The PD Blog

USPA Nationals 2011 Wrap Up

As the sun set in the Eloy desert this past Saturday, it marked the end of an amazing 2011 USPA Nationals hosted by Skydive Arizona, with just over 500 competitors participating in 19 various disciplines, and countless staff and volunteers working in the shadows to make it all happen. And let's not forget out our beloved judges and judging panel who worked around the clock to keep the scores current and the intensity of the competiton going.

For those wondering what it takes to host a USPA Nationals, just think about the 114 competition and 17 training loads that Skydive Arizona flew on the first day of the Formation Skydiving Competition.

If you've ever been to a USPA Nationals, the one thing you will see is that the average teams and competitors are not the world class, 20+ average teams, they are the day-to-day jumpers who have a passion and drive for competition. It's so rewarding seeing the up-and-coming teams fighting it out in the Intermediate divisions, the newbies to nationals going all out and having fun while fostering their competitive nature and the life long friendships that are built.

What's a Nationals without a jump off ...

In the 4-Way Advanced meet, there was a tie after 10 rounds for 2nd place between Start 4 from OH and Fallout from PA, with Start 4 coming out on top and taking the Silver, Fallout settling for the Bronze. 4-Way Intermediate saw the same deal in round 10, however this was a tie for Gold. Teams T-Minus:01 & Dallas Khaos XP  went into the jump-off with T-Minus:01 coming out on top winning Gold, 1 point ahead of Dallas Khaos XP who took silver.

Worth throwing some names around ...

Performance Designs has long supported teams and individuals both in and out of the competitive environment, and it would be rude not to show some love and thanks to those who have excelled at the USPA Nationals 2011.

Arizona Airspeed - 4-Way Open Gold Medal

Golden Knights Gold - 4-Way Open Silver Medal

Perris Fury - 4-Way Open Bronze Medal

SDC Rhythm XP - 4-Way Open, 4th Place

XP4 - 4-Way Open, 5th Place

Golden Knights F4 - 4-Way Open Womens, 1st Place

SDC Furies XP - 4-Way Open, 12th Place

Golden Knights - 8-Way Open, Gold Medal

Arizona Airspeed - 8-Way Open, Silver Medal

XP - 8-Way Open, Bronze Medal

Amphibious Attack Tigers - 8-Way Open, 5th place

One Knight Standard - 8-Way Open, 7th Place

Golden Knights - 10-Way, Gold Medal

Arizona Airspeed - 10-Way, Silver Medal

*@#!? - 10-Way, Bronze Medal

GKXP - 16-Way, Gold Medal

Arizona Airspeed - 16-Way, Silver Medal

Clean Air - CF Sequential, Gold Medal

Clean Air - CF Rotation, Gold Medal

Scarecrow - Freefly Open, Bronze Medal

Skydive Ricks - Classic Accuracy Team, Gold Medal

Cheryl Stearns - Classic Accuracy Female, Gold Medal 

James Hayhurst - Classic Accuracy Mens, Gold Medal

Jimmy Drummond - Classic Accuracy Mens, Silver Medal

Mark Jones- Classic Accuracy Mens, Bronze Medal

Marius Ivascu - Classic Accuracy Mens, 4th Place

Dennis Murphy - Classic Accuracy Mens, 5th Place

Cheryl Stearns - Style Female, Gold Medal

James Hayhurst - Style Male, Gold Medal

Marty Jones - Style Male, Silver Medal

Jimmy Drummond - Style Male, Bronze Medal

Way to represent ...

This years USPA Nationals marked an "on year" where the USPA selects teams and individuals to represent the US at the next World Meet, being hosted by Skydive Dubai, December 2012 in the UAE. These teams and individuals will go head-to-head against the world's best to try and bring back Gold, Silver or Bronze from the world stage. Performance Designs would like to congratulate everyone on their outstanding performance, and wish them the best of luck in this years training and the up coming World Meet.

Men's Style and Accuracy Team*

• Mark Jones
• Marius Ivascu
• William Beaudreau
• Jimmy Drummond
• James Hayhurst
• Dennis Murphy – Alternate

 Women's Style and Accuracy Team*

• Elisa Tennyson
• Mery Rose
• Cheryl Stearns

 VFS Team - SDC Standard XP*

• Jason Peters
• Matt Nelson
• Mickey Nuttall
• Will Pesek
• Dalton Samuelson
• Marci Ross - Alternate

 Men’s FS 4-way Team - Arizona Airspeed*

• Thomas Hughes - Captain
• Mark Kirkby
• Joshua Hall
• Niklas Hemin
• William Schmitz
• Brian Johnson - Alternate

 Women’s FS 4-way Team - Golden Knights – GKF4*

• Angela Nichols - Captain
• Laura Dickmeyer
• Dannielle Woosley
• Jennifer Schaben
• Scott Janise

 FS 8-way Team - Golden Knights*

• Brian Krause - Captain
• Kurt Isenbarger
• Matthew Davidson
• Sean Sweeney
• Justin Blewitt
• Joshua Coleman
• Michael LaRoche
• Lawrence Miller
• Andrew Starr
• Angela Nichols - Alternate

 CF 4-way Rotation Team - Elsinore Too Wrapped Up*

• Eric Gallan - Captain
• Sean Jones
• Taylor Cole
• Will Kitto
• Glen Fafard
• Bart Stonestreet – Alternate

 CF 4-way Sequential Team - Clean Air*

• Michael Paolin – Captain
• Mark Gregory
• Brian Pangburn
• Chris Gay
• Eli Godwin
• Yuliya Korkh - Alternate

 CF 2-way Sequential Team - Clean Air*

• Chris Gay – Captain
• Brian Pangburn
• Eli Godwin
• Yuliya Korkh - Alternate

 Freestyle Team - Dragons*

• Tiffany Lamb – Captain
• Travis Mills – Video

 Freefly Team - NorCal Alliance*

• Anthony Landgren – Captain
• Aaron Johnson
• Michael Knight – Video

* Pending approval by the USPA Competition Committee

Worth 1000 words ...

Check out the PD Facebook page for photos from the USPA Nationals:

Nationals Album 1

Nationals Album 2

Podium Photos

Photos by PD and Niklas Daniel

Keeping it in the family ...

This year saw PD staff members competing at the USPA Nationals, and we even got a few medals for some bragging rights.

• Amanda Mandrafino (Engineering) - Bronze Medal in Freestyle
• Gilles Dutrisac (Engineering) - Silver Medal in 4-Way Advanced
• Albert Berchtold (Dealer Relations) - Silver Medal in 4-Way Advanced & 5th in ProAm 2-Way Sequential CF
• Alex Bittner (Marketing) - 5th Place in Freestyle
• Karl Meyer (Marketing) - 4-Way Advanced (Lost to a team called Monkey Business)

PD Sponsored Jumper Laszlo Andacs, spent a few days at Skydive Arizona and took some amazing photos, check them out here: www.laszloimage.com

2011 Canadian Nationals Score Page

Scores listed below are from the 2011 CSPA Nationals at Edmonton Skydive Centre July 16-24.  We'll do our best to update these at least once per day. All scores are unofficial

Canopy Piloting (final)

Classic Accuracy(final)

Formation Skydiving OPEN(final)

Formation Skydiving SENIOR(final)

Formation Skydiving FEMALE(final)

Style(final)

Vertical Formation Skydiving(final)

Canopy Formation(final)

Team Accuracy(final)

Sport Accuracy(final)

Freefly(final)

8-Way(final)

USA CF Team Clean Air

If your interested in taking up CF, or just want to bang end cells with someone, we can't think of a better group of people to learn from.  Brian Pangburn, Chris Gay, Mark Gregory, Mike Paolin, Liz Godwin, and Pam Pangburn have been introducing skydivers young and old to Canopy Formation(CF) skydiving for many years. Here's a video bit of info from Brian about the team and the disclipline from their win at the World meet in Tuege.  The team recently returned from the 2010 World Meet in Russia where they again won Gold in the 2 way sequential event AND in the 4-way sequential event flying their CF Storms.

 

Go Go Ookoonono!!!

So we've been keeping an eye on the Australian National CF team lately. Ookoonono, made up of performers Jules McConnel and Michael Vaughan, have been pretty active bouncing their canopies off each other lately.  They're followed around by their teammate and camera guy Craig Bennett.  They recently won gold in the ASIANA two way canopy formation sequentials, Bronze at the World Games in China, and also won the IPC CF Web challenge late in 2009.  Most recently they took Gold on the podium at the Australian Nationals with a fifteen point average- their best yet!

You'll see them training throughout the course of this year, including a camp with the famous Chris Gay from the US CF team-CleanAir.  Then they're headed to the World Meet this summer in Russia to do their best to bring home a medal for Australia flying their CF Storms.  Good Luck to you!!!

The Velocity of Lightning

In between some CP training two members of HEAT and two members of the Red Devils hooked up for a bit of CF at Netheravon.  The Red Devils were flying Lightning 176 and 160 canopies while HEAT were flying Velocity 103 and 84 canopies.  While the different types of canopies and sizes are not traditionally thought of as being compatible for this type of flying a bit of planning made it work.  There's also a short clip of the video of the jumps.

CF Web Challenge Winner

The 2008 CF Web Challenge has concluded. 38 Individuals from 6 Nations completed 3 rounds of 4 way sequential or 2 way sequential.  The event was judged by FAI Judges who downloaded the video's submitted over the web by teams as they completed rounds from around the world.  In a fashion similar to the 4 way fax meet, the CF guys and girls have taken this "remote" style meet to a new level.  Using technology to bring them together and compete, this meet made our vast world, a little bit smaller.

In cooperation with this FAI event, PD offered a free canopy of choice to one luck participant.  The winner, Patrick Linder of Team Frayed Knot, will be ordering the PD canopy of his choice when he returns home from the CF World meet in the Netherlands.  Congratulations to Patrick and all the participants of the 2008 CF Web Challenge!

Across the Atlantic...

While most Canopy Pilots in the US are lining up for Swoop Week there's still a lot happening on the other side of the Atlantic. The last European Swoop Tour competition of the year kicks off on Friday in the Netherlands. Organized by Henny Wiggers it's run out of Teuge but jumpers land on the beach at nearby Lake Bussloo. While a few Europeans have gone to kick some butt at Swoop Week there is still going to be a pretty competitive and exciting competition over here.

Despite the poor summer weather we've been having we've still managed to get a few jumps in. In between training we managed to bang our Velo's together in some CReW formations. While we certainly had some fun doing this, PD do not recommend it.

Good luck to all of you at Swoop Week and the EST.

Style and Acc World Meet Update

Well we've almost completed Round 3 in Mens Accuracy, Round 1 in Womens Accuracy is done, Round 1 in Mens Style is done and Womens style is complete. Womens style was won by Slovenia with USA in second and Russia in third. I'm no expert but it looked like a good contest.

Wind conditions in the accuracy have been changing a bit with some having had nil winds and others having the maximum (7 m/s) on the same round- but then that's competition for you. The first load of the competition saw 2 of the 5 miss the dropzone, but things have improved since then!

There are some really talented people here. Some of the skill of the jumpers handling canopies in a variety of conditions, making it all look so smooth and easy, is fantastic. This is the first World Championships using a 2 cm disc. There are less zeros which is spreading the field out further.

Top tip in Style- turn the right way- it kinda caught me out.

Here are a couple of pictures from the opening ceremony.

Storm???

Some of us in the UK are slightly puzzled at the release of PDs new canopy, Storm.  While we haven’t jumped it yet, knowing PD we’re sure it’s a great canopy but wonder if there is a market for it.  The guys from HEAT have already found that there is an awesome 7 cell on the market that is superior to anything else out there.  This canopy has a massive range of speed and provides a powerful flare with soft and accurate landings. 

Clearly we’re talking about the Velocity.  HEAT have been using them in a variety of disciplines and took them to the CP and Classic Accuracy British Nationals and plan to compete again on them later in the year at the British CF Nationals.  Just this weekend we were putting some 4 stacks together* on them cruising past the ever present clouds that our infamous weather system continually plagues our country with.  The Velocity comes in a range of sizes although we tend not to go to extremes and fly mid ranged canopies from 79 to 103 at wing loadings of between 2.1 to 2.7.

So why get a Storm?  Well, maybe if you are looking for an all around canopy to do a bit of freefall and then maybe a bit of CRW, but need a canopy that is better suited for the job (and preferably with someone that can instruct you in the proper CRW ways).  Curious?  Read more about the Storm here :)

But for us, we can’t find a better all round canopy than the Velo, so we’ll be sticking with it :)

*clearly this one is one of those "do not try at home, for highly trained stunt professionals only" deals. Seriously.  We mean it. 

FAI/IPC Canopy Formation Web Challenge

FAI/IPC is proud to partner with PD as the 2nd Annual CF web challenge is launched!
The FAI/IPC Canopy Formation Web Challenge is designed to enable interested teams of competitors and a camera-flyer to perform a series of formations as if in live competition. The formations in the 2 and 4-way sequential event have been drawn by the challenge organizers and published on the FAI website.
The competition consists of three rounds, each of which may be practiced as often as desired. The teams' best performance is then up-loaded for evaluation by the judges. The competition will run from May 1st 2008 until July 31st 2008. Please visit the FAI /IPC Web Challenge website for more information.

As a proud partner in the Web Challenge Performance Designs would like to see the discipline of Canopy Formation grow. This year the winners of the FAI/IPC Canopy Formation Web Challenge will be announced during the WPC in September, to be held at Teuge in the Netherlands. During the awards ceremony there will be a special drawing which will include all participants from the Web Challenge. ONE lucky CF enthusiast's name will be drawn and given the opportunity to select a FREE sport parachute of his/her choice from the Performance Designs product line (excluding the Velocity). This means whether you place first, third, or last, you have a chance to win the grand prize just by entering the competition.
The web challenge offers the opportunity for the seasoned world champions the opportunity to compete, as well as those just beginning to experiment with the exciting discipline of Canopy Formation Skydiving. Come Get Some!!!!!