Remember those dark days when, to watch cinematic classics like the one you’re about to watch, you had to drive to the movie rental store, rent a VCR that came in a grey plastic bag-type thing (you might have to be older than 30 to remember this part), pray like hell they had the VHS you wanted, lug all the shit back home, figure out how to hook it up and then spend all night watching the little gem of gloriousness, eating Little Caesar’s pizza (pizza pizza!), drinking Shasta orange and finally fall asleep at 3 a.m.?

Now all you have to do is click “Play,” right from the Blue Skies Mag website. We might as well be riding around in hovercars.

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…go, could you wake me up?

This is the brilliant winner of the BPA’s Video Festival, and another shining, albeit British, example of what results when you follow Melanie Curtis’ simple steps in “How To Be a Film Festival Winner” from our January/February issue. Well done, chaps. Cheerios and all that.

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Well, this is a post I never thought I’d write. The seemingly indestructible Hungarian jumper Peter G has passed on to the great drop zone in the sky. I’ve never had a bigger crush on a bigger ass (if you knew him, you know what I mean) and we’ll all miss the infamous Peter G-isms. Like, “Vat, vat do you mean I can’t go downwind across the spectator area?” and “My friend, my friend…[insert awesomely weird advice here].” and “I’m alvays jumping. Even ven I sleep I am jumping.” Got more? Please share in the comments!

Peter’s family would like his ashes to return to Hungary, so there are a few fundraisers to help make that happen. Tanya Hannington is organizing an auction at the Ranch in New York. Prizes – so far – include 2 Blue Skies Mag subscriptions, Sun Path gear bags, reserve pack jobs, framed photographs, coach jumps and tons more. Donate something if you can and get to the Ranch to bid on some cool stuff.

Here are some photos that Peter G sent us and my slacker ass never got around to doing anything with.

The story he sent was,

“On September 6th during the infamous Skydive New England Tiki Bar Boogie freeflyers set an official Maine state Head Down record. The jump was part of 3 day freefly bender. With Travis Fienhage and Andy Malchiodi from SoCal Converge on hand organizing head up, head down, angle flying, and spaceball jumps it was only natural to throw a record in there. After determining that there was no official record it was decided to put together an 8-way round that would launch right out the door slot perfect. Local New England flyers Adam Laware, Chris McNaughton, Mark Rouillard, PJ Jackson and Dave Swanson combined with Dave Colucci, and the SoCal guys to put a record in the books on the first attempt. To ensure all went as planned Peter G. was on hand to get the perfect shot.”

Sorry, guys, to take so long to get that up. BSBD, Peter G.

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I’m not sure how we managed to miss this one, but it’s from last summer, is excellent and you should watch it now.

Incidentally, this video follows the rules of Melanie Curtis’ brilliant article “How To Be a Film Festival Winner” in our January/February issue to a tee.

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The PD Factory Team celebrated the end of their recent training camp – and team member Ian Bobo’s birthday! – with some swoops into the Deep Woods Ranch. Photographer Justin Carmody set up to capture the magic and we set up to capture the magic-capturing. Enjoy!

[Warning: extremely cute but annoying dog barks throughout this video. Loudly. Incessantly. Gratingly. You've been warned.]

For more of Justin’s photography, check out his website and the pages of Blue Skies Mag.

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And now, an excellent story from TK Hayes, President and Manager of Skydive City in Zephyrhills, Florida, via Karl Meyer of Performance Designs. Thanks to you both!

Pookie coming in for a landing. Photo by Cheryl Brown.

Pookie (a.k.a. James Morning) did his 6th AFF jump here at Skydive City this past weekend, despite his being paralyzed form the waist down.

Pookie started skydiving with his first tandem jump in 1996 here in Z-Hills. We had developed some cool straps for paraplegic tandems an needed a guinea pig to try them out on. It really changed his life and he committed himself to skydiving again and eventually solo skydiving.

He came back in 2007 and started doing more tandems, completing some 30 tandems total. His canopy control was excellent after all that training and while we wanted to get him into AFF of some sort, we did not have the gear to do it.

We finally put together a rig with several modifications to bind his legs up and out of the way for the freefall and canopy ride – kind of a styletuck.

He now has done 6 AFF-style skydives with a Navigator 260 main canopy(he weighs 140lbs) mostly 1-on-1 jumps with TK Hayes as the primary jumpmaster.

While the freefall ain’t perfect, it ain’t all that bad. His canopy control and landings have been flawless so far, he simply tips in all tucked up and lays over on the ground. The Navigator sets him dow nicely each time and provides great drive as well, even with the light wing-loading.

Will Pookie ever skydive alone? Perhaps not, but perhaps someday. We have some ideas to try a sit-suit, perhaps a different way to hold his legs, there is a lot of experimenting to happen yet. For now, we are all having a great time just doing hang-on skydives and letting him do his thing.

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And, after months of waiting (sorry about that, everyone!), we have a winner in the N3A Contest: {insert drum roll here} James Bilodeau for his Point Break inspired alarms. Just imagine hearing these at your three alarm altitudes and then imagine…it’s possible with the N3A from Alti-2.

No, you pull!

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Thanks to everyone who entered and congratulations, James!

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