The PD Blog

New York Times article on skydiving!

Those skydivers that subscribe to the New York Times woke up to a pleasant surprise on the front page of the Sports section this morning - an article on skydiving!!
We at PD have known it was coming for a little while, but didn't want to spoil the surprise.   

A few weeks ago Matt Higgins, a NY Times reporter, started working with Shonda Smith (Communications Director at USPA), writing a story about skydiving.  As a part of his research, Matt even did an AFF jump at Skydive DeLand, visited PD to learn more about building parachutes and finally came to watch a swoop competition at Skydive Palatka.   Matt said he really enjoyed the jump even if his landing was a little bit less than graceful - but hey, we've all had those right....   

We here at PD are quite impressed with the enthusiasm and dedication Matt and Diane put into this project.  It is great example of professional journalism when compared to many other times skydiving shows up in the media.  We must also send some props to Shonda and the gang at USPA for help making this happen - we may not always see it, but USPA Headquarters staff is hard at work behind the scenes, serving the members and promoting our sport.  Go Team!

Since I'm not sure that too many skydivers subscribe to the NY Times (even if it's a stellar publication), without further ado - I present you the very fabulous NY Times article.  It also features an awesome video put together by Diana Olivia Cave, who followed Matt on his journey armed with a giant high def camera (except suspiciously she didn't seem to catch Matt's landing...  hmmm!!).  You can either check it out as a part of the article or go straight to it here. There are many familiar faces to be seen in that video, cool interviews and some fun stuff as well.   Enjoy!

Bruno Beats World Record

In the semi final of the Spanish Nationals Bruno Brokken flew 154m on his Velocity to beat the current World Record. The winds were in limits but blowing consistently downwind along the course. He hit the gate beautifully and carried past the current record to 154m. Official scores are yet to be posted but this record is unofficial as there are only 2 FAI judges. We just have the finals to go in about an hours time before the prize giving and what is certain to be a big party.

Spanish Nationals - Day 2 and 3

At the end of the first day Pablo was 70 points in the lead and looking like the clear favourite to walk away with the gold. However he took a zero early on day 2 and the competition became pretty exciting again.

The winds picked up as the day went on the competition went on a weather hold. Again, the cry of the day was safety first- with the course running downwind and the conditions bouncing around and 14 knots blowing it was pretty tasty. A number of competitors started to nurse some injuries and some made the brave call to come off the loads. The yellow card of shame came out a few times and few people flew some entertaining "course destroyer" routines. The accuracy was tricky for some with many flying out the back of the course while others just went too far back and didn’t make it far enough. The entertainment carried on during the wind hold with the DJ stood on the back of the Red Bull Hummer cranking out the tunes.

Day 3 got the remaining rounds of distance and speed completed and we’re now on a wind hold again. The top 20 now go through to the semi finals with the top 10 to the finals. The scores for those will only count to the overall. So the placings for the individual events are set:

Speed:
1. Pablo Hernandez
2. Rodrigo Ferreira
3. Mike Vogeleer

Distance:
1. Bruno Brokken
2. Pablo Hernandez
3. Michael Vaughan

Accuracy:
1. Wutzi Wagner
2. Alastair Macartney
3. Michael Vaughan

There are 3 rounds to go but the overall standings so far are:

1. Wutzi Wagner (793)
2. Pablo Hernandez (715)
3. Michael Vaughan (709)

The atmosphere is still pretty great. The organizers have a big party planned for tonight with lots of free beer!

Spanish Nationals - Safety First

The Spanish Nationals kicked off this morning, sponsored by Red Bull and PD. It's like a mini World Meet with 45 competitors from 17 different countries.  People have travelled from places such as Australia and Venezuela to attend.  Being in Spain you would expect it to be a relaxed competition, which it is, but it's also very well organised and there is a great atmosphere.  Safety first is the cry of the day and Meet Director Lucia is swift to issue a yellow card for any infringements- we've had one injury and no-one wants another one.

So far we've done one round for distance and accuracy and two rounds of speed.  The speed course is a 80m S carve- this might sound tough to some but, if you get your line right, you can actually take a straight line through it.

The standard of competitors is high.  Many have been on the swoop scene for a while; some competing, some not.  But now they've all converged on Skydive Lillo and it is a happening place.  At over 2000 feet above sea level those that have learnt to really generate some power are putting in some great runs.  There's a few that need to learn to be accurate and consistent with the power as well!  Great to watch is Michael Vaughan, all the way from Australia, making his first competition with a new turn- 990 degrees of rotation!

Conditions have been testing during the middle part of the day with some winds changing and even some big name competitors have taken a zero.  We're waiting for the scores now but my guess is that local jumper Pablo Hernandez will be in the lead.

I've been in the water twice today but not landed in it- I'll leave you to figure that one out.

Right, I'm off for a cerveza and some tapas.

UK Skills Camp

HEAT recently ran a skills camp at Netheravon in the UK. The course was run over a weekend and had a range of abilities with participants having between 40 and 1800 jumps. The group was split in half and each had 2 coaches to provide in-depth tuition and debriefing. Despite it being a cold weekend in February the weather had been booked and the skies stayed blue throughout. It was great to see the progression from everyone and this laid down a good foundation for the start of the season.

USPA - Meeting in Orlando

The USPA Winter Board Meeting will be held in Orlando this coming weekend, February 8-10th, 2008 at the Orlando Metropolitan Resort.
The General Membership Meeting will be held at 7:00 PM on Friday, February 8th at the same location.   Should you need more information, you can e-mail or call USPA Headquarters (540) 604-9740 for more information.
A link to the meeting schedule can be found here.  We encourage USPA members to take an active interest in the matters of YOUR organization!

Super bowl Ads

We aren't too hooked on football here at PD, but we do like funny ads as much as the next guy - and that alone is an excellent reason to watch the Super Bowl!   
If you missed out for any reason, you can still see the great ads (without that pesky football cutting in every few minutes) - they ads even have their own MySpace page!    Check it out, it's a great way to start the week :)

CHEERS!

Today, Saturday January 12th, is the British Parachute Association Annual General Meeting. While that sounds like a bit of a bore it’s actually the largest skydiving party in UK for the year.  Skydivers travel from all over to be there.  Of course there’s an opening address from the current Chairman of our Association, setting the subscriptions for next year and other political issues, but that’s all first thing in the morning.  The rest of the day has trade fares from skydiving vendors, an afternoon of seminars from key people in the sport covering a whole range of topical information and of course a big party.  Drinking starts in the morning and there are many merry skydivers putting the world to rights.  The dinner in the evening is also well attended and many are still found at the bar as breakfast starts the next day.  So if you’re ever in UK in January then look us up…..