By Dian Kemp

From the 1st to the 7th of November, Skydive City in Zephyrhills, Florida in the USA hosted the 5th FAI World Canopy Piloting Championship. The event attracted 26 countries and over a hundred competitors. South Africa sent three competitors: Christopher Teague, Jean-Jacques Wallis (JJ) and Dian Kemp along with their manager, Paul Gerard.

I arrived there a week before the event with Chris picking me up in Tampa in his 1965 Chevy Mustang, which you need to refuel every second day. Arriving at Zephyhills, or Z-hills, I checked in and got myself on a load. The dz is very nice and typical of what you would expect from an ordinary dz. The following few days was practice on the course, getting my turn ready for the competition and watching some highly loaded canopies going very fast… JJ and I realised that we needed to score on every round to get anywhere.

Unfortunately on the day before competition, Chris injured his left foot and could not start the competition the next day. The official event started on the Tuesday with three rounds of speed. The objective of the speed event is to enter the 5-foot gates and fly along a 70m course with a turn without going up. Sounds easy right? Well no, because if you move too much in the harness, going up is too easy resulting in an instant zero. JJ and I both did exceptionally well with both of us ending in the top 60. The event ended in the third round with Sergey Romanyuk setting a new world speed record of 2.240 seconds with an average speed of 112.5 km/h.

Later on in the afternoon the second event, distance, was started. The objective of distance is to touch water before the 5-foot entry gate, stay below that level for 50m and then land as far as possible. While no records were broken, Nick Batsch did land over 150m consecutively. I did not score on the first round sending me to the back but JJ kept his cool and managed to score on the first two rounds and the end of the second day.

Day 2, and the start of accuracy. The objective of this event is to drag water through 4 water gates scoring 50 points, and then to land in one of 9 zones with the last 2 negative scoring zones and a centre zone equalling 50 points. With a downwind pushing, I did not do well but very nearly got the full 100 points in round 1 but kept being pushed out of the course by the high winds in the subsequent two rounds. JJ in his calm (sexy, according to his girlfriend) demeanour took everything in his stride and managed to score on two of the rounds. The last competitors on the last round of accuracy had by far the most difficult conditions with one competitor quitting after that round.

8 rounds down and one distance left the loads were shuffled around. I landed first and got a decent score. JJ coming in second scored as well. The final distance round ended with Nick Batsch breaking his own world record and scoring 170m.

At the end of the day, Curt Bartholomew won with Julien Guiho second and Cornelia Mihai third. JJ ended 60th and myself 95th overall. While we both did not do as well as we had hoped for, due to the higher than expected calibre of pilots in attendance, we both gained valuable experience from the event and will be going in two years’ to the next world meet.

Thanks to Chris and his efforts, we made it to Z-Hills and got to compete against the world’s best. The overall highlight of the trip was the people, from Israel to John Le Blanc (Vice-President of Performance Designs and head of R&D), Richard Munro from NZ Aerosport, TK Haynes, the operator of Skydive City and finally Scotty Carbone, who according to experts, has died at the old age of 32 … Yeah right, SCOTTY LIVES!!!!!

The Aero Club Annual Awards dinner was held on 8 November 2014. Dennis Cohen was awarded Silver Wings for his tireless dedication and service to PASA. He has been a PASA member for 20 years and has been involved over the years in many aspects of drop zone operations. However, it is in particular for Dennis’ service as a PASA Non-Executive Director since 2007, that he received this award. As a practicing attorney, his expertise has long been in demand as a corporate adviser and business rescue specialist. Over the years, Dennis has provided his services, at no cost to PASA, in a number of special legal and related projects. 

The PGS Trophy for manufacture or design in the South African Recreational Aviation Industry was awarded to Chris Dales, founder and managing director of Parachute Systems. The company, based in Durban and founded in 1984, employs 50 staff members and takes great pride in being the only fully owned and operated skydiving manufacturer in South Africa. All their products are designed and manufactured entirely in South Africa using local content, where available.

Chris Dales with the PGS Trophy

National colours were awarded for the first time to Alex Jordaan, Andre Van Heerden, Warren Hitchcock and Jean-Jacques Wallis.

Colours re-awards went to Amy Kirtland, Bailey Edmunds, Christopher Teague and Dian Kemp.
 

♦ ♦  SEASON'S GREETINGS FROM AERODYNE ♦ ♦

Aerodyne will be closed from 18 December 2014
and reopen on 7 January 2015

By Oliver Nöthen (D906) and Taya Weiss (BMI SA-003)

The tonto Boogie started in 2007 to celebrate the life of the late Eric “tonto” Stephenson (D515), one of South Africa’s best-known skydivers and instructors. It has grown into a very special event focused on two things tonto dedicated himself to: skydiving as much as possible, and giving back to communities in need.

From November 28th to 30th, the Johannesburg Skydiving Club hosted jumpers from all over the country, with the staff showing their usual awesome organisational skills. The atmosphere was welcoming as jumping started on Friday from the Atlas Angel and continued, through a weekend of very cooperative weather, from both the Angel and a PAC 750XL. Pilots Richard and Jono flew 49 loads, getting everyone their altitude fix.

We also raised a record R11 000 through a raffle and T-shirt sales for the Pastoral Centre Preschool and Crèche in Kliptown, Soweto, a charity that this boogie has supported every year since it started. Some of the funds were used to purchase food and a few special treats for the children and staff, which club members delivered on the Monday following the event, to much gratitude! Thank you also to everyone who brought clothes and toys to donate. The rest of the funds will support a project to install solar panels to power the classrooms and kitchen in the New Year. 

On the Wingsuiting side, Taya Weiss flew in from California to load organise, along with Oliver Nöthen from Skydive Mossel Bay. There was a great group of up and coming wingsuiters. Richard Morgan completed his First Flight Course during the boogie. He definitely proved to us that he wasn’t running out of talent, nor was Max Hunt who visited all the way from the UK! After focusing on skills development and flocking, we finished the weekend by flying around some awesome cloud formations.

The FS team made good use of the multiple planes and flew some bigway formations, with Eugene “Pottie” Potgieter on hand to make sure that none of those “Sausages” got out of hand! Many people got some of their D-licence requirements ticked off during the weekend. Well done!

The party Saturday night was rocking, with Bruce Askham playing guitar, singing, and DJ’ing, and old and new friends carrying on well into the night with lots of shenanigans, the traditional dancing on the bar, and shooter-related speedstars taking place. The debate continues as to whether the wingsuiters indeed beat the FS skygods. We’ll just have to stage a re-match next year!

Back: Constant Benade, Tamsyn Snyman, Richard Morgan, David Maina, Oliver Nöthen
Front: Stefan Griesel, Max Hunt, Taya Weiss
 

A big shout out to the raffle prize sponsors, Altimaster, Aerodyne, Mirage, Squirrel, Tonysuits, BevSuits, UPT, Cookie Helmets, Cypres, Vigil, Icarus Skydiving, and Performance Designs; without them we would have not been able to make the boogie such a success. Thanks also to Nadene Elaine from Adventure Creative, who designed the T-shirts that everyone enjoyed, proceeds of which added to our charitable donation.

A big thank you to the staff and packers at JSC, everyone who attended and everyone who made the boogie such a success! We are already planning next year’s tonto Boogie and it’s going to be even bigger and better than this year! See you guys there!

L-R: Stefan Griesel, Richard Morgan, Steve Bartels, Taya Weiss, Tamsyn Snyman,
Hendri Liebenberg, Max Hunt, Oliver Nöthen, Michael Panaino

Photographs courtesy of Bruce Askham, Max Hunt, Oliver Nöthen

Season’s Greetings and a warm Thank You to all the
skydivers that continue to support Icarus.

We will be closing from the 12th of December 2014
and reopening on the 12th of January 2015.

By Claire King

Our addiction to tunnel is no secret. At every opportunity, we gather friends to come learn and play together in the wind. I can’t think of a more enjoyable way to wreck my knees, wallet and ego all at once.

Recently we found ourselves “in the neighbourhood” (if you count Europe as a neighbourhood, which we do), for another Jazz Republic Prague tunnel camp, so it made perfect sense to extend the trip by a smidge, hop the border(s) and compete in the Indoor Skydive Roosendaal (ISR) Grand Prix.

The first step was to steal our Point from the office for the smidge. With the SA skills camp in Prague booked to capacity, the only available time for a Jazz Republic pre-meet warm-up was before the SA camp. Since nobody returns home for 4 days while team mates tunnel, the smidge turned into 10 days and Point convinced her boss to release her into our care. The rest of us are basically unemployable, so we declared ourselves income-free (again?!), extracted ourselves from the South African economy and headed for a 2 week European tunnel vacation. It’s like a really low budget Contikitour, but much, much more expensive, with a lot less sight-seeing, and more bruises. And WAY more fun. 

[Train]

We trickled into Prague on day 1 and 2. I from Texas and the Indoor World Cup (which, I have concluded, is the only skydiving that should possibly be attempted in that weather), Dirk and Simba from South Africa, Debbie from England and finally, coach Marco Arrigo, from Sardinia (enduring more flights and travel time than any of us to get there).

The goal: to get something going as a team before the ISR meet. With only 16 skydives together - 10 of which were in competition – and this being Debbie’s first return to the air after months off with an injury, this is a big ask of a coach. But Marco breezed in with his easy Italian style, topped up on coffee and got to work on us. It’s quite incredible how much you can learn in just 2 days and 2 hours of tunnel. It’s also incredible how quickly we forget the soft skills – arousal levels, energy management, and the power of a smile across the formation – which have such an impact on final scores. Marco’s coaching brought all these facets together, maximised on soft skills where air time was lacking and left us energised, motivated and excited to see what we could do, but definitely wanting more.

Marco Arrigo, Claire King, Debbie Lamsley, Paul “Simba” Marcellin, Dirk Venter

[Develop]

A day of rest brought us to the start of another SA FS Tunnel camp. Prague has become our favourite location for these camps – a beautiful city, affordable prices, a superb Hurricane Factory tunnel and team and – according to campers – great-looking staff.

If you must be saved from certain injury - undignified and flailing on the net or “pigeoned” gracefully and semi-conscious against the glass – why not by a freeflying super model.  Soon enough, close-encounters with super-models had swiftly been replaced by quick recoveries and solid flying. A full camp with some last minute changes kept the 4 coaches busy non-stop, Debbie managing the pop-up 4-way team while the other 3 coaches took campers through their individual FS flying skills – the basis of FS success. Campers worked hard and the improvements were epic.

A 2-way competition put everyone’s new skills into action near the end. Usually the camp finale, we moved it earlier to allow time to judge before campers trickled off home. Hurricane Factory kindly let us use their InTime Scoring system to judge. Integrated with their tunnel manifest & video system, it downloaded the rounds automatically, and all we needed to do was sit down and judge – saving us hours. Team Confused Crafters – Nico Hickley and Bertus Haring – proved themselves more Crafty than Confused, cruising into first place with ease. Flying skills were all showcased, as were the benefits of training good head space, and everyone got a glimpse of their personal secret weapon for FS success.

We closed the camp with dinner and drinks on the Vltava River in Prague’s beautiful Old Town and Jazz Republic set off for The Netherlands and the ISR. Having only discovered Marco’s availability just before our camp, we had already booked Roy Jansen to coach us through the ISR. Unusual as the coaching switch is, we gained enormous benefit from the different perspectives and reinforcing similarities we were given insight into as the current 4-Way World Champion took over to guide us through the rounds. With a vastly different style to Marco, Roy too is a fantastic coach and dedicated far more time than we expected from him. No detail was too much effort for him and we spent almost all the time between rounds prepping with Roy for the next.

[Compete]

We started strong and confident and the first 3 rounds went well, despite the smaller tunnel and narrow door. Tied in 6^th place, on Round 4, the inner leg of my jump suit surrendered to airflow, opening the full gripper length and testing the team’s focus and reaction times as it inflated and flapped at will through the round. Round 5 found us under-prepped, having spent the time trying to fix my suit while keeping the gripper accessible for builds – eventually settling on gaffer tape inside and out for a slippery, weak-seamed suit that would have to do. Unfortunately, this was a fast round (5-K-D-O) so the impact of under-preparedness and distraction was even bigger. I came away wanting to apologise to Marco for wasting his never-more-appropriate advice better on this round when we needed it most. Round 6 was distracted – it felt like we’d lost a bit of focus as a team and hadn’t shaken off the bad round 5. And - real or imagined – my suit just flew funny. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. But once again, it emphasised the value of the mental game. Some recovery for the remaining rounds and we placed 8^th with an 18.0 average at the end of the meet.

What we gained in experience – the camp, the coaching and the indoor meet – is invaluable and indescribable. The massive and growing tunnel industry is exciting (personally and for the sport). Our skills are improving at unprecedented rates and we have access to competitions and media exposure beyond anything imagined just a few years back. The FAI has finally accepted Indoor skydiving as an official event and this too brings so much to our sport – crazy skills, younger flyers and lightning fast R&D). We dusted ourselves off from the downs and puffed up with pride at the highlights. The tunnel beast is fast and 3 days later we’re selling the car, pawning the jewellery and setting our goals for the next one.

And since it puts us “in the neighbourhood”, I guess another tunnel camp is in order. It’s good to have fun but it’s more fun when you’re good. Join us in Prague, at the end of March 2015 for the next Jazz Republic FS skills camp.

Contact Claire for more information.

It’s not too late to sign up for the awesomeness that is sure to ensue when local skydivers – along with a few imports – descend on Paradise Beach for the J Bay Boogie. This is the Boogie that sponsors coaching, prioritises sports and development and is even hosting Accuracy Nationals ON THE BEACH!!

When: 20th December to 4th January with Accuracy Nationals on 18th and 19th December (Registration fee covers both events)

Where: Paradise Beach in Jeffreys Bay

Contact: James (Boogie details) / Claire (FS at the boogie)

If you are after 2-ways or 12-ways, novelty sequences, coaching or some competition, FS coaches Dirk Venter, Claire King and Bailey Edmunds will be on hand to jump with you or assist you on the ground.

And, if you’re already going, why not also enter Accuracy Nationals?

It’s immense fun and open to B licence and above (or A licence with signed approval from your CI).

You don’t need a specialised accuracy canopy so speak to your club equipment officer about borrowing / hiring a student canopy so that you can participate in this fun event. 230sqf and up will be good.

The registration fee of R500 includes boogie registration, a t-shirt and the prize giving event.

Exit altitude is R2500 – 3000ft with jumps costing R199. The competition will be run over 10 rounds, however, depending on attendance, we may have a cut at Round 6 and Round 8. You will only pay for the jumps that you do.

Contact Simba for information.

You could expect heightened activity at your DZ as FS teams are starting to seriously prepare and train for nationals 2015!

If you want to be part of this cool discipline and vibe, all you have to do is get yourself onto a Novice 4-way team, and to get yourself onto a team you can ask around the FS flyers on your DZ, ask your FS Coach for a nudge in the right direction or contact one of your FS Committee members, but do not leave this till the last moment and loose out.

The FS Committee is planning two more super fun FS 4-way Novice skills events, somewhere in February 2015, one at JSC and one at PSC. The objective of these 4-way skills events… yes you guessed it, FUN, but more importantly to get likeminded junior 4-way FS flyers together and to facilitate the matching of suitable potential team members. This is the event where juniors get to mingle and learn from seniors and coaches, everything you can learn on the ground and during dirt diving is for free, mahala!  And you will get a full debrief on the camera footage after the jump. This is an event where new starter teams and newbies to FS competition can be inspired.

The SSA will be sponsoring, depending on the interest, demand and availability on the day, coaching slots for Novice teams up to a maximum of 12 slots per event. Jumpers will have to cover their own slots as well as their portion of the camera slots.

If you are already in a Novice or Intermediate team, please do enter the event as part of your preparation for nationals. The learning opportunity of having a senior or coach (or two!) jump with you in your team is invaluable and it will steepen your learning curve. It might just be the one point difference between a team medal and losing out……and you get to check out the competition!

Please contact Rainer for more information.

Team Peregrine - Jacqui Coetzee, Brad Curnow, Mark Trethewey, Rainer Coetzee

Photograph courtesy of Robbie Stewart

SKYDIVE THE BEACH is dedicated to supporting sport skydiving in South Africa. We operate from the Margate Airport which is not new to our skydiving community and has been a fantastic destination for skydiving for many years.

Our goal is to primarily operate with a Turbine Aircraft and will be hosting regular sports events. Our sport is continuously evolving and the need for more substantial altitude and capacity is becoming a necessity in this day and age and we believe this will only benefit our skydiving community. We also believe that investing in the future of our sport is beneficial to our existence and experience as people of the sky. We aim to bring the diversity of new age skydiving into regular events and presenting coaching clinics, competitive meets and fun boogies.

We are also offering Tandem Skydiving, High altitude exits, Beach Landings and, for the experienced Canopy Pilots, many interesting and challenging lagoons to swoop. We will be developing a Training Centre in the near future to encourage growth in our wonderful sport.

Besides an exciting line up of skydiving, we boast with one of the most organised Airports in the country, with Camping and Shower facilities, a restaurant with two bars, a swimming pool and braai facilities. Margate is after all a holiday destination and alternative tranquil seaside accommodation can also be arranged.

Join us from 2015 for Awesomeness in the Sky

Contact us on 0848525837 / Email / Facebook – Skydive the Beach

Operations/ CISO - Donavon

Operations – Gareth  

Admin – Fiona 

BIG SKIES...BLUE SEA

Mother City SkyDiving will be opening soon.

Have a look at our website and subscribe to our e-newsletter to be kept informed of developments and happenings.

Thanks for your interest and support.

www.Facebook.com/MotherCitySkyDiving 

www.MotherCitySkyDiving.co.za

Blue Skies

Mother City SkyDiving

“Papa” Roy Hughes is at the helm of PASA’s newest student drop zone situated at the Leeukop Airfield in Deneysville.

Roy has been skydiving for more than 30 years and has been a PASA instructor for 20 years, including various stints as Chief Instructor.

Facilities include a clubhouse and the resident jump ship is a C210T.

Contact Roy for more information.

This article was originally published in the Skydive Robertson newsletter on 1 October 2014 and has been reproduced by permission of the author, André d’Argent, Chief Instructor, Skydive Robertson

"I got lucky"....not my favourite words to hear.

A wise and very experienced skydiver once told me that when people start getting lucky, things are getting out of control. Something that resonated with me and that I have never forgotten. Skydiving is all about taking an existing skill set and expanding on it one increment at a time, about building your competencies within your abilities. It's about having fun, growing and doing it within a manageable situation.

To my mind, luck takes two forms.

Firstly, an event or a series of events which occur that are unforeseen and unplanned for. You rapidly react and cobble together a response that utilises what you have been taught, have heard, have seen others do, tossed in a bit of instinct and you survive unscathed. As far as luck goes it's the best kind or the worst. The best is you take away the lesson that things were out of control and it was simply good fortune that your response was appropriate. You take the event, think it over long and hard, discuss it with appropriate mentors. You learn and then pack it away in your box of tricks for the future. It can be a way of learning, not exactly a sustainable long term model of learning but at least you gain, you become better and wiser. Or you can take the worst view. One that you are a gifted skydiver with superior ability and what has just happened simply confirms that. The fact that you were in an uncontrolled unplanned situation in the first place does not feature in the thought process. It detracts from the glory. You do not gain, you do not become better, you simply become a victim to the next unplanned for situation and this time you might not get lucky.

The second form is what I refer to as dumb luck. When you do something that might have killed you and you remain blissfully unaware or even worse, in denial. This comes from successfully executing something you were expressly told not to do or you are so far outside your knowledge base that you haven't the faintest inkling of what might have gone wrong. Usually getting lucky in this manner results in a heated 'tuning' on the ground or packing mat. LISTEN to what is being said. Pocket your ego, shrug off your embarrassment and learn. Then go back out there and don't do it again until you are able to do it, been trained to do it and are allowed to do it.

When people get lucky it is because the situation has got out of their control and all that separates them from a violent accident is simply random chance. Pretty obvious stuff so far, what is not so obvious is that the situation was probably out of control long before they ever pulled their gear on. It may have started the night before with a late party or 5 minutes before by being too rushed to check gear for the nth time that day. It could have started with a YouTube video watched a week prior or frustration at not being able to perfect a certain goal milliseconds before trying again to execute it again in an inappropriate situation. We often don't know exactly when things got out of control but we know where they did, they got out of control with you, the person getting lucky.

Part 2 of Allan Banfield’s photo essay about the road to SA’s first 10-man. We pick up here where South Africa takes up the challenge...
 

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