130,000 feet in a high-altitude balloon a year from now in Kansas or New Mexico.
   Stearns will be jumping from above 99 percent of the Earth's atmosphere, where temperatures can fall to minus 90. Encased in a pressurized space suit, she will be the first human to exceed the speed of sound without a vehicle. "She will come out of the top of the fall at Mach 1 717 mph," Charette said.
   While several heart operations prevent him from jumping anymore, he's eager to take part in the reach for the sky's upper limits. Charette, 64, holds his own record in parachuting. He participated in the world-record-breaking 43,500-foot HALO (for High Altitude, Low Opening) jump in 1963, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
   "We didn't know as much then," Charette said. "It was 67 below zero and I jumped in street clothes."
   He was born in Providence, R.I., but Charette's hometown proved too small for his "vagabond curiosity." He left in 1953 when the Army offered adventure.
   "Literally, I walked out of high school one day, turned my books in and said, 'I'll finish this later.' I went straight to jump school."
   He served with the 508th Regimental Combat Team, the 101st Airborne Division, and the 1st Calvary Division. He was in the Fort Campbell, Ky., Sport Parachute Club in 1958 when he heard that there was an Army parachute team being formed. The next year he was selected as one of the charter members of the Golden Knights, the premier performance team that jumps around the world. That ended in 1961 during an appearance at an air show in Wilmington, N.C.
   "The plane stalled on takeoff and down it went, Charette said. "We didn't even get high enough to jump out. I broke my legs, my back, my pelvis and my jaw. Seven men were killed. That pretty much ended my Golden Knight career."
   Charette became a Green Beret and the noncommissioned officer in charge of their HALO parachute program. Their base at Fort Bragg, N.C, has traditionally had close ties to the CIA, and Charette was approached about doing some missions for the agency. Though he figured he would be a career Army man, Charette left the military for the CIA in 1964, spending two years as a paramilitary trainer at CIA headquarters. He wanted more action. "The agency recruited on the ability to operate alone with a minimum of guidance," Charette said. "That really impressed me.