The PD Blog

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's Big Boy Pants 2011: World record breaking event

 
 
 This year the Florida Canopy Pilots Association(FLCPA) has put together a pretty interesting event, and much to our surprise, it won't be held Florida.  The top pilots from around the world have been invited to gather at Mile-Hi Skydiving Center in Longmont, CO during the last few days in July.  Their goal is breaking the established World, European, and National records of as many countries as are in attendance.  These swoopers are putting on their Big Boy Pants and swinging for the fences...so here at PD we've put on our Big Boy Pants as well.  We're coughing up $4,000 in prize $$.  If you want some of our loot, get out there and lets see what you've got! 

Can you speed through 70 meters in less than 2.093 seconds?

Can you and your canopy cover 181.70 meters in distance?

You can find more info on the event here.

 

 

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!

Pimp My Fly 2010

Awesome! Two thumbs Up! ... Seemed to be the theme for this years Pimp My Fly Boogie held over 5th - 10th July at Skydive Hanko in Finland. 

This is the third year PMF has been held, and each year it grows in popularity, based around a FreeFly Boogie for girls, with a focus on great skydives, good friends and learning a little bit while having fun, and even setting a few records at the same time. This years event was stocked full with some of the best load organizers, two Cessna Caravans, beach jumps, head down records, wingsuit jumps, beach jumps, saunas, PD tent tetris and many more.

PD Sponsored Melanie Curtis (Skydive Elsinore) and Fabian Raidel (Volare) joined an impressive list of skilled organizers during this event, to give the 100+ jumpers all the fun they could have, with long summer days and near perfect weather, PMF was a boogie not to have missed.

One of the main focuses of this event was to try set a new Finnish Women's Head Down Record, and with the help of Melanie and Fabian, the girls took to the sky and built a 6-Way Women's Record. PD Congratulates the girls and all who help them on this, next year we hope to see that grow and maybe we'll even see a few of you on the next world record.

Boogie Pics here and these  here by Andrew Lovemore

Kiitos

200 jumps...Or 150

Well, all in all yesterday went well.  Once Kevin started his jumps the weather stayed nice for the rest of the day/night.  His plan was to start at 4am, so all of his volunteers and him were up early just waiting for the weather to clear up.  Due to the late start (11am) there was a late finish (10-10:30pm.  Kevin was feeling good but after such a long day he made a decision based on safety.  He picked 150 as the target for the day and finished strong.  The staff of volunteers was amazing so 200 jumps was a very realistic goal.

I am sure all of you are curious who won the PD canopy.  Kevin sold 100 "chance tickets" for $100, winner gets a PD canopy of choice.  A local jumper in that area by the name of Brian won the canopy.  I guess Brian has been a huge supporter of the cause so it's great he won.  Congratulations Brian!

The late night and weak internet is the cause for such a late update, sorry for any of you that were waiting to hear how things ended. 

Congratulations Kevin on 150 jumps and for reaching your goal of donating over $60,000. 

Summerfest 2009 Day 7- Part Deux

From the PD Sponsored team here at Skydive Chicago...

Last night the Drop Zone was treated to a spectacle of fireworks that could rival many cities’ fourth of July.  Just before the fireworks the Otter did a fly-by accompanied by a string of 8 intense explosions along the ground.  It was enough to get everyone on their feet!  As if that wasn’t enough, the UFO jump that started the night’s show was unlike anything we had seen before, even compared to previous years’ UFO jumps.  While the exact details are a mystery, what appeared to be a group of wingsuiters and maybe freefliers streamed across the sky with pyrotechnics in freefall.  The skydivers weaved across each other as they sped across the sky.  Then, under canopy, with the pyrotechnics out, they swooped in near the crowd covered in glow sticks.  Really awesome!

Today the weather looked iffy to start, but the first load still got full altitude, and it’s been looking better and better every hour.  The freefly big ways are moving ahead, and all the other fun jumpers keep the whole dropzone buzzing.  Sandy, Lemonhead, JaNette and Steve are organizing belly groups from 4 ways to 22 ways at all experience levels.  We’re looking forward to another great day.

Steve Lefkowitz

www.rhythmskydiving.com

Summerfest 2009- Day 7

Today's update by our friends our British friends who just returned from the World Games with the bronze medal in Freeflying...

Warm Up Day!

After a week of Boogie jumps for those that arrived early, yesterday was the warm up day for the record attempts which start this morning.  The day started with 2 groups of 44 ways, one organized by Rook Nelson and Mike Swanson, the other organized by Fred Fugen and Vince Reffet from

Babylon

, plus a 30 ish way which grew through out the day as more late arrivals showed up organized by David Gershfeld.  After all the groups had completed 3 jumps we had a lunch break to re-organize and prepare for an afternoon of 65 ways which would be using 3 aircraft.  With enough time for 2 attempts at a 65 way things were looking good with the last jump being very close to completing.  It was also a good chance to practice launching the base from the Twin Otter as the Skyvan has blown an engine meaning we will now be doing the record from 5 Twin Otters!!!

 

The plan for today is start off with an 80 way, the idea being its smaller and a better warm up for the 100 plus ways to come!  V Excited!!!!

 

Mike Carpenter

www.volareproflight.com

 

Summerfest 2009-Day 6

The head down big way warm ups started this morning.  The huge mass of freeflyers broke up into three groups of 40 and went on their way to do some into jumps working their way up to the 100 way.  The boogie is staying fresh and the action keeps coming even in the middle of the week.  EG Suits, Reaperwear, and LiquidSkyshowed up and joined vendor row on the south side of the hanger.  UPT was treating some luck daredevils to the opportunity to test jump the skyhook demo rig today.  We've opened up the PD car bar in the back of our rental for our friends who join us for a sunset cocktail.  Last night we enjoyed the famous sunset swoop and chug obstacle course.  If your not here yet, there's still time to catch a plane to Chicago and catch the last few days!!   

Summerfest 2009 Day 5

So it's Tuesday here at Skydive Chicago.  The 100 way RW jumps finished up on Sunday, but that hasn't seemed to slow the five otters, king air,and Skyvan down too much.   The wingsuit jumps are quite sucessful from what we hear, and freeflyers from around the world are arriving every day for the 100 way attempts that are going to begin tomorrow.  

We saw the fastest exit from a skyvan on Sunday.  Twentyfour skydivers ran at top speed out of the back after the van stopped in the middle of the runway with flames and a huge puff of smoke coming from one of the engines. If we could only get the first group to move that quick when the green light comes on!

Last night was the Hellfish toga party.  Judging by the how slow some of the people are walking around today I would say that the margaritas they were serving up were pretty popular.  

Summerfest 2009 Begins!

Our Summerfestexpedition began at about 4:30 am yesterday with our flight from Daytona Beach to Midway Airport just outside Chicago.  After our on-time arrival(Thanks Delta!) we immediately gathered our bags and made our way out to Ottawa, IL.  For those who have never been, Summerfest is a ten day boogie hosted by Skydive Chicago.  This summer there's a huge vendor list, 100 way RWsequentials with BJ Worth and Roger Ponce, 100 way head down world record, huge Wingsuit formations, the hellfish toga party, seminars with the world famous Norman Kent,  fireworks show, live bands, and more skydives than you can imagine.

Its Friday morning and were headed into Day 1 of this spectacular event.  The registration line is full, and the 100 way sequential are about to begin.  We've staked out our tent location with one small snafoo.  Our trusty PD tour rep shipped nine packages from the LSPC redemption boogie, but it appears that only eight of those made it here to SD Chicago.  The missing package held the large pole that holds up the PD Star shade tent.  After our lenghtly discussion with Fed-Ex, we can rest assured that they do have the way bill that was attached to our package, but the package is MIA.  We wondered how they lost a 70 pound 5 foot long package,  but without that answer, we figured, it would be fun to take bets on when the MIA package would arrive.  For one dollar some of our friends picked the  day of summerfest they thought the pole wouldarrive.  The overwhelming pick is "never".

We'll do our best to keep you updated on whats happening here at the event as the week progresses for those of you who can't make it.  For those of you on your way, hurry up and get here!!!