Andre Lemaire wrote up his testing of the MagBag, a prototype main d-bag created by Jerry Baumchen. Here, in all their raw glory, are the test jump videos.

It’s always a good day in the media when skydiving/skydivers are featured in a positive and exciting manner – and the boys from Thunderstorm (the Denver Broncos demo team) got us some good press recently.

Michael Demma edited this great video showing their jump into the stadium but also gives a glimpses of what the team does behind the scenes to prepare.

Slipstream Airsports members Justin Thornton and Stuart Schoenfelt do a great job during the interview. We are also happy to report now that Movember is over, Justin has shed the hairy upper lip.

A little bit of bad-assery for you to check out, right before you clock out of work and start your weekend. Get inspired and go make your own videos this weekend and send to us Monday

Video by Marshall ‘Snow Angel’ Miller, a member of the GoPro Bomb Squad.

We’ve all heard of those students that come down after a spectacular performance in the sky and get the bowling ball talk from their instructors.

Nik Daniel from AXIS Flight School in Eloy joined a few other skydivers for a jump where they took this bowling ball thing to a whole another level

Photo by asleeponasunbeam
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Morten Pedersen, a local DeLand videographer had a bit of a shitty day at work recently. Or a really good day, depending on how you look at it. After an uneventful tandem video, he deploys his Velocity 103 main and encounters a brake fire. The canopy spins up and Morten cuts away. The main canopy takes off with the SkyHook and as you can see in the video the freebag/reserve pilot chute are thrown around wildly. The red SkyHook lanyard breaks and once the reserve canopy is clear, Morten works hard to get an inflated reserve over his head.

Mission accomplished about 150 ft off the ground – aims for the nearest available clear area and flare…. In this case a little extra altitude at the top definitely saved the day and the big sigh at the end of the video says it all. Well done Morten – a good reminder to all of us to never stop fighting.

This incident has promoted some discussion about the use of a SkyHook with high performance main canopies such as the Velocity. Morten has shared his footage with the manufacturers and they will review it closely to see what can be learned from this incident. For a bit of background, Morten has been in the sport for more years than we care to count and has extensive experience behind him in almost every facet of jumping. He was jumping a SkyHook equipped Sun Path Javelin, a Velocity 103 and an Optimum 126.

We would love to hear your thoughts on the topic in the comments or on Facebook, especially if you are one of those high performance pilots.

Photo by Yell Saccani

The Jump4Heroes guys have been at it again.  This time they’ve been skydiving with an animated character called Mobi. He’s the Mascot of Phones For Heroes, a company that raises money for military charities by recycling cell phones. The team wanted to help them raise awareness of their cause and so set about donating a cell phone while in freefall and alongside the company’s mascot. The cause is especially close to the hearts of the Jump4Heroes team – 2 of them are currently serving in Afghanistan (this was filmed just before they deployed).

So please check out the video and help support our Troops:

See more of Jump4Heroes on their Facebook page: www.facebook.com/jump4heroes or on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jump4heroes

The Bluest Office!

Now it’s your turn. Help the DeLand kids getting some free tickets and a night out on the town, along with promoting skydiving to the public. You do that with your mouse… or fingers for those of you on mobile devices.
CLICK HERE – look at the pretty picture and scroll down a little bit to vote for Skydive DeLand. You can vote as many time as you want. We suggest to keep on going until your hand cramps up, but that is of course a personal choice. So, get going. Share on Facebook. Tell your friends. Do whatever just help ‘em get to Blue Man!

We had the competitors interview each other. They each chose 2-3 questions from the following list, plus 1 of their own:

* What does it take to be a Big Boy?
* What is your best pickup line?
* How do you stay safe while going all out?
* Explain why, aerodynamically, this event is being held at Mile-Hi Skydiving in Colorado?
* What is your occupation?
* What color and size are your big boy pants?
* Do you shave your balls? (Tutti wants to know)

Enjoy.

Badass. Just badass. We have nothing more to add to that.
Well except if this makes you want to learn to paraglide, you can talk to the boys at Cloud 9 in Utah about that. They are badass too. Tell them Blue Skies Mag sent you.

One of our followers on Twitter (@jorgegranier) sent us a link to this incredibly cool animation film, so we can’t help but pass it on.
Get the popcorn, kick back and have fun with it.
Great stuff, hopefully we will see more from this guy!

Enjoy!