The PD Blog

La Isla de Encanto

PD Factory Team members JC Colclasure and Jonathan Tagle recently held a Canopy control course at the XtremeDivers dropzone during the Puerto Rico Freefall Festival. Those who participated in the course all had good things to say about the experience and felt they had improved their canopy skills. Event organizers Jason Gonzalez and Viviana De Jesus put on a first class event that drew 247 registered skydivers over the week. With the beautiful scenery and great weather the boogie is a natural draw for skydivers, especially wingsuiters. With over 25 wingsuiters in attendance many large and small flocks were flown and  reps from Birdman, Fly Your Body and Tony suits made sure demo suits were available for everyone. Just because the jumping day was over didn't mean the fun was. Jason and Viviana made sure the night time activities were well taken care of by hosting a dinner as well as having a weekend DZ party that provided a live DJ and some of Puerto Rico's fine  adult beverages all night for free. If you didn't make it this year put it on next years list of boogies to attend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jonathan Tagle: Extreme Athlete

Jonathan Tagle of the PD Factory Team has been nominated as a potential recipient of the American Latino Awards, in the "Extreme Athlete" category.

Other categories included underground fasion, indie music/film, and more, but we agree - JT fits best in the extreme one (just look at that picture!).   The awards are set up to recognize accomplishments of American Latinos and this is our chance to help one of our favorite swoopers out - and at the same time, bring positive attention to our sport and high performance canopy flight.

So put your clicky finger to work - go  Vote for Pedro Jonathan!

To learn more about the awards, click here.

The HEAT in Germany

The UK High Extreme Aerobatic Team, HEAT, have been chasing the bad weather and have just returned from a training camp in Germany consolidating their last camp held in DeLand with coach Jay Moledzki. The camp was held at Bad Lippspringe which is also the site of the UK Nationals later this year. Despite the poor weather jumps were still made on the IPC standard pond. The dropzone recently extended the Classic Accuracy pit out to the end of the pond to help provide a gentle landing for the more aggressive zone accuracy approaches.

Roberta Mancino featured in Men's Fitness Mag

Italian born skydiver Roberta Mancino (Italian Freestyle Champion and world class freeflyer) was selected the sexiest woman in sports, in an online poll by Men's Fitness Magazine. 
The magazine did a fairly detailed interview with her about skydiving where Roberta does a great job as an ambassador of the sport.

This lady is a lot more than just a pretty face though, make no mistake.  She's a bad-ass flyer both in the air and under canopy and I am certain we will be seeing more of that lady in years to come :)

Danish Design, Part II. The Plot Thickens.

Ughhh oh...  looks like there may still be some kinks to be worked out in the Danish Design quest to waterproof a VISO.   Click here to see installment #2 in this ongoing dramatic series.   Those guys are clearly pregnant with ideas (see picture to the left), and also very brave and very dedicated.  The PD Blog can't wait to see what comes next!

Guess the DZ!

Looking to get a fresh PD T shirt for your wardrobe??  Here is how you can earn one.  Carefully inspect the pictures featured in this blog post and try to figure out what dropzone in the world they were taken at (click on the picture for a larger view).
When you think you have the right answer, send an e-mail to Isaiah with your answer.  Be sure to include your t shirt size and the address we should ship it to.  The first person to come up with the right dropzone gets the t shirt, so work fast! 
It's not easy - so I will give you a little hint.  This place is far, far, FAR away from PD and these pictures were taken very recently (so noticing the lack of snow, we can safely deduct that this place isn't exactly in North Dakota).
Have fun!!

Danish design at it's finest

You might have heard of the Danish canopy piloting team Rooster tail.  If not, you might want to check out their website to become familiar with the team, as they are about to become very well known for their innovations.  These guys have spent long hours training in Perris Valley (swooping the pond) and understand very well the specific demand canopy piloting places on gear.  In particular their VISO altimeters.

It's also well known that Danish people have always been a little jealous of their Swedish neighbors (because of the whole IKEA design thing and the tasty Swedish Fish).  BUT, with this innovation I think the team Rooster tail have shown that Danish design is just as good - simple and practical, and VERY affordable.
Check out their video for the details.   A high quality version can be found here (for those of you that really want to get into the details of the design and how to install the enhancement).

(and now because this is America, we have to add the disclaimer...  this blog post is intended for fun, do not try this at home.  Or away from home either for that matter.  Use common sense whenever possible in liberal amounts).

FLCPA Sebastian, April 12th.

Reported by League Director, Albert Berchtold.

This past weekend was the 3rd meet in a series of 5 canopy piloting competitions that make up the FLCPA season.  Friday morning we set up the courses and opened registration.  Eager pilots scurried to make their practice runs on the course Friday afternoon as soon as the courses were all set up.  Friday and Saturday brought sunny skies and and light winds up to 12 mph in hight of the afternoon.  Twenty competitors (13 Amateurs and 7 Pros) participated.  The competition ran smoothly, with some challenging wind conditions that were changing light crosswinds to heavy headwinds from round to round.  We finished up the final round  at around 5:30 and held the awards ceremony at 7:00 pm.   
First Place was Bryan Buechler  from Team Gold Coast Swoop.  Chris Moore of the Army Team Golden Knights took second.  and in third Place was Pete Schwartz from Virginia. 

This weekends meet was run during the  Carnivale boogie in Sebastian, FL.  The party after the awards ceremony was full of excitement.  Jay Moledski was spinning the tunes, Jeff Nebelkov from Tony suits was carving amazing ice sculptures, and various fire spinners were about the dz. 
Big thanks to our judges - Kim, Laticia, and Mike.  Thanks to Skydive Sebastian for hosting an excellent meet.  The 4th meet of the season will be held May 17th at Skydive Tallahassee, FL - see you there!

The meet scores can be seen below - complete results and league standings will be placed on CPAFL website  shortly. 

1    *Bryan Buechler*    397.52   
2    Chris Moore    396.37   
3    Pete Schwartz    394.73   
4    *Brian Vacher*    389.81   
5    Mike Olivela    355.77   
6    *Mike Shatalov*    349.99   
7    *Brian McNenney*    333.36   
8    Sergei Fedotov    325.44   
9    Greg Rau    289.60   
10    *Greg Windmiller*    279.43   
11    Ben Lowe    268.11   
12    David Lambert    264.53   
13    *Chris Watkins*    246.18   
14    Loud Dan McAllister    229.97   
15    Army Dan Richarelson    164.45   
16    *Peter Vohwinkel*    128.79   
17    Ron Naperala    121.98   
18    Edward Heady    111.39   
19    Greg Clidaras    109.91   
20    Pia McFarland    44.55 

*Name* denotes a pro competitor 

Team Gold Coast Swoop!

Hey all - please meet our newest Sponsored team, Gold Coast Swoop, woooooshhhh......

Gold Coast Swoop (GCS) is a Professional Swoop Team that trains at Gold Coast Skydivers, in Lumberton, Mississippi. Gold Coast Swoop is currently comprised of two members: Bryan Buechler and Craig Saucier. We are passionate, highly competitive, and serious minded team with goals of competing strongly at the world class level, while still enjoying the camaraderie and good times that the Pro-Swoop Tour has to offer.
In 2007 (Gold Coast Swoop’s first year of competition) they garnered several accolades by placing 1st and 2nd in the Southeast Canopy Piloting Circuit (SE-CPC, also known as FLCPA), 1st and 3rd at the USPA Canopy Piloting Nationals, and 9th and 10th at the PST Championships.

The 2008 season promises to be just as exciting with several upcoming Southeast Pro-swoop Regional competitions and Pro-Swoop and USPA Nationals.  Gold Coast Swoop is extremely honored to officially join the PD Family, and will fly our new PD colors with pride while supporting the many organized events and activities in the Southern and Southeast Region.

- Bryan & Craig.

We look forward to good times with those guys - both true Southern gentlemen and a pleasure to work with. Best of luck this season!  And yes, the PD Blog sometimes struggles with the proper pronunciation of their last names, not as easy as it looks!