The PD Blog

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.

Extreme Week

Extreme Week took place last week in Voss, Norway. This was the 11th year of extreme week and once again it was a great success despite some slightly dubious weather at times. There were a whole variety of sports happening such as longboarding, BASE jumping, climbing, big air, kayaking, kiting, rafting and paragliding. Each evening there was a skydiving demo jump into the centre of town followed by a prize giving, a 30 minute video of the day and then a variety of famous bands and DJs rocked the party tent. With it being held so far North it didn't get dark and the parties always continued on.

There was load organizing at the dropzone and the Nordic Meet were pulling some sick freeflying moves. Mountain flying was high on the agenda and a number of PD sponsored jumpers from a variety of different nations were in town. Some of the other highlights included some neat speed riding, featured for the first time, and some great ski stunts. The top moves must have been the ski jump over the swooping canopy with another swooper right behind the skier. This was then followed with the skier flipping over a hovering helicopter!

Much of the action was shown on both National and International TV as well as a variety of other media. If you haven't been to Norway or hung out with Norwegians before then you should think about going next year- they're super friendly and it's a beautiful country. Here's a short video of some of the fun that I had at Extreme Week.

La Isla de Encanto

PD Factory Team members JC Colclasure and Jonathan Tagle recently held a Canopy control course at the XtremeDivers dropzone during the Puerto Rico Freefall Festival. Those who participated in the course all had good things to say about the experience and felt they had improved their canopy skills. Event organizers Jason Gonzalez and Viviana De Jesus put on a first class event that drew 247 registered skydivers over the week. With the beautiful scenery and great weather the boogie is a natural draw for skydivers, especially wingsuiters. With over 25 wingsuiters in attendance many large and small flocks were flown and  reps from Birdman, Fly Your Body and Tony suits made sure demo suits were available for everyone. Just because the jumping day was over didn't mean the fun was. Jason and Viviana made sure the night time activities were well taken care of by hosting a dinner as well as having a weekend DZ party that provided a live DJ and some of Puerto Rico's fine  adult beverages all night for free. If you didn't make it this year put it on next years list of boogies to attend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The HEAT in Germany

The UK High Extreme Aerobatic Team, HEAT, have been chasing the bad weather and have just returned from a training camp in Germany consolidating their last camp held in DeLand with coach Jay Moledzki. The camp was held at Bad Lippspringe which is also the site of the UK Nationals later this year. Despite the poor weather jumps were still made on the IPC standard pond. The dropzone recently extended the Classic Accuracy pit out to the end of the pond to help provide a gentle landing for the more aggressive zone accuracy approaches.

Z-Hills gearing up for winter

Since the PD factory is located pretty centrally in Florida, we are lucky enough to have a fairly easy access to many dropzones.  Most of them only an hour or two away - big, fast planes anywhere you look!  (Yeah we are spoiled :) )
One of those DZ's is Skydive City, Zephyrhills, FL and their latest newsletter just came rolling into our in-boxes.  Z-Hills is a fun place to visit - if you haven't been there yet we can definitely recommend that place as a great winter destination for cold skydivers.  The facilities are excellent - our favorite part is of course our trusty dealer - the Sunshine Factory - located right on the dropzone.
Coming up on the Skydive City calendar you can find events like the annual Halloween Party, Thanksgiving Boogie with all the usual fun (10-way speed, 8-way & 16-way, Dodge Ball and Fight Night, Ranch-style - put on by the one and only Bruce Chapman).   
PD will be at the Thanksgiving Boogie with demos, seminars and all the good stuff.  We don't plan on getting in the ring though, but will be on hand to assist anyone that might be having a fight with their canopy.  Simply stop by the tent and see our tour reps for a peaceful resolution.
Hope to see you there!