BASE for the Cure

I’m sure you have heard about Jump for the Cause before, and should probably prepare to hear about it a lot more in the coming weeks as the women’s world record event draws closer.

But, the chicks are not the only ones using extreme air sports as a way to bring attention to cancer and raise funds to support cancer research.
Two crazy guys (by their own admission) had the idea to use Bridge Day 2009, now in it’s 30th year, to raise funds to benefit VCU Massey Cancer Center.  You can follow the journey of James Bennett and Christopher Anderson by visiting their website, where you can also show support and donate to their cause.
We wish them all the best and hope that both the fund raiser and Bridge Day 2009 will be a great success.

Photos by Jason Bell, Vertical Visions, LLC

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Jim Slaton setting up a swoop course

“Serial Entrepreneur” Jim Slaton has added YET another web outlet to his already impressive list of websites, this time a Canopy Piloting TV Channel that promises to broadcast footage of swooping and high performance canopy flight.

In the event that you don’t already know who Jim Slaton is, you can learn more about him on his website, read his blog, read his OTHER blog, check out the Elite Flight Training website, his Blade Running website, the Pro Swooping Tour website, CanopyPiloting.com website, Swoop Week website or lastly the SwoopPark.com website.  Oh yes, and then there is a blog for 2009 Swoop Week too.
I can’t rule out that I might have missed one or two (leave a link in the comments if you find more), but this is a good start. 10 websites and one TV channel.  Jim, seriously, we can’t keep up with all of them, how about doing a “one website to rule them all” kind of thing?

All kidding aside, Slaton might be a prolific website creator, but the guy has worked hard to promote canopy piloting and along with a few other pioneers was instrumental getting the discipline recognize as a competitive one.  So for those of you that are into swooping, be sure to check some of those out.

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We just got this shot in from Chris in Arizona – it’s a little blurry for the magazine, but we liked it so much, we just had to share. Photo by John Lyman.

3-way phalanx over Eloy

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A totally fun weather hold photo essay by Kim Pothuisje – be sure to read the captions, and enjoy!

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by Annie Cripe Drennan

The Performance Designs Factory Team (PDFT)/Flight-1 and Skydive the Farm launch pilot program to include essentials canopy training in AFF/A-License progression

In an ongoing effort to further safe canopy practices, Flight-1 and Skydive The Farm are happy to announce a pilot program that will include fundamental canopy education as part of the AFF/A-License progression package. The original package, which includes AFF ground school training, jump levels 1-7, jumps 8-25, and necessary coach jumps, was offered by STF owner Hans Paulsen as a means of encouraging new jumpers to carry on through their A-License without so much worry over the initial cost of learning to skydive. The package will now include a Flight-1 Essential Skills Course (ESC), to be taken anytime after jump 25.

Flight-1 (the business entity of the PDFT) offers its ESC to new and experienced jumpers alike. Many experienced jumpers may be familiar with the ESC; it was developed in the early 2000s by former PD employee Scott Miller, who toured the country for several years teaching canopy control to thousands of skydivers. Flight-1 eventually partnered with Miller in 2006 and has since become the sole conveyor of the ESC.

The purpose of the ESC is to establish safer canopy practices at DZs around the world through increased understanding of the canopy flight. Students spend a day of focused education with a Flight-1 certified instructor through a combination of classroom modules and practical aerial exercises completed over a series of five jumps.

PD Factory Team member Ian Drennan calls Skydive the Farm home.

“I have always felt the passing of knowledge from experienced jumpers to others, in any discipline of our sport, is essential to the longevity of skydiving,” said Drennan. “What better way to pass along your experience than to an up-and-coming jumper, or even a person who has been in the sport for some time and is looking to explore another discipline or simply increase his skill level?

“We (the PD Factory Team) also felt the pressing need to introduce better canopy control training to new jumpers. While AFF provides a great basic understanding of landing patterns, potential canopy issues, and basic inputs/responses, most new jumpers have trouble internalizing the onslaught of new information.

“As such, it seemed only logical to integrate better canopy control education at the formative stages of a skydiver’s development. We are excited to launch this pilot program, in conjunction with Skydive the Farm, and hope other DZOs will follow suit.

The program is scheduled for launch in September 2009.

For more information on the PD Factory Team, Flight-1, and their canopy course offerings (Essentials, Advanced, High Performance, and one-on-one coaching) visit www.flight-1.com, www.pdfactoryteam.com, or e-mail coach@flight-1.com.

For more information about Skydive the Farm visit www.skydivethefarm.com.

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by Ari Perelman
photos by Chad Wilcox

On June 13, 2009, the ParacleteXP SkyVenture wind tunnel hosted the Indoor Skydiving Championships. The event started as an outdoor competition in 2007, was both a sky and tunnel competition in 2008, and this year was solely an indoor tunnel competition. The event drew competitors from all across the United States in multiple disciplines. Featuring 4-way RW, 8-way RW, 2-way VFS/freefly and 4-way VFS, there was something for everyone. This is one of my personal favorite competitions due to the size and power of the tunnel, the fantastic staff and facilities, and the massive $21,500 prize pool.

Saturday, June 13th at 9:00 a.m. began with the competition draws for 4-way RW and 2-way VFS/freefly. These events ran back-to-back throughout the day. Two-way freefly finished on Saturday while 4-way RW ran through Sunday.

Spectators watch the 4-way RW competition heat up | photo by Chad Wilcox

The 4-way RW open competition featured another tight race between Arizona Airspeed and Perris Fury. This time, Fury came out on top, but the Airspeed lineup had Thomas Hughes and John Eagle filling in for Craig Girard and Eliana Rodriguez at the last minute. Fury and Airspeed finished with impressive averages: 29.8 and 28.9, respectively. Fury’s 29.8 average ties Airspeed’s previous 29.8 average as the highest indoor meet average. They were followed by the Golden Knights in third with a 24.2 average.

The scores in the rookie division were also impressively high. VTSD won the 4-way event in the Rookie division with a 29.3 average, Carolina Windfall took second with an 18.7 average and Just In Time finished in third place with a 10.0 average.

The 2-way VFS/freefly event had many local competitors as well as visitors from out of town. The free rounds were crowd favorites, featuring a fantastic display of flying ability. As with the open 4-way RW, the open 2-way freefly had a tight race for first place between EP (Ari Perelman and Scott Palmer) and local team Zion (Melody and Selwyn Facey.) EP edged out Zion with a final score of 51.67 to 50.19. Deadly Flying Ninjas (Thomas Hughes and Kay Nelson) took the bronze with a 46.75. Team Anti Gravity XP (Alex Verner and Josh D’Annunzio) deserve special mention as the only two competitors under 18 holding their own in the open class, finishing with a 41.19.

Team EP | photo by Chad Wilcox

Extended Play (Emma Tranter and Scott Palmer) won the intermediate 2-way event with a 48.81. Delirium (Angela Tara Hsu and Jairo Garcia) took second with a 39.94 and Merry Jane (Pali and Julia Rovnan) finished in third with a 32.36.

The championships finished up on Monday with 8-way RW and 4-way VFS. Both of these events were winner-take-all format.

Billing itself as “the biggest vertical wind tunnel on the planet in terms of power and size”, ParacleteXP is the only wind tunnel in the world to feature an 8-way competition and the teams certainly did not disappoint. The ParacleteXP home team (with tunnel owner Tim D’Annunzio and his son John D’Annunzio) won the 8-way competition with a 24.9 average. The new Golden Knights 8-way line up (five of whom have just started training 8-way this year) ended up in second place with a 23.7 average.

This meet was the first 4-way VFS competition to feature the recently updated dive pool and was also the first 4-way VFS competition to have 8 rounds. California came out in force for this event with teams NorCal and EOS, the only all-girl 4-way VFS team in the world (and the best looking team!) NorCal won by a significant margin with a 22.6 average. Second place was the ParacleteXP home team XPVFS with a 17.1 average. Kyle’s Team finished in third place with a 15.0 average narrowly beating EOS’s 14.2.

Overall this was a fantastic competition with a fun group of competitors, run at a great wind tunnel. The staff ensured everyone had enough time to adequately prepare for all rounds and made sure everything ran smoothly. There was great flying all around and a very nice turn out. I look forward to the next event held at this wind tunnel and definitely plan to attend.

Final Results:

Team Anti Gravity XP | photo by Chad Wilcox

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The United States Senate confirmed President Obama’s nominee, Randy Babbitt, for a five-year term as the new Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) administrator in late May. Babbitt began flying at age 16, was a career airline pilot and finally President of the Airline Pilot’s Association (ALPA) from 1990-1998. He was a member of the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) 2008 five-member internal review team, which produced the report “Managing Risks in Civil Aviation: A Review of the FAA’s Approach to Safety”. In that report, the team found something which many have encountered:

a remarkable degree of variation in regulatory ideologies among the field office staff, which, in places, creates the likelihood of generating wide variances, and possible errors, in regulatory decision-making. We believe agency leadership should pay particular attention to this issue, and create intervention mechanisms to help guarantee coherence and rationality in regulatory practice, and to elevate a task-focus above toolbased preferences and ideologies.

Links

• Confirmation hearing video : Babbitt’s introduction begins at 56:30 and the question and answer session begins at 63:30. Senator Brownback discusses general aviation – and Wichita steak – with Babbitt beginning at 85:00. Brownback briefly brings up the topic of how general aviation will be expected to share the cost of the upcoming NextGen projects.
• 2008 DOT Report

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