The PD Blog

CarolinaFest 2011

During the first weekend of June in Chester, SC, Skydive Carolina held their annual CarolinaFest Boogie.  Over the past several years it's been building as one of the best boogies on the East Coast.  This year did not disappoint.  With more organizers than ever, Team's Turbo XP, Scarecrow and individual organizers, Amy Chmelecki, Melanie Curtis, Melissa Nelson, Pepe Rodrigues, Ryan Risberg, Simon Bones and Joe Freeman, everyone always had someone to jump with and a fun jump at that!  I had my work cut out for me to try and cover all of the event.

During my jumps there, I was asked by Greg at UPT to come up and film an intentional cutaway on a SkyHook equiped Vector!  I had never seen one up close and personal before.  It was amazing how quick that beautiful PD Reserve inflated to full flight!  If you haven't seen one or tried it yet, I highly advise giving it a shot the next time you're at a boogie and UPT is there.  I was also lucky enough to witness an actual cutaway and see the beautiful Optimum Reserve show it's true colors!

Overall the Boogie was a blast!  If you'd like to see the Entire Gallery of my work from the event please click the link.  Looking forward to next year and more PD Reserves and Optimums in action doing what they were designed to do!

-Brian Buckland

March Madness Freefly Sequentials

Luis Prinetto and Scott (Plamer) Palmer hosted a weekend of Head Up / Head Down freefly formations during Skydive Sebastian's March Madness week in mid March, 2011.  Over 30 freefliers showed up to fill the planes and attempt to build some challenging formations.   

Over the weekend the group flew multiple twin otter formaion loads.  The largest built was a mixed Head Up / Head Down formation with 29 freefliers.  

PD Photographer Brian Buckland captured these shots and more over the course of the weekend.  If you'd like to see the entire gallery, please visit his events website.

Skyventure Colorado Invasion of Elsinore

 In late January 2011, two instructors, Brad Cole and Ryan Risberg from Skyventure Colorado decided to push their birds out of the nest.  Assembling a group of 20 tunnel fliers (that are also skydivers), they traveled to Skydive Elsinore to not only put what they have learned to the test, but to also round out their skydiving skill set. 

 

 

It's amazing to watch people fly all over the place in a tunnel on their head, back and feet, but they really aren't quite sure how to dive down to a formation or float up to one for that matter.  What happens when someone rocks the base and send a wave through the entire group?  How does one turn 180 degrees and back track?  If you're a pro it might sounds like a silly question.  But if you've only flown in the tunnel you've never had to do it. 

 

These skills and more were practiced over a long weekend.  PD photographer Brian Buckland was there to capture the action.  To check out the entire gallery from that weekend follow this link.  All in all it was a great experience for these tunnel fliers to build some basic skills and gain some real world skydiving experience.   The event was so successful there is another one planned for March.

 

Katana over Sebastian

Excerpt from PD Photographer Brian Buckland's blog:

"I think someone is following me.  I could have sworn I saw their shadow run across my brand new Katana while I was flying it over Sebastian in late 2010." 

The folks at PD did a great job designing this custom Katana Logo for all to see. 

Enjoy!

Third Annual Mountain State Boogie

The Third Annual Mountain State Boogie hosted by SkyVenture Colorado went off without a hitch! PD was there supporting, educating and enjoying a great time! Nick Grillet held a seminar on canopy flight and Sponsored Atheletes Brian Buckland held a photography seminar while Melanie Curtis shut the tunnel down so everyone could attend her life coaching talk.  FREE tunnel time was handed out and even more cheap time was sold to all who attended. Looking forward to next year!

Best of all was Russell Moran.  He was the lucky winner of a FREE PD Canopy of his choice!  Congrats Russell!

For a Full Gallery of shots by Brian Buckland please take a peak here!  Enjoy!

Ladies Lodi Sequentials

On October 6th & 7th, PD Athelete Brian Buckland headed west along with some of the worlds best women freefliers converged in northern California at Lodi's Parachute Center.  This was to be the first all Women's Sequential event at Lodi which is known for their pushing the limits of freeflying and this event was no exception.

 
 
 

It was great to get back to Lodi to cover another Sequentials event.  Everyone in the sport knows that if you want to see the limits being pushed in the realm of freeflying that Lodi is the place to go.  And this time it was being pushed at a Women's Only event!

 
 

A great time was had by all and the jumps were impressive to say the least!  To check out all of the coverage of this event, please visit Brian Buckland's Gallery and enjoy.

American Revolution Boogie - 2010

Skydive Dallas held their annual American Revolution Boogie over the 4th of July weekend.  With hurricane Alex threatening to head north in Texas, the weather was starting to get questionable.  Brandon Chouinard and Ryan Risberg organized a Texas State Freefly Record which happened on Saturday and PD Sponsored Brian Buckland was there to capture the action.  Literally, as we were watching the video of the new record for the first time and the judge declared it a success, the skies unleashed and the rains fell hard for the rest of the afternoon. 

Blue skies prevailed as the hurricane took it's might south into Mexico and the jumping was on.  It seemed that everyone was trying to make up for lost time from all of the weather holds the previous day.  The skyvan, twin otter and caravan were turning loads all the way until sunset. 

To check out the full gallery please view my newly updated gallery.  I think you'll like the new layout and design....even works well on your phone.  Thanks Skydive Dallas!

AZ Challenge produces.....

Over Memorial Day weekend about 30 freefliers were invited out to Eloy to partake in the AZ Challenge to see what formations they could come up with.  Whether it was large and hard to fly or small and complex, these fliers met the challenge and managed to pull off some amazing skydives.  These two shots were captured by photographer Brian Buckland.  To see the entire gallery from the event click here and enter the password: "arsenal2010".

Carolina Fest 2010

It was Hot and Humid, but that didn't stop hundreds from flocking to Chester, SC to check out the annual Carolina Fest Boogie held in June, 2010.  Setting a state vertical record was just one of many amazing skydives to be had over the weekend with jumping taking place from 3 turbine aircraft as well as a balloon and a helicopter.  All of the Vendors were lined up and finished the day off with a BFR, most wearing shorts and T's, a small payment for sitting on the ground all day talking shop.  These shots were captured by Brian Buckland.  To see the entire gallery click here and enter the password: "carolinafest".

 
 

AZ Money Meet...

We rolled the dice and missed the 360 days of sun each year that Skydive Arizona usually offers up.  But we still managed to complete the Annual Money Meet with over 50 competitors registered.  Brian Buckland captured this shot of Danielle Ford and Meili Modini during round 2 of the comp.