Members are reminded that annual membership renewal falls due on 1 April 2015.

PASA fees for the 2015/16 membership year were set at the recent AGM at R490.

As in the past, PASA will collect Aero Club fees from licensed members and pay them across on your behalf. The Aero Club fees, as set by the Aero Club, are R395.

New licence/new rating application fees remain unchanged at R100.

Rating renewal fees for all ratings (except Jumpmaster, Coach and Evaluator ratings for which there are no renewal fees) remain unchanged at R100.

New tandem rating applications remain unchanged at R600 (this is in addition to the R100 new rating admin fee).

SANDF/SAPS members:
PASA members who are currently serving in the SANDF and SAPS and hold NO PASA ratings, pay R100 PASA fees.
PASA members who are currently serving in the SANDF and SAPS and DO hold any PASA ratings, pay the full PASA fee - R490.
All licensed PASA members currently serving in the SANDF and SAPS pay half the Aero Club fee - R197.50.

Members may be aware that we have been developing upgrades to the system to allow for the entire renewal process, including rating renewals and new licence/rating applications, to be completed online.

Despite our best efforts, these upgrades will not be ready to go live in time for the annual renewal on 1 April 2015 so we will handle rating renewals and new licence/rating applications as we have in the past. i.e. members who are renewing a rating or applying for a new licence/rating will be prompted to print page 2 of the PASA form and get that signed off by their Chief Instructor. These new upgrades will be implemented during the course of this year and we will keep members and Chief Instructors posted on these developments.

The online renewal process will get underway on or about 20 March. All current members with a valid, listed email address will receive an automated email renewal reminder containing a link which you will need to click on in order to update your data online. Once updated, you will be prompted to make the required payment. For those members who have no ratings to renew or who are not applying for any new licences or ratings, this will be all that is required.

If you do not receive your online renewal email by the end of March, please drop a line to admin@para.co.za confirming your correct email address.

Rating holders who want to get their ratings signed off before the renewal emails go out can download Page 2 in the mean time and obtain the required signatures.

New members joining for the first time, or those without a valid, listed email address will need to download and complete the PASA General Application Form, complete and submit to the admin office via email or fax. If you are not applying for a licence or rating, you do not require CI signature and need only submit page 1 of the form.

Please refer to the user guide for details on the system.

The following PASA Office Bearers for the period 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2016 were ratified at the AGM:

PASA Management Council:
Graham Field (Chairman)
Henk van Wyk (ADZO)
Julie Teague (SSA)
Mark Bellingan (NSTO)

Association of Drop Zone Operators (ADZO) Executive Committee:
Graham Field (Chairman)
Henk van Wyk
Vernon Kloppers

Sport Skydivers Association (SSA) Executive Committee:
Julie Teague (Chair)
Mohan Chudalayandy (Vice-chair)
Liza Hietbrink (Secretary)

Non-Executive Directors (NEDs):
Steve Bartels
Dennis Cohen
Charles Verster
(Any one NED also serves on the Management Council)

Contact details are available on the Contacts page of the PASA website (new office bearers to be updated effective 1 April 2015).

The SSA committees for the period 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2016 were all elected prior to, and ratified at, the AGM as follows:

Contact details are available on the Contacts page of the PASA website (new office bearers to be updated effective 1 April 2015).

The outgoing committees presented their feedback reports for the previous 12 months at the AGM. These reports are available here. 

The new committees’ activity plans for the year ahead are set out in the following articles. Members’ funds are allocated according to your ticks on the annual renewal forms, so, please consider the plans of each committee carefully and ensure you tick the box/es of the discipline/s you would like to support for the coming year. Only skills development and related plans are listed in this newsletter. For the detailed budgets and activity plans, click here.  

Formation Skydiving

• Novice Team Subsidy brought forward from the previous year. Awarded in March 2014 and earmarked for payment after Nationals 2015 to those teams who abide by the subsidy agreement. [R3 625]
• Novice Team Subsidy for nationals 2016. It will be awarded in 2015 and earmarked for payment after Nationals 2016 to those teams who abide by the subsidy agreement. Two novice teams consisting of 3 juniors and 1 senior, and subsidy sponsors 50% of senior’s jump. (max of 20 jumps) [R7 500]
• JSC skills camp. Planning to assist 2 novice teams and 1 intermediate team with options of 1-on-3 or 2-on-2 coaching. [R7 500]
• WSC skills camp. Planning to assist 2 novice teams 1-on-3 or 2-on-2 coaching. [R3 500]
• PSC Large Formation Skills Camp. To add specific and general big way techniques (think 50-way and bigger) to the skills set of all levels of FS flyers. The large formation will not actually be formed but the skills will be taught and practised in a simulated and realistic environment given the aircraft and altitude limitations. [R4 500]
• Money Meet August/September 2015 with prize money. Both 2-way and 4-way will be included and all experience levels will be catered for, live judging and a prize giving at the end of the weekend. DZ to be confirmed. [R2 500, in addition to R3 500 brought forward from the previous year]
• Ad hoc Events – Shake the bag weekend, FS Cameraman training, additional junior skills camp, etc. [R5 000]
• Coaching Videos – Made in tunnel to be used for CAT II and CAT III coaching as well as coach refreshers/evaluations. [R4 000]
• FS Cat III days – self -funded. We will offer and organise an experienced Cat III base of senior, current FS flyers for Cat III attempts, on request and subject to support. Student to cover base’s slots, an expense we found they are happy to do for the guarantee of skills and reliable base.
• C-Licence 8-Way days - self-funded. The FS Committee will organise 8-ways for ready FS flyers who need C-Licence requirements on request and subject to support. The system of an experienced base to fly and coach during the day and rotating docking positions for participants will be used again. Participants will cover the costs of the coaches’ slots.
• Remaining funds to be allocated to ad hoc events as opportunities present themselves during the year.

Artistic Events 

• Rooiberg Boogie (R4 850) - A skills camp is going to be held from 12 -16 June in Rooiberg with the aim of having 2 - 4 coaches taking head down groups of up to 5 jumpers. This is a ‘preparation event’ for the Head Down record in December 2015.
• Big Way Head Down Record (R4 850) - At least one international coach is going to be brought to SA to assist in putting together a 14 Way HD record at PSC from 11 – 16 December.
• Intermediate Competition Incentive (R4 850) - We will budget to carry this cash over since we would like to incentive a monthly competition, based loosely on the SASL model. Monthly competition jumps will be selected from the Intermediate Compulsory Rounds. Team rather than individual scores. Cash is for new Freefly suits – a good discount will be negotiated with Sonic. Some cash may need to be used to administer via Dirk Venter.
• R1 000 is set aside for skills camps travel.
• Mops Update - Ensure that the MOPS updates, which include HU coaches, become permanent.
• Performance Tracking - Gather information to establish the effectiveness of the skills camps we have had and to monitor the progression of AE Jumpers.

Canopy Formation 

• 3 skills camps are planned for the year at R2 000 per camp plus possible travelling.
• We anticipate 1 or 2 teams at Nationals this year.
• R5 000 carried over from the previous year towards the purchase price of a CF specific canopy for skills development use. An additional R2 000 is being added in the coming year to take the total to R7 000.
• R1 500 is budgeted for rig hire of CF specific equipment for skills camps.

Freefall Style, Accuracy Landing and Paraski 

• Budgetary Requirements to be raised by way of registration to the skills development activity. Provisional R500 set aside for medals or prizes.
• We believe that the performance and possible participation in the competition can be improved by hosting a skills camp during the year. The details of this still to be finalised but we aim at holding the skills camp shortly prior the actual National Competition in order to retain the skill level.
• We allocate R3 000 to the skills development camp and plan to raise any additional funding needed for the skills development camp by way of registration and, with any luck, some sponsorship.
• We plan to take a more attentive look and record of our gear and to make this available for use at the skills camp and Nationals

Canopy Piloting 

• Skills camps
  Coaching camp for intermediates and identified students by current coaches. This is an annual event as “students” cannot be identified from ISP stage but only after 100/200 jumps.
  Cape skills camp 1 at R1 000
  KZN skills camp 2 at R1 000
  Gauteng skills camp 3 at R1 000
• Competition – Fun Scrambles Meet
  To encourage intermediates and students coached by CP Coaches to enter their first competition and compete against experienced Pilots. Handicaps will be given to seniors to even the competition field. A team score will also be awarded to the Senior and Junior entering the event together.
• Costs R500 – prizes to be determined by the CP Committee.
• CP has lost several judges that have relocated or stopped judging. An amount of R7 500 brought forward from the previous year to contribute towards an FAI judges’ travel costs ahead of Nationals 2015.

Wingsuiting 

• R2 000 is allocated to hosting the inaugural WS national championship.
• We are budgeting R1 500 for skills development camps at this year’s PASA sanctioned boogies (tonto boogie, Jbay, Xmas in July in Rustenburg).
• R1 200 is allocated to training new WS Coaches to manage the increased demand in First Flight Courses.
• We intend replacing the Small SSA Wingsuit with a new updated suit. This will most likely be a Squirrel Hatch or PhoenixFly P4. Funds required +/- R5 500. R3 500 allocated initially with any additional funds from an increase in members and/or WS adoption drive to be added through the year.

by: Richard Morgan

2015 has started off with a bang! The AE-SSA committee successfully hosted the first skills camp of the year at JSC on the 7^th and 8^th of February, the turn out and the student progression was fantastic and has set the tone for a great year ahead in Free-fly. Well-done to all the students and coaches that participated!

Maryke Prinsloo being a ninja
(Photo courtesy of Julie Teague)

Remember Guys and Gals, nationals is just around the corner, so, we would like to encourage any intermediate AE teams to get hold of Warren Hitchcock if they need help organizing camera peeps for their team training or competition jumps.

Hopefully this will be the year a South African record is set for a 14 way Head Down formation. To this end the AE-SSA has partnered with the Pretoria Skydiving Club at its annual Rooiberg Boogie in June, to host a Head Down training camp to get everyone ready to rock a big-way in December.

The AE-SSA has also got plans to introduce a competitive AE league during 2015. We intend to introduce a league for jumpers to participate in an ongoing system of judging and points accumulation, resulting in some cool prices and giveaways to the wining competitors. Watch this space. 

We are all excited and charged to see AE and all disciplines of Sport Skydiving progress in South Africa in 2015 and we look forward to seeing you in the sky.

by: Oliver Nöthen

Towards the end of January 2015, Wingsuiting was finally accepted as a new discipline by the IPC and, as a result, PASA will be hosting the inaugural Wingsuiting Nationals as ratified by the IPC and FAI. A big thank you to all the members of the Wingsuit IPC Working group for putting the effort into make this happen!

For the first time, South African Wingsuiters can compete against each other and the best Wingsuit Pilots will be awarded National medals, prizes and a Trophy as well as have the opportunity to represent South Africa at international competitions.

Skydive Rustenburg has graciously offered to include the Performance and Acrobatic Wingsuit Nationals alongside FS, CF and AE Nationals this year.

There will be two Wingsuit Competitions that can be entered:

The Acrobatics competition consists of 7 jumps with a team of 3 people (2 competitors and 1 camera person). This competition is judged from video handed into the judges.

The Performance competition consists of 6 jumps; namely 2 Jumps for Time, 2 Jumps for Distance and 2 jumps for Speed. All are judged by a personal GPS location device that is handed in to the judges immediately after the jump.

If you have any questions regarding the new Wingsuit competition formats, or are interested in competing at nationals, please contact Oliver Nöthen, Tamsyn Snyman or Hendri Liebenberg (Your WS SSA for 2015/16).

Hope to see you guys there!

More information on Nationals 2015 can be found here: 

(Photo courtesy of Oliver Nöthen)

The updated 2015 FAI competition rules for all disciplines except CF and CP (which are not available as yet)  have been uploaded to the PASA website.

Navigate to "SSA Discipline Documents".

Readers are reminded of upcoming 2015 National Skydiving Championships:

Pretoria Skydiving Club (PSC) will be hosting the National Skydiving Championships in Canopy Piloting from Saturday, 4 to Monday, 6 April 2015. For more information, check out the bid document. 

Rustenburg Skydiving Club (RSC) will be hosting the National Skydiving Championships in Formation Skydiving, Artistic Events, Canopy Formation and, for the first time, Wingsuiting, from Sunday, 26 April 2015 to Friday, 1 May 2015. For more information, check out the bid document. 

If you aren't competing, take a drive out to support those who are.

Make it your goal to learn something new about the safety aspects of your sport. 

• Get a jumpmaster to assist you in the harness to practice your reserve drills
• Sit in on a first jump course
• Watch a parachute technician pack a reserve and ask questions
• Ask your Chief Instructor how YOU can get involved

Reproduced with kind permission of Dan Brodsky-Chenfeld

So, you think you're a Badass?

How well do you know your emergency procedures?

I’m asking the question because it has become a big issue in the sport. Most skydivers perform their Emergency Procedures (EPs) correctly if asked to demonstrate them. Most can write down the correct answer if taking a written test. But have you trained them to the point of muscle memory? Are the perfect EPs an instinctive response to recognizing a malfunction? If faced with a high pressure, physically strenuous, time sensitive situation are you ready to execute your EPs perfectly and without hesitation? Unfortunately, the honest answer to these questions is too often 'no'.

Far too many people do not know their emergency procedures anywhere near as well as they need to. As the DZ Manager of one of the world’s largest drop zones, any time I see someone pull too low, or have an AAD fire, I always sit them down and speak to them. Together we try to figure out how they got down there so we can be sure they know what to do differently to be certain it never happens again.

One beautiful, busy day at Skydive Perris we had two Vigil fires within an hour of each other. One of the individuals had about 100 jumps and initiated deployment at 4,000 feet. He had a slow speed malfunction, cut away at a high enough altitude but didn’t pull his reserve before his AAD fired. The other had about 400 jumps, started his deployment at 3000’, had a pilot chute in tow, cut away and went for his reserve but not before his AAD beat him to it.

Since both of them had initiated deployment plenty high there was no reason they should have ended up still in freefall so dangerously low. I asked them to demonstrate their emergency procedures for me. They both did. Then I asked them to talk me through the malfunction, their thought processes and show me what they did. Neither of them executed their emergency procedures correctly! They both did something different in the air than the intended emergency procedures they had just shown me! One of them ‘reached’ before he ‘looked’. The other reached with one hand when his plan was to have both hands on both handles.

How is that possible? Skydiving equipment has advanced so much. The emergency procedures we have to do when faced with a malfunction are simple and easy to execute. Way too many fatalities – and more close calls than we can even count – happen because we don’t perform these procedures correctly within the time we have.

These three simple ideas could save your life:

1 Practice your EPs

Emergency procedures are not practiced enough. I’ve asked many people how often they practice their EPs. The most common answer I hear is “I practice them before each jump.” That sounds like it should be plenty but the fact is, it’s not. Based on that, the jumper with 100 jumps had practiced EPs a total of 100 times. That is not nearly enough to develop the instinctive muscle memory you will need to save your life in the few seconds you have.

There are a few different ways to execute emergency procedures. Each one of them will work as long as you perform it correctly and immediately. None of them take more than five seconds. In a minute you could practice your EPs 12 times. Since your life depends on it, why not take five minutes each day and go through your EPs 60 times. We dirtdive a jump for 15 minutes but usually don’t practice saving our lives for even 5 seconds.

Do your EPs ten times a day for 30 seconds, or five times a day each for a minute. But somewhere in your day find five minutes you can dedicate to practicing EPs (every day, not just jumping days) and you will have rehearsed them to the point that they are totally automatic. You’ll see a malfunction and will instinctively perform the perfect procedures without hesitation.

You want to be a Badass?

Be a badass at performing your EPs

2 Stay one step ahead

We are too often surprised when our parachutes don’t work correctly and take too long to make the decision to cut away. Stay one step ahead. Expect your parachute to malfunction every jump. Be pleasantly surprised when it doesn’t. If you have any doubt at all about whether your parachute is good or not, it’s not. A good parachute doesn’t give you any doubt.

Don’t wait until you are faced with a stressful malfunction situation to decide what you are going to do. Decide right now that if you aren’t 100% sure you have a good canopy over your head you will cut away without hesitation.

3 Pull at a safe altitude

If you don’t have enough altitude even well executed EPs won’t save you. USPA’s minimum deployment altitude is 2,500 feet. To deploy by 2,500 feet you need to be waving off no lower than 3000 feet. If you are lower you may not have the time you’ll need. *

These three simple ideas could save your life. They’ve saved mine on more than 30 malfunctions. Please consider them and share them.

A number of useful Facebook links have been added under "Quicklinks" on the PASA website homepage:

Freefly South Africa Parachute Association of South Africa Sport Skydivers Association Artistic Events Committee (Freefly& Freestyle).

Formation Skydiving South Africa FS focus group and forum for feedback and communication between FS Skydivers in South Africa.

Wingsuiting SA  

Wingsuit South Africa Share and post anything Wingsuit related here!

2nd Hand Skydiving Gear (South Africa) This is a group for people buying or selling 2nd hand skydive gear. Please feel free to join and post pictures and adverts for everything from canopies to dytters to jump suits to full system to airplanes.

History of South African Skydiving (HOSAS) This page is a tribute to all ex and current RSA skydivers.

Westonaria Parachuting Club, South Africa (The Legend) Once upon a time, Westonaria Parachute Club (WPC) was the largest and most active skydiving club in South Africa. Please post all your memories and pictures of this "Great Club" here.

The final instalment of Allan Banfield’s photo essay about the road to SA’s first 10-man star. In this issue, the Epilogue and 10 Man Star International Hall of Fame. 

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