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

Nationals Are Heating Up!

This year's US Nationals has proven to be a very exciting event, as expected. After the Classic Accuracy event concluded with a team victory by Skydive Ricks and their PD Zeros along with new national records in individual men's and women's accuracy by Jimmy Hayhurst and Cheryl Sterns (Jimmy scored a total of 12 centimeters and Cheryl scored 16 centimeters over 10 rounds on their Zeros), it was time for the 4-way FS competition to begin. 

65 teams in total entered the competition - 30 Intermediate, 19 Advanced, and 16 Open. First takeoff was Monday morning at 7am and the planes didn't stop until all 65 teams had completed 7 rounds of competition in the Arizona sun. 

The Intermediate class ended the day with close scores at the top. T-Minus:01 currently leads the pack with an average of 12.29 followed closely by Fo' Shizzle with a 12.00 and Dallas Khaos XP one point behind them with an average of 11.86. Tomorrow we'll get to see if Khaos can close the gap for 2nd and if T-Minus:01 can hold onto their top spot.

The Advanced division also has a tight battle taking place leading into the last three rounds. Qatar Tigers, a guest team, are currently in the lead with a 13.17 average whle Perris Air Rush follow a mere two points behind with a 12.83 average after round 7. Third place has a tie at the moment between Spaceland Lite and Fallout, both with an average of 12.33. With scores that close, Tuesday is bound to be an exciting day.

The Open class also saw its fair share of close scores today as all eyes were on Arizona Airspeed, SDC Rhythm XP, Perris Fury, and the Golden Knights Gold going into round 7. So far, Airspeed has tied or beaten every team in every round and currently sits on top of the leaderboard with a 22.29 average! After round 6, Rhythm and Fury were tied for 2nd place but then in round 7, Rhythm came out on top with a 19 to Fury's 15 to give them a bit of breathing room. Unfortunately for them, the Golden Knights Gold team also rocked a 19 in round 7 and put themselves just one point off the silver medal spot going into round 8. The Golden Knights F4 team also posted up some high scores today with an average of 16.57 after round 7, making them the top female 4-way team in this event. Being an 'On-Year' for the US Team selection, the pressure is on for Tuesday's three remaining rounds and we'll be sure to post updates as soon as we can.

Check back soon for updates and scores and be sure to check the PD Facebook page for quick updates on the fly. Updated scores can also be found at Omniskore's website.

USPA Nationals 2011

USPA Nationals 2011 hosted by Skydive Arizona

PD has been busy setting up and gearing up for all the competitors to arrive and get settled in. So far the top VFS teams are in the house, and Arizona Airspeed is taking a few days off before their final training camp, the French CRW team are filling the skies with their PD Storm canopies.

Jumpers participating in the first part of the USPA Nationals have been seeing how many pennies they are losing and how well their tucks and turns are the day before Classic Style and Accuracy Landing kicks off at 6:45am tomorrow.

This year marks an "on year" for all competitors looking to represent the US in the World Meet to be held in Dubai in 2012.

As always Performance Designs attends the USPA Nationals to support those who come out and compete, be it the top-level teams and individuals or the fun pick up teams looking to put their best up against the rest. This year is no different, PD has set up a video debrief room next to the gear store with 4 TV's and a charging station so teams can relax in the AC, watch their dives and get ready for the next round. We look forward to seeing you all in there.

Keep up to date on daily "tid bits" via our PD Facebook page, and don't forget to check out the awesome photo gallery with pics by our PD Reps and none other than PD Sponsored Athlete Niklas Daniel. Scores and more can be found on the OmniSkore website.

USPA Canopy Piloting Nationals : Day (-1) Practice Rounds and Set Up

The Texas weather has been hot and humid with temperatures breaking 100 degrees by mid day. But the heat didn't stop the competitors from getting in some practice runs on the pond while event organizers finalized the game plan for the the 2011 USPA Canopy Piloting Nationals at Skydive Spaceland in Rosharon, TX!

While many of the competitors showed up earlier in the week, today, September 14 2011, was the official practice day for everyone to get in their runs before the competition starts tomorrow morning.  The pond saw over 40 entrants making runs all day as the weather and winds held out through sunset.

The practice day began with a free run, as competitors got to run any of the courses they wanted to work on and then around 11am, zone accuracy runs were made while the judges ran through their preps for the competition.  Skydive Spaceland did a great job tilling up the sand for the accuracy course and everyone was happy with the condition of the course.  After zone accurancy, the competitors got more runs in on the distance course as the winds started to pick up.  The last course of the day was the speed course and with the timing system now in place, the competitors got a chance to get their speed results during that practice session.

As the sun came up today over the pond today, it was easy to see that Skydive Spaceland put in an amazing amount of work to ensure that the USPA Canopy Piloting Nationals venue set the stage for USPA's pinnacle canopy piloting event this year.  From the top on down, every member of the dropzone put in a tremendous amount of effort to make sure the competitors got everything they needed to focus on the competition.

The day ended with Meet Director Albert Berchtold hosting a competitors briefing where the rules and regulations of the event were laid out for the entrants.  

Wheels Up! is scheduled to be at 7:30am with a forecast for jumpable weather all day.  USPA Canopy Piloting Nationals is about to get underway!  Check out our Facebook page throughout the day for photos and updates, and we'll update scores here on  the blog tomorrow as much as possible.

Swoops Up!

PD Big Boy Pants concludes with numerous records set!

What an amazing series of days at Mile-Hi  Skydiving Center in Longmont Colorado.  448 competition jumps were performed over the last three days by 25 competitors from 5 countries including Brazil, USA, Canada, Spain and Germany.  16 new records (world, continental, and national) were performed during this spectacular event.

The first day saw the world distance record of 181 meters broken twice.  First by PD Factory team member Jonathan Tagle with a distance of 195 meters and then by Nick Batsch with a distance of 222 meters. 

With new national and continental records being set and bettered each day of the competition  applause from the spectators and competitors alike were heard with each round of competition. 

As the last day of competition began everyone wondered if Greg Windmiller's speed world record of 2.093 seconds would stand, or if it would be toppled.   Jonathan Tagle and Nick Batsch came very close to it on Friday morning with times of 2.096 and 2.095 respectively.  Greg himself even "suited-up" with his tight red US Army style suit on Sunday morning hoping to better his 2009 record.  At the end of the event, it looks like Greg will hang on to his record title for a bit longer. 

Here's a list of the top 10 places from the event.

1. Gold-Nick Batsch-Alter Ego
2. Silver-Curt Bartholomew-AlterEgo
3. Bronze-Jay Moledzki-PD Factory Team
4. Greg Windmiller-US Army Golden Knights
5. Pablo Hernandez-PD Factory Team
6. Tommy Dellibac-PD Factory Team
7. Justin Thornton-Slipstream
8. Bryan Buechler-Slipstream
9. Ian Drennan-PD Factory Team
10. Sergei Fedotov

Full results from the event can be found here and photo's from the event can be found here.

      

PD Big Boy Pants list of attendees

The PD Big Boy Pants is coming up in just one week!  The final preparations are being made for the event at Mile-Hi Skydiving Center.  Below is a list of confirmed recordbreakers who will be taking their best shot at the world records in Longmont Colorado.  Click on their name to see their event profile.  Some of the profiles include interviews discussing strategies, plans, and training that the competitors have working on in preparation for this event. 

Jay Moledzki

Pablo Hernandez

Jonathan Tagle

Ian Bobo

Ian Drennan

Jessica Edgeington

Tommy Dellibac

JC Colclasure

Nick Batsch

Justin Thornton

Stuart Schoenfeld

Matt Shull

Dan Raymond

Dave Billings

Curt Bartholomew

Bryan Buechler

Edson Pacheco

Sergey Fedotov

Ryan Brownlow

Bart Rogowski

Hans Paulsen

Greg Windmiller

Justin Price

For those of you who can't make it out to Mile-Hi Skydiving Center to watch the event, you can check out the FLCPA live feed here. We'll see up "up there" in a week!!!

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)

PD ZERO wins Silver in Bled Slovenia

  

This past weekend Vittorio Guarinelli from Italy took the SILVER medal at the second stop of the 2011 World Cup Series(WCS) in Bled, Slovenia.  There were 161 competitors at this stop in the series.  Final results after 8 rounds can be found here.  In two weeks the WCS continues with their third event in Altenstadt Germany. 

 

Black Mountain Canopy Piloting Competition 2011 & 3rd Belgian Nationals

  The competition was held from the 10th of June  till the 12^th of June and 27 swoopers attended this first competition in Europe. We had pilots from  Austria, Belgium,Switzerland,Holland,France,Sweden,Germany and even from Israel and Australia. 

90 % of the competitors was flying Competition Velocities and a couple were flying Velocities.

Friday we started the training day and after a little rain we finished the day with enough jumps. The competition briefing was held in the world famous “Horse friends”

Saturday we started at 9 and after the first jumps we knew that it was a little challenging due to the headwind.So no big scores were put on the  score sheet.First round was won by Wuzi Wagner from Austria.

Round 2,3,4 was the speedevent with a lot of headwind , so all the scores were 3 seconds +,even some as high as 10 seconds!

Round 2 was won by Daumerie Anthony from Belgium,round 3 was won by Erwin Baatenburg de Jong from Holland and the 4^th round was won by Dominic Roithmaier from Austria.  When the last pilot landed from round 4 meet director Jurgen Camps called it the day.

On Sunday it was very nice weather to go on with the meet.  We started the day with round 5 which was distance and this round was won by Marcel Hotz from Switzerland. The next 3 rounds were zone accuracy and the 6^th round was won by Tobias Koch from Germany  with a perfect 100 score, so stand up in the box!! Round 7 and 8 of zone acc. was won by the accuracy King Wuzi Wagner with 84 points in each round.

After a short break  head judge Els Geveart explained the reverse exit order for the final round.

The last round of distance was won by Arno Declercq from Belgium with 82 meters and this was his first competition!! Nice job!

 

Overall standings open

1^st Grim Swinnen Belgium

2^nd Wuzi Wagner Austria

3rd Dominic roithmaier Austria

 

Overall standings Belgium nationals

1^st Grim Swinnen

2^nd Steve Braff

3rd Nicolas Tombari

I would like to thank to organization and all the volunteers and of course skydive Flanders to make this possible and I think that we just have to do this again next year. See you all at the next black mountain canopy piloting competition!!!

 

 

Tekst:Erwin Baatenburg de Jong

Video Marcel Leën

Pictures:Maya van Campenhout/Ellen de Grauwe

 

 

Arizona Airspeed 2011 Valentines Meet Video

For all you four way enthusiast out there, here's some footage of Arizona Airspeed ripping through the points at this years Valentines meet at Skydive Arizona. Enjoy, if your eyes can keep up...