Vigil owners, please take note of the Vigil product advisory bulletin ADV-01'2OL7, containing updated battery replacement procedures, effective immediately.

The 1st FAI World Cup of Wingsuit Acrobatic Flying was held last year at Skydive Zhills in Florida from 7th to 9th November. Team Clockwork Orange (Tamsyn Snyman, Lehan Bornman and Susan Watts on camera) qualified at PASA’s 2016 Nationals in April to represent South Africa.

Wingsuit acrobatics is a specific discipline where a team of two performers execute acrobatic manoeuvres whilst flying in their wingsuits, and the cameraperson flies with them to record the performance. In competition, judging is done on video footage.

The event saw 8 teams (3 wingsuiters per team) fighting for the top prize of being the Wingsuit Acrobatics World Cup Champion. Teams from Finland, Switzerland, Russia, Britain and America competed in this event. The competitors had 7 rounds consisting of 2 free rounds and 5 compulsory rounds. Each compulsory routine is judged on three criteria: style, number of grips and camerawork. Team Clockwork Orange ranked 7th at the event after a close battle for 6th place with Switzerland.

For further information, scores and videos check out the paralog results page and Skydive-TV.

Thank you to our amazing sponsors: Parachute Systems, Cookie Helmets, Phoenix Fly, Thule and Chute Me.

A big thank you Pete Lawson for his amazing support.

Well done to Andrew de Jonge and Waldo Prinsloo on their fantastic achievements at the 1st FAI World Wingsuit Performance Flying Championship.

If you are interested in this great discipline and would like further information, contact Tamsyn Snyman or the SSA Wingsuit Committee.

Love your sport?

Passionate about FS?

Keen to get involved, learn more about skydiving, FS, the SSA and the PASA cogs that keep our sport running and fun for all?

Why not stand for the FS Committee on the Sport Skydivers Association?

Elections will start soon, so if you would like to find out more, hear what's involved and consider standing, drop us a line. Contact Mohan Chudalayandy, Claire King or Liza Hietbrink (all emails are on the PASA Contacts page). 

The CYPRES lifetime has been 12.5 years since the beginning in 1991.

Starting in 2002, we began testing longer maintenance intervals on the Ripcord CYPRES family. With the knowledge and experience over an entire service life period we are now comfortable to extend the service life (which has technically been impossible in earlier years) for all CYPRES units manufactured from January 1st to 15.5 years.
For this longer service life we offer a maintenance at 5 years and 10 years after date of manufacture. The units will remind their users.

This service is recommendable because it corrects wear and tear, fixes defects, provides improvements, adds new features, integrates better handling solutions, establishes applicable adjustments to new developments in skydiving, supplies applicable adjustments to changed conditions of the environment, contains all applicable hardware upgrades and includes all applicable software updates

Most of us know that the D Licence requirements for Formation Skydiving have changed recently. They will be published in the next release of the MOPs but are already in place. 

The changes relate to the 16-way requirement only, which was amended to allow for 3 different options (of which the 16 way remains one option). We think of it as more fun, in more ways, while gaining your licences! Below is the full D Licence requirement for Formation Skydiving.

D Licence

Must have met all D Licence requirements as per Section 2 (PASA MOPs) and: 

• Have safely docked fifth or higher on the first point on at least 10 formation skydives. 

• Have participated in at least three eight way or larger formations where at least two distinct nonrepeating sequential points were successfully completed. 

• Have successfully participated in one of the following formation skydives 
• 5 points in an 8 way, drawn and assessed as per the current IPC Formation Skydiving competition rules and dive pool. 

OR

• 3 distinct, nonrepeating sequential points in a 10 way or larger formation [unlinked exit by the candidate jumper]. 

OR 

• 1 point in a 16 way or larger formation [unlinked exit by the candidate jumper].

• One night Formation Skydive.

Give the FS Committee a shout if you have any questions. Get out there! 

We really want to tell your stories but don’t know when all the good things happen so let us know and spread the news in the Toggle Times.

Skydiving related articles are welcomed from dropzones and members. Send content to newsletter@para.co.za.

We also offer very reasonably priced advertising space for your skydiving products and services, so contact the above address if you'd like to buy an advertising slot in an issue.