The PD Blog

"Italian Style" in Fano, Italy

It's the second time that PD has a Demo Tour Stop in Fano, Italy. First time was in 2007, and this year was as good as before.
Fano is the home DZ of It's like a big family entertaining themselves with many different activities. Have a look to their website.

Italians are very friendly, and always happy to have the opportunity to try new canopies. Sometimes they are a little bit too "hungry" and you have to slow down their enthusiasm because they are not affraid afraid (thanks Kolla for the right spelling!) of trying a demo they might not be ready yet to handle the safiest way. It makes your day a bit more "spicy" than usual !

Livio, our dealer from Sinapsi, was help a lot, translating and explaining why you should or shouldn't jump this or that canopy; and sometimes, he just let his arms down, looked at me with a "don't be that much suprised" look, and say: "Italian Style !".
But we all had a very good time. And the weather was with us. Shining sun, caressing wind, quenching beer.

Beside his canopy course, Livio was also coaching a RW 4way, Team NEXT.
Even if he was very busy on the ground, Livio managed to put himself on a few lift to do some hop'n'pop, and practiced his downwind landings for the next I.S.T. competition.

The pictures can be found HERE

As always, I had all my demos ready to fly.
Here is a list of which canopies I have for you.

Dedric
European Rep.

Demo Tour in CASALE, Italy

PD Demo Tour started in Casale Monferrato, Italy
This nice little DZ is located between Turin and Milan, and is very friendly.
They usually operate only the weekend, and this is the home of Luca Marchioro from Synapsi, our local dealer.

AERA DELTA 47 (that's the name of the DZ) owns a SMG 92 Turbo Finist, a 10 slots plane with turbine.
For the Easter Boogie, the activity was opened exceptionally all week.
PD was there friday, saturday and sunday with demo canopies.

The weather was really good, and the skydivers enjoyed the outdoor packing area in the shadow of the two big tents, where I placed my goodies and demos, near Vigil.
There was a mix of freeflyers and bellyflyers. A FS 4way team was training hard at the same time.
Beside the Italians, there was also two Swiss and three belgiums.
Some of you will recognize Sandrine, the Vigil Rep, and Jordy, the happy winner of Gap Vector Festival 2007's raffle.

People were interested having a go on a demo. Most of them were looking for the same canopy they already have but one size smaller. Some had no precise idea of what to try, some wanted to use the opportunity to learn how a reserve canopy flies.

Between hooking canopies, I gave some always welcome packing tips and landing advice.

I had a good time there,
enjoying the end of the winter,
and I hope I'll see you again next week in Fano, IT
or in Reggio in may.

Dedric.
European Marketing Rep.

Check out the pictures here!

Everglades Boogie 2008

Road Rep Nick Grillet is on his way down to Air Adventures, Clewiston for the 2008 Everglades boogie.  Boogie looks like it might be a lot of fun - just watch out for the gators!

Check here for more information about the event - have a great time everyone!

On the road again.....

Christmas boogies around the world are in full swing right now and our 2 tireless (and a little nutty) tour reps are busy attending events.  Isaiah and Nick are in Z-Hills at the moment and evidently staying too busy to have time to send updates to the blog!
Then next weekend it is off to the Cross Keys Invasion at Skydive Sebastian - and from what we hear the invaders are already on site, jumping up a storm and having a blast.  Have fun wherever you are - and check our website calendar for updates to the coming soon 2008 Tour Schedule!

Hog Flop at Skydive Palatka

Hey everyone, Junior here.  I just got back into the office after a perfect weekend at Skydive Palatka.  For those of you that aren't from Florida, Palatka is located a little over an hour north of Deland.  This weekend was the 12th annual Hog Flop Boogie.  Having grown up in Iowa I was very excited about an event that had the word "Hog" in it.  I was expecting to see a pig being cooked all day long but was let down, I was very sad.  Although I was pleased to hear that the Hog Flop event involved 4-way.  Hog Flop is a one jump competition of which a scrammbles team has to build a 4-way star, also known as a round, do a backloop and rebuild the star.  Of course the team that does it the fastest wins.  I am proud to say that the team I was on, Team Apex, won the gold with a time of 5.78 seconds, great work guys!  The weather was perfect, sunny and blue skies and I don't think the wind blew over 15 MPH.  The DZ had a very successful weekend, a lot of jumps and obviously a great party.  A big thanks goes out to the manifesters, your hard work made things run so smoothly, you did a great job.  Skydive Palatka was a great time and I am looking forward to going back.  Well I should probably start doing some real work, I hope to see you guys at Zhills for the turkey meet, I will be there 23-25.  In the mean time, stay safe.

Talk to you later,

Nick Grillet   

Z-Hills gearing up for winter

Since the PD factory is located pretty centrally in Florida, we are lucky enough to have a fairly easy access to many dropzones.  Most of them only an hour or two away - big, fast planes anywhere you look!  (Yeah we are spoiled :) )
One of those DZ's is Skydive City, Zephyrhills, FL and their latest newsletter just came rolling into our in-boxes.  Z-Hills is a fun place to visit - if you haven't been there yet we can definitely recommend that place as a great winter destination for cold skydivers.  The facilities are excellent - our favorite part is of course our trusty dealer - the Sunshine Factory - located right on the dropzone.
Coming up on the Skydive City calendar you can find events like the annual Halloween Party, Thanksgiving Boogie with all the usual fun (10-way speed, 8-way & 16-way, Dodge Ball and Fight Night, Ranch-style - put on by the one and only Bruce Chapman).   
PD will be at the Thanksgiving Boogie with demos, seminars and all the good stuff.  We don't plan on getting in the ring though, but will be on hand to assist anyone that might be having a fight with their canopy.  Simply stop by the tent and see our tour reps for a peaceful resolution.
Hope to see you there!

Chicks Rocking at Skydive Elsinore

Chicks Rock - one of the coolest boogies on the West coast - is going full swing.  Isaiah McCauliffe and Scott Roberts are out there on behalf of PD & Team Fastrax Swoop putting on a canopy camp for those interested.  They haven't bothered to call home today, but we take that as a good sign as they are probably being kept busy by people that like to fly their canopies!
The entire PD Factory Team is out there as well, wrapping up their training camp.  They (just like many other hard core swoopers) are in the final stages of preparing for the World Cup of Canopy Piloting, coming up in Sydney, Australia in just a few weeks.

With this event in California our very busy 2007 tour season draws to a close for the most part, although we will probably find another boogie or two to go to before the year is over.  This will give us some much needed time to do gear maintenance and relax a little before starting to plan the 2008 season.   

But - now it's Friday afternoon here at the PD Factory and it's time to prepare for the weekend. It looks like it's going to be just absolutely gorgeous jumping weather, so we hope to see some of you out at the DZ!     Stay safe and have a great weekend!