"A new angle on life." By Nik Daniel of AXIS Flight School.
By Blue Skies Magazine  |  View on Facebook

by Nik Daniel <AXIS Flight School>

Kevin Burkart is on a mission to raise awareness and money for Parkinson’s Disease research. In 2008 he did 100 jumps in one day, then 200 in 2010, and this summer, he’ll attempt 300 skydives in one day.

The “200 Perfect Jumps” DVD is now available at www.perfectjumps.com. Check out the trailer:

Buy a DVD, send a donation, sponsor a jump at www.perfectjumps.com. Go on, it’s good karma.

Zach Sabel, Colorado TunnelGod, posted this video his dad made for him on Facebook and we just had to share. (Original post)

This is a video put together by my dad. He made it for me when I got hired as an instructor at SkyVenture Colorado. I have been fortunate enough to work there for the past three years. I can honestly say that I have loved everyday. Its nice to look back at my videos and my experiences just like this. At one point, I didn’t know how to fly, at some point nobody knew how to fly.

Just like many others out there, I have always dreamed of flying, I still dream of flying and I like to imagine myself flying at a much higher level then I do right now. whatever your dream is, make sure you take everyday to love the people you love, experience what there is to experience, and dare to Dream the life that you are living right now.

His dad’s original post was:

My daughter in law Laura sent this song to me with a note saying ” does this remind you of anybody? ” I only had to listen to the song once to know I had to make a video as a tribute to Zach who followed his childhood dreams.

Many thanks to a dear friend of mine Sharon Pace who spent many hours producing this video.

The story is self explanatory. As a child, when Zach was not wearing some kind of cape he was on his magic carpet. I called home from work one day and I could tell that Kathi had been crying. When I asked what was wrong she said ” oh….I’m just being a mom, Zach is on the porch again. He’s sitting on his magic carpet …..he thinks he can fly and I don’t know how to tell him that he can’t. We never told him that he couldn’t fly……and he did.

I told that story to Zach the night before he did his level six and seven jumps of his AFF certification and the rest is history.

Just a side note……..Zach’s brother Adam always played with blocks and leggos. Today he works for an architectural firm in Tucson. Parents…….pay attention to your children’s childhood dreams…..you may already be seeing what they will be when they grow up.

Follow your dreams guys…….follow your dreams

Sabels, are you accepting applications to join the family?

You’ve probably heard that Felix Baumgartner and the Red Bull Stratos team are back at their goal of breaking records with his planned 120,000′ skydive. You probably also know that the project was halted because of a lawsuit.

You may not know that the project almost stopped even before the lawsuit—because of Felix himself.

“I couldn’t do it. my head was letting me down.”

Before ascending into the stratosphere and free falling back to Earth in spectacular, record-breaking fashion, the Austrian BASE-jumper, 42, had to face his demons. At the high point of his life thus far, he hit an all-time low.

The Red Bulletin: All went quiet on Red Bull Stratos for nine months. What was going on behind the scenes?
Felix Baumgartner: Let’s go back to the time before the project was stopped because of a lawsuit. In December 2010, we carried out the last major tests with the space suit and it was clear to me that I had a problem – one I never thought I’d have – with my psyche. I had trouble putting on the space suit and it got worse and worse. I could barely stand a couple of minutes in it.

Could you describe the symptoms?
The idea was that the suit should feel like a second skin, but it’ll never be like that. Your movements and your perceptions are restricted. As soon as the visor closes there’s this nightmarish silence and loneliness – the suit signifies imprisonment. We hadn’t originally conceived of a test that confined me in the suit for five hours – that’s how long the entire mission should take – with the visor closed. After all my past exploits, all the extreme things I’ve done in my career, no one would have ever guessed that simply wearing a space suit would threaten the mission, me included. In the end, the symptoms developed into panic attacks.

You’re exaggerating …
Not at all. When it came to the crucial pressure test at -60°C, under real conditions with pressure and altitude simulated, and surrounded by cameras, air force personnel and scientists, I realised I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t see a way around this problem. I’d easily mastered what seemed to be huge obstacles, like free fall in a pressure suit, but now my own head was letting me down. Instead of driving to Brooks [The Brooks Academy of Science and Engineering in San Antonio, Texas] to go testing, I drove to the airport and hightailed it out of America. I wept on the phone. It was the worst moment of my life. To that point I’d always known how to solve all my own problems. This time, in front of everyone, I’d found my limit.

Clearly, you’ve since pushed it higher.
We tried several things in training because from a medical standpoint a high basic fitness would also improve my stress resistance. But really, I mean… for 20 years I’ve done the most extreme BASE jumps, I’ve flown over the English Channel [in a wing suit], I’ve shown my stress resistance without hours of exercise bike sessions. The problem had to be solved another way.

Full interview online at Red Bulletin.

Happy birthday Melanie!

Miss Melanie, of course, is one of Blue Skies Mag’s amazing contributors, and has been with us from the start. Inspirational, courageous, giving, loving, hilarious, and awesome, Melanie has helped our little magazine in more ways than we can count. We’ve heard from so many of you that her words impact your lives, too. So, join us in wishing this beautiful woman a great birthday and another fantastic year!

PS – Maybe a good birthday gift would be to like her Highcomms.com Facebook page ;)

PPS – We have a $5 reward for any information on how in hell #6 got so lucky.

A damn sweet video, featuring the good boys from Jump4Heros, brightening the day of children whose parents are currently serving in Afghanistan. Santa unfortunately couldn’t bring their mom or dads home for the holidays, but at least he was able to give them a good show, hand out some presents and most importantly – deliver the children heartfelt letters from their parents.

A nice article showing a close-up of Santa’s swooping setup can be found here.

Team Polte is a brand new team from Finland. Team member Lauri says, “The concept of Polte is to have fun and fly free, and share it to the world by videos and photos. That’s how people can really see what Polte and skydiving is all about. Our future plans include competing and get more involved in different skydiving events around the world and arrange our own events in Finland. At the same time we offer services for companies to promote their products in form of videos, photos and stories.”

Team Polte: (l to r) Matti, Tuomas, and Lauri

• Lauri Aapro
• Tuomas Hulkkonen
• Matti Miilumäki
• Jonne Kuoksa

We can’t wait to see what comes out of Finland and Team Polte!

You could be just as awesome.

Want to join them in the ranks of awesome people who write for us? Talk to me! Email me, Lara, at lara@blueskiesmag.com.

Filmed on location at Chicagoland Skydiving Center, featuring Dean Ricci, Melanie Curtis and Sydney Owen.

Photo by: Despair, Inc.

Darin, Louie, Blikkies, Greg and Pablito = UPT Rigging Studs

We stopped by the UPT rigging loft the other day and found not one, not two, but all FIVE of the hot UPT rigging geniuses! If you’ve ever wondered who was behind your Vector or Sigma, wonder no more. Now you can easily identify them, should you ever run into one at the drop zone. Say thanks and get them some cake – we hear they like that.

Canadian born skydiver Dave Brown went missing last Wednesday, June 29th in Moab, Utah, where he had lived and work for the past couple of months. Despite friends and families mounting huge efforts online and through news and media, Dave has yet to be located.
Search and rescue efforts are being mounted, and even with many are volunteering their time and energy, the costs associated are considerable.

A PayPal account has been set up to help with the costs associated with combing the area on foot, in cars, using ATV’s, dogs, airplanes, powered parachutes etc. If you would like to contribute to the fund, you can do that via this PayPal link. If there are any issues with that link, you can tranfer funds via PayPal to erin@freekfly.com.

Dave’s friends and family extend their sincerest thanks for the outpouring of love and support and continue to hope and pray for a safe return. If you have any information about where Dave might be, please contact the Moab Police at (435) 259-8938.