A blink of an eye and here we are at the last issue of the Toggle Times for 2013. Allow me to take this opportunity to highlight some of what has happened during this year:

• Team SA did us all proud at the 2012 Mondial at the end of last year. Voodoo 8way finished 9th out of 16 teams, while Voodoo 4way finished 11th out of 38 teams. Christopher Teague finished 15th out of 129 Canopy Piloting competitors. Outside of competition, Claire King and Dirk Venter’s live scoring system worked seamlessly and Jasper Williams was integral to the success of the Canopy Piloting event as not only course director and equipment manager of the event but also as the designer of the integrated laser gate electronics.
• The SSA and hosts, Johannesburg Skydiving Club, saw to an excellent National Championships in April with pleasing increases in freefly and accuracy participation.
• Christopher Teague represented SA at the World Games in Cali, Colombia in July/August where he secured 23rd place despite very little training on his new 71sq ft Peregrine canopy.
• A pillar of South African skydiving, Pretoria Skydiving Club, celebrated their 50th anniversary in October. We are proud to be associated with PSC and join them in looking ahead to the next 50.
• There were numerous boogies, festivals and special events arranged by drop zones around the country this year. Thank you to all who helped to arrange these great events and, especially, to those who attended.
• The SSA also arranged many seminars and skills camps, some to coincide with the boogies and festivals, others on their own. The selfless work of these volunteer committees is impressive and is often at their own cost. Thank you to everyone who helped, in whatever way, to grow and develop skills this year.
• New drop zones were approved in Ballito, Knysna, Margate and Oudtshoorn and we look forward to a long association with all of them.
• A huge thank you to my colleagues - the Management Council, NEDs, ADZO executive committee, Safety and Training and the admin office - who have all worked tirelessly behind the scenes, and made enormous sacrifices of their time and energy, to ensure that we continue to protect and promote our wonderful sport and to best serve the interests of our members.
• We again close off the year with the J Bay boogie hosted by EP Skydivers where I look forward to welcoming old friends and making many new ones.

Finally, I would be remiss in not mentioning the sad passing of Nelson Mandela. We mourn the loss of a great man and celebrate his immeasurable legacy.

“What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived.
It is what difference we have made to the lives of others
that will determine the significance of the life we lead.” 
~ Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (1918 – 2013)

My very best wishes to you and yours over the festive season and throughout 2014.

Blue skies,
Joos Vos

By Danelle Barnard

We had an awesome weekend. Even with the bad weather, we managed to do 52 loads out of the 90 loads that were manifested. There were 88 sport skydivers registered and 18 people were introduced to skydiving by doing an Introductory Tandem Skydive. We had two 16ways which they got on the 2nd attempt. We did 439 descents from 2 Atlas Angels. There were skydivers who supported the event from all the following clubs:
Johannesburg Skydiving Club
Witbank Skydiving Club
Rustenburg Skydiving Club
Durban Skydive Centre
Skydive Robertson
Pretoria Skydiving Club

So, people came from all over to support us, we had awesome fun and great parties we also had ETv News come film the wingsuit guys and some of the fun things. We are grateful for everyone who made it a success and keeping it safe.

We just want to thank all our sponsors for supporting this event and always being there for us:

Parachute Systems for the Vortex 2 container which Sean Schook WON as well as for all the goodie bags.
BluEye Eyewear for the set of shades they sponsored which Michael Bonandrini WON!
Action Cameras for the Drift HD Camera that sponsored which Dean Benson WON!
West Vaal Rustenburg for all of the pens and little goodies that we put in the goodie bags.
Sign Line for all our printing and caps they sponsored.

Then, CONGRATS to the guys who were on the 16-way and for the ones who got their D-Licences we are very proud of you!!!
Amanda Loots
Yolandi van den Berge
Ian van den Berge
Johan Loots
Chris Moller
Mohan Chudalayandy
Sean Schook
Michael Bonandrini
Brian Boynton
Graham Field
Frederik Potgieter
Hendri Liebenberg
Jaco Coetzee
Nico Hickley
Jimmy Parrella
Robbie Stewart
Camera: Andre Fourie 

6 people did their 1st balloon jumps at the boogie:
Christine Daffie
Jackie Schoeman
Debby Vliegenthart
Charles Krohn
Jenny Egerer
Brad Price

Thanks to all the STAFF for making it work and for helping make it a success!!!

Please visit our Facebook Group Skydiversity Skydiving to find out about future events and operating weekends...

(Photographs courtesy of Andre Fourie and Graham Field)

Pretoria Skydiving Club celebrated their 50th year of operation in October.

Peter Lawson has been involved with the club since 1991 and, under his watchful eye, PSC continues to offer a world class facility with world class coaching, training and equipment. They regularly host skills development camps, national and other competitions and hosted the 2nd FAI World Championships in Canopy Piloting in 2008. 

(Photograph courtesy of Warren Hitchcock)

by Eugene Potgieter, JSC Chairman

Wow! Nothing better than having your expectations exceeded!

We started off with the bigger ways on the Friday and I really have to say that the start up already exceeded our expectations. Norman, Ralph and I never thought we’d see skydiving of this level and I must admit that it exceeded our expectations.

The discipline, the flying skills and the passion was fantastic! This actually reminded me why I love FS Big Ways so much. The group started off on Friday, mainly doing 14 way formations, but what really blew us away was that we never had less than 12 people completing the formation with only one or two out.

On the Saturday, we increased the formation to 18 and 20 way formations. The quality of the skydives increased with each and every jump, leading us to hope for a 20 way completion. However, our last jump on Saturday did not deliver a completion, and we stood it over for briefing on Sunday at 07:00 to have wheels up at 08:00.

Saturday evening was, to say the least, magnificent. Bruce Askham and Tammy produced live music entertainment that fired up the best party JSC has experienced in a long time!

Sunday morning saw us up early. The whole twenty way was ready for briefing at seven. Some were a bit worn out, following their efforts to help close the bar. However, they persevered and we managed to get a couple of loads up.

We were honoured by having World known organisers sharing our air space. The Wing Suiting World Record formation Organiser, Taya Weiss made sure that our local wing suit flyers had a fantastic time. With the help of Ollie, our SSA WS Chairperson, they put some wing suit flocking formations together, introducing the newest Squirrel demo wing suits in the process.

(Photograph courtesy of Taya Weiss)

Scott Plamer and Paul Ferriman blew everybody’s mind with their excellent skills in free flying. This made the 2013 tonto boogie an event to remember!

Huge thanks go to the aircraft operators who bent backwards to accommodate us and help make this boogie the huge success it turned out to be. It was a wonderful experience to see our Pac partnership and the Angel Trust taking hands to pull this off. Guys, words fail me. You are fantastic!

Liz Cooper, the absolute Angel she is, did a STERLING job with manifest. She did, however, develop a lack of tolerance when we hijacked Danni, her manifest officer, to join us in our formation, but she really gave her all to keep that wonderful smile. (At times I mistook it for a grinding of teeth but then, having had a late night, I could be mistaken).

The guys with the hardest job (other than Liz), - our pilots who had to fly in formation for the big formations - not an easy task. You guys excelled, giving us stable platforms to launch from on each and every skydive! Thank you for keeping us safe!

Finally, to the most important people, our visitors: Thank you for joining us. We were honoured to host this event with you guys being a part of it! We are eagerly looking forward to your next visit - and to the Capetonians, yes, we admit - we do NOT have a mountain, but we DO have some slime dams, surrounded by a load of warmth and personality!

Thanks guys! It was a privilege to share the skies with you! 

Johannesburg Skydiving Club, November 9-11, 2013

by Taya Weiss

The skies over South Africa were full of smiling skydivers at JSC's tonto Boogie in November.

Two planes were flying for three days, a PAC and an Atlas Angel.

Scott Plamer and Paul Ferriman came out to fly fast and steep with the freeflyers, and Lawrence de Laubadere and I, along with local organizer Oliver Nöthen, kept the wingsuiters busy with formations, vertical stacks, and docked dives.

Belly flyers did some 2-plane formations with some very happy campers achieving the 16-ways for their D-licence.

The other important aspect to the weekend was a fundraiser for the Pastoral Centre Preschool located in an informal settlement in Kliptown, Soweto. Raise the Sky has supported this organization for the past few years.

My personal involvement goes back more than ten years as a volunteer, and tonto (after whom the boogie is named) was also very involved there as a volunteer. The preschool has 250 students ranging in age from one to 6 years old. All live in shacks nearby with no electricity or running water, and many have lost one or both parents to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

I am proud to say that with the help of generous support from sponsors, our charity raffle raised R7,000. Mirage donated a 30% off coupon, Squirrel Wingsuits donated 50% off a brand new Swift wingsuit, and Performance Designs contributed a $50 gift certificate.

Other prizes included a free skydive and a reserve repack, and various T-shirts and other awesome schwag. Boogie T-shirt sales with a gorgeous design from Nadene Elaine of Adventure Creative topped off the fundraising drive.

In a partnership between JSC and Raise the Sky, I organized the first tonto Boogie in 2008 to celebrate the life of Eric “tonto” Stephenson, the man with whom I shared my life for nearly 6 years. He passed away in a high-performance landing incident on October 28^th, 2007, leaving a legacy of 5,314 skydives, a club he helped to found and grow, and numerous AFF students who are now some of South Africa’s best competitive jumpers. The boogie started out as a way to remember, but six years later it has become so much more. A big thank you to everyone who made the weekend possible!

To make an independent contribution to the Pastoral Centre Preschool and Crèche, a registered non-profit organization in South Africa, you can transfer money directly to their bank account, information here.

(Photographs courtesy of Taya Weiss)

By Oliver Nöthen and Andre Du Preez

Skydive Mossel Bay and the SSA AE and WS committees hosted a Freefly and Wingsuit Camp over the weekend of 24/25th November.

Andre Venter, aged 57, (pictured below) did his First Flight Course and completed his Cat1 in Wingsuiting with great success and has really taken to it like a bird to the air. Olga Naumova also completed her Cat2 in Wingsuiting.

Andrea Fuidge and Susan Watts (pictured right) completed their Cat3 and Cat2 in Freefly respectively with the help of Andre Du Preez and Pierre Marais Badenhorst.

Brandon Rothero and Ria Moothilal did their introduction to head down flying and Ffinch Lauer dusted off his freeflying skills after getting current again last month after a 3 year break from skydiving.

Like any other weekend we had some slight impact due to weather but it did not set back the focus of the weekend or the impact of allowing for skydivers to gain skill in the respective disciplines.

(Photograph courtesy of
Vivienne Du Preez)

By Chris Badenhorst

A sunny Saturday morning at the Pretoria Skydiving Club was the setting for the much anticipated “Shake the Bag” event hosted by the FS SSA Committee. Skydivers from all ranges of FS experience and various drop zones gathered. New novice, intermediate and open teams for nationals 2014 was the goal of the event.

Saturday saw the skydiving gods smile on us with a dedicated Angel for the STB participants, no incidents and all loads completed for the day. The day could not have ended in a better way. Sunday however saw a change in weather with the wind gusting to 20 knots at times, a few brave skydiving souls made a few attempts at SASL 2-way and 4-way jumps and luck favoured them as they submitted their footage just before the start of Jacember.

To everyone that participated, please keep up the good FS flying. The new SASL season has started, loaded with prizes and giveaways so if you have not entered, get going!. Need help getting started?  Contact the FS SSA Committee and we will help you. That’s our passion! In the mean time, film your jumps and get them debriefed – we will see to it that you get feedback on the footage no matter where in the country you jump.

A big thank you to the coaches, cameramen and PSC who dedicated a lot of their personal time and made us feel welcome. A great weekend at a great drop zone with great people. See you all at “Shake the Bag 2014”.

If you enjoyed this event or want to join the next one, please support the FS committee by ticking FS on your PASA renewal form.  You can do this mid-year by emailing the PASA office.  FS operates on the smallest budget per member than any other discipline; the tick costs you nothing but allocates more development budget to us to give you events like this. 

A reminder that it’s not too late to join hosts, EP Skydivers, at the Jeffreys Bay Annual Christmas Boogie at Paradise Beach. A licence and above. Great scenery and beach landings with the 3 FAT FISH catering again.

All jumps from 12 000 AGL, first two early bird loads of the day from 14 000 AGL out of the PAC ZS-BLU.

Claire King, Dirk Venter and Bailey Edmunds will be our FS load organisers and we will be doing plenty of 16 ways for those who want to join. Last load of the day, BFR with super prizes.

For all you free flyers, this J-Bay Boogie will have the world’s top freefly load organisers and coaches - Scott Plamer (Voss Ventus), Steph Fardel (Babylon Freefly), Will Penny (Babylon Freefly) and Paul Ferriman.

For accommodation contact Hester Fourie on 0827958394 at the Aston Bay Caravan Park or Reinette Strever on 0726685222 for self catering units.

This is an “On” year for all events, meaning that the winners of the FAI categories will qualify to represent South Africa in the World Championships in 2014.

Unfortunately no bids were received for Canopy Formation or Classic Style and Accuracy so Nationals was not awarded for these disciplines.

Bulletins will be available on the PASA website in due course.

SA Nationals offers events for all levels of experience and skill, and with South African Skydiving’s top athletes all there at once, it’s a great learning opportunity too.

Contact your SSA Committee for advice on competing, training or even getting involved in other ways (judging, organisation, volunteering, sponsorships, etc.).

PASA approved 4 new drop zones during this year - in Ballito, Knysna, Margate and Oudtshoorn.

Skydive Ballito

Skydive Ballito started operating in late November 2013 and will be open most days, weather permitting.

Sport skydivers with a B licence and above are welcome to come for a skydive.

Call 084-2663-359 to check jump availability.

Right: Flag raising with Dave Daniels,
Boss Doug and Reggie Dludla
(Photograph courtesy of Bob Simpson)

Above: Dale Jowett exits overhead the DZ
(Photograph courtesy of Vernon Kloppers) 

Left: CI Dale Jowett and DZO Boss Doug making sure the DZ fridge is cold enough
(Photograph courtesy of Bob Simpson) 

Skydive Oudtshoorn

This new student drop zone, operated by Henk van Wyk, is due to commence operations by end January 2014.

Skydive Knysna

Any sport skydivers in the area are welcome - just call or mail Di Taylor 084 843 3236.

    
L-to-R: Aerial view, pilot, Howard Butcher, taking off and Craig de Villiers with tandem passenger
(Photographs courtest of Di Taylor)

Skydive The Beach

This new drop zone, located in Margate, and operated by Donavon Crerar, is due to commence operations in early 2014.

The SSA committees have provided the following mid-term feedback reports to keep you, the members, informed of how they have been using your funds to develop your preferred discipline/s. The left hand column in each case indicates their plans as at April 2013 while the right hand columns represent what has actually been done in the past 8 months. The Canopy Formation committee has, unfortunately, not provided any feedback. Comprehensive feedback from each committee will be presented at the AGM in the first quarter of 2014.

Artistic Events

Canopy Piloting

Formation Skydiving

Wingsuiting

Jacember: Sun, sea, boogies and extra time to perfect those SASL rounds!

December and January combine into a single SASL “month” to accommodate closing DZs and jumpers attending to December holiday “Relative Work”, so this draw’s jumps must be submitted by 1 Feb 2014.

If you’re going to the Swakopmund Boogie – why not rope Simba and Bev into some SASL entries with you – or get their help in prepping and perfecting your rounds. Simba (and his company Simbalism) has been an avid supporter and sponsor of SASL since its inception and shares our passion for skills development and competition. He’s also a mean storyteller so after you’ve abused him for knowledge, coaching, jumps and FS load organising at the boogie, follow him to the pub for some entertainment a ’la Jaeger. ;)

If you’re at the J-Bay Boogie this year rope in Claire, Dirk and Bailey. Claire and Dirk run the League and Bailey is last season’s SASL winner so use the time to pick their brains for hot tips on working the SASL system to win. It’s about performance but also about savvy. The three of them are load organising and coaching at J-Bay, all sponsored by EP Skydivers so take advantage of EP’s generous freebies and jumpjumpjump with us. Our bar stories are no match for Simba’s but our ambitious jump plans for this boogie are likely to create your next bar stories. We’ve been hard at work designing a range of jumps – big small, easy, hard, fast, mellow, flat, hybrid, 2D, 3D, pretty, technical, experimental and everything in between – and we’d love you to join us in bringing our plans to life.

Both boogies are expecting good FS cameramen so you have no excuses. Contact us if you need help finding SASL cameramen at your boogie.

SASL November will be judged on Monday (9^th Dec). Look out for your scores, coaching and judging feedback.

If you still haven’t entered SASL, go to www.skyleague.co.za to find out how every level of skydiver has a chance to win great prizes in fun, low-commitment competition. Aerodyne, Larsen and Brusgaard, Bev Suits, AfricanSkyGear, dPhi prizes all up for grabs! 

What are you waiting for?

Game ON!!!

Recognition awards

Aero Club Gold Wings

 
(Photographs courtesy of Cheryl Smit Photography)

The PASA office will be closed from Monday, 23 December 2013 and re-opens on Monday, 6 January 2014.

Members are welcome to send emails and faxes during that time, or leave a message on the answering machine. All enquiries will be attended to when the office re-opens.

Email: admin@para.co.za 
Fax/answering machine: 021-553-3398  

PASA and the Toggle Times cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions, due to all content being submitted without verification.