European head down record 2009

After an awesome 40 way head down record success in 2007, the Babylon freefly crew are putting together another record attempt of 60+ skilled flyers from all over Europe at the Empuriabrava dropzone on the cost brava in Spain. The UK has the following participants registered to try out for the record attempts with many of the flyers having been on previous Euro* and World** records. 

Matthew O’RIORDAN U.K.*

James DAVIES U.K. *

Martin REYNOLDS U.K.*

Will BLACKIE U.K.

Jim HARRIS U.K.*/**

Mark JOYNER UK

Claudio LETTIERI UK

Andy FORD U.K.*

Mike CARPENTER U.K.*/**

Andrew LOVEMORE U.K.

David JOYNER U.K.

Piers ROBERTS U.K

Richard FRAME U.K.

Laura KENYON U.K.** (female w/r)

Frazer SMITH UK

Daniel PARKER U.K.*/**

Andrew NEWELL U.K.*

Paul GOODMAN U.K.

 

The record attempts take place from the 6th – 10th June 2009 and we will be updating the blog with images and news as often as possible so check back for current information on how the event is proceeding.  

image by Babylon freefly

Thursday 4th June.   Arrived at Empuriabrava DZ after a wonderful flight with ryan air, it sais it all when the captain bounces the plane down the runway along with screams from nervous passengers.. sure woke me up! 3 freefly jumps from the otter with 17 other head down maniacs.. fast pace with the first swoop to the base touching 199 mph, closely followed by a 205 mph and a 210 mph, that sets me up as last stinger for about 8 seconds to dock and start the break off at 6000ft. So, looks like the aircraft will be 2 x twin Otter, 1 x Skyvan, 1 x twin beech and possible Pilatus Porter.. Thats an amazing capacity of 90 and 2 maybe 3 camera flyers!!  Here are todays fun skydives OK! that should have been thursday 4th June on the video, it’s been a long day ha ha Come back tomorrow to see what’s going on in European record head down craziness… mean while here are some images of the day.

Ciao Fordy

ready to dock

On the way to 15,000ft

Waiting for the briefing

Checking the camera equipment prior to boarding

Thoughtful

“Blue steel”

 Friday 5th June

Cloudy start with a little thunder and lightning to get us in the mood! ;-( now 9.25 and the first loads just gone up, french 4 way girls are training but not much else happening… what else did you expect from freeflyers!!! it’s 9.25 after all.   The Brits are rocking up with Andy lovemore (S.A but token Brit) arriving late last night and Andy Newell arriving this morning, Claudio (Italian but token brit) Mark and David Joiner (S.A but token Brit) Piers Roberts (Canadian but token Brit) Frazer Smith, Fordy, Richard Frame, Laura Kenyon already here… It seems we treat our freeflying like our tennis and boxing with any nationality representing the uk as long as their from somewhere else, now where did Greg Rusedski go?? Will get back to you with some jumping soon before the rain comes…

 

 
22 way briefed and on a 20 minute call, weather seems to be playing along with the groups timings with cloud building between our loads and dispersing to glorious sunshine for take off, guess that’s what you get with the prevailing wind coming from the coast. Using a 4 way base with two 5 way pods we are looking to mimic the 4 way base from the 2007 euro record with 4 sets of 2 way wackers between the two 5 way pods, not enough flyers to link the wackers into a line yet but good practice for levels and group speed as this is only the 2nd jump of the day and the biggest so far. The break off has been split with 14 leaving at 6,500ft and the base 8 leaving at 5,000ft, with staggered pull heights that should give clear airspace for everyone.. it’s only ever going to get more crowded from here on in, now where is my velo 79!

Ciao for now.. Fordy

Weather issues I.E. crap weather have made the day fairly long and freefly free… the 22 way was?? hmmmm, to say the least quite a scary place to be! basic level issues and hard docking made the break off beeps a beautiful sound much as the bell at the end of round 1 with Iron Mike Tyson would have sounded..

Having done a 16 way since the scary 22 way we have now canned the final lift due to a 10,000 ft cloud base we have retired to the bar to ponder on just how hard the euro record could be to beat! let alone double in size.   Here are the final 2 dives of the day, a 22 way and a 16 way both from 12,800ft with the first wave breaking at 6oooft and base + stingers at 5000ft.. Thats approximately 34 seconds from exit to complete the 22 way formation before 1st wave goes.. 

Latest arrival, Martin Reynolds from the Bad lieutenants freefly team.. Still a lot of “faces” to arrive yet. Also a huge “big up yourself’ for Kirsten McAndrew who with only 204 jumps was part of the base for all of the jumps today, Kirsten is a tunnel prodigy and it’s awesome to look across at someone with that amount of skydives mixing it up in the sky, nice one Kirsten!. That’s us for the day, the jumps start in earnest tomorrow with the babylon team looking to put together some nice skydives to check out all the flyers skill levels, let’s hope the axe is freshly sharpened and my next post isn’t from the bench! ha ha ciao  Fordy  

Saturday 6th June 09:37 Official start to the practice jumps. A low cloud base along with a freefly style of communication to the masses sits upon us, in other words I have no idea what is going on yet.. lots of flyers arrived last night so a long round of high five greetings takes place over grande cafe americano, Mikey Carpenter, James Davies and Matt O’Riordan made a late arrival last night making the Brit pack a formidable sized group here at the euro record, did I mention Matt is South African.  

Waiting for the briefing

Received a comment from someone on the youtube clips asking if the freeflyers track on their back because it’s more efficient? For those that don’t freefly in formations that’s a perfectly fair question. The break off is one of the most dangerous parts of the skydive, with a large proportion of the flyers leaving at the same time and looking to leave safely and get in to clear airspace to deploy as far from the centre of the formation as possible.

The break off starts with a 180° turn with out committing to any forward drive, once a clear path has been established visually, the flyers accelerates forward and change the angle/pitch of the body to convert the vertical speed of 170 mph into horizontal speed, momentarily back tracking before rolling over into a more efficient belly to earth tracking profile, this takes place in about a second and can create huge distances between the flyers. Problems occur when flyers turn and change the angle of flight before checking that the exit path from the formation is clear, collisions are dangerous with the speeds involved between static and tracking flyers.  

Briefing has taken place and the base 6 to be used in the actual record attempts are off to burn up the atmosphere in their 15 way with Vince, the rest of the 70+ flyers have also split into 15 ways with various babylon team members.  Danny parker has arrived minus rig thanks to low cost budget airlines and managed to lock what little he did have with him in the boot of his hire car along with the keys, so at least their is no change in the quality of freefly admin.

Aircraft

We have a great fleet of aircraft for the record attempts, Beech 99, twin otter, Skyvan, Porter… I will update images as I get the chance. 

The 15 way groups are all either jumping or waiting for the call, all the basic skills being checked with tight fast exits, approach and docking, levels and grips, break off and track being all of equal importance.. This really isn’t the place to be practicing for a bigway, this is the place to be ready and waiting for the slot on the record.. i am sure their will be some decisions made throughout the day as the jumps get done.

 

Will’s 15 way completed as have most of the other groups, normal issues to iron out with a stronger base needed to allow the stingers etc. to dock smooth and fast increasing the chances of a completed formation, 15,000ft helps enormously and gives a slightly more relaxed atmosphere to the jump. Changes to the base are being made to create the stronger centre for the formation.

The weather has come changed for the worst with a front approaching from an unusual direction, huge cumulonimbus building over the DZ making jumping at this time impossible. 

Andy Lovemore is on Nimmo’s group so we have footage from a different formation.

A quick Glossary of terms for those that may need them:

Formation ~ Group of flyers in a pre-organised group gripped together to form the correct pattern.

Dock ~ The grip between one flyer and another.

Base ~ The core group (a 6 way formation in this case) of the formation that all the flyers move towards in the sky.

1st Stinger ~ The first skydivers to take a dock on the base, giving other flyers the beginning of the intended formation.

2nd Stinger ~ As above but second

Pod ~ A sub group of the base that starts with one 1st stinger and loops around to close with another 1st stinger, the base 6 would have maybe a 10 way pod on either end to allow more flyers to join

Wacker ~ A line that is docked onto a pod or the base that does not return to finish at the pod or base, generally curved all in the same direction to aid the flow of docking, the wackers allow flyers room to fly cleanly and allow bigger formations to fly stronger.

Burble ~ The disrupted air above the flyers feet that is not clean and very difficult to fly in, the falling body creates a burble all around like a force field, falling into or putting flying surfaces (arms and legs) into the burble cause tension and movement in the formation.

Break off ~ The altitude that has been pre-designated to stop building the formation and allow the flyers to move horizontally away from each other too open their parachutes.

Axed/Benched ~ if a flyers skill level is not up to the required standard then the flyer is taken off of the next attempt or axed from the formation, this is the organisers job after a video review and always done for the good of the group, also any flying deemed “dangerous” would end up with the flyer being axed or benched.

Bench ~ Literally taken it was once the place where skydivers would sit and wait inline to be invited on the formation, if the formation was 20 way in size with 26 total flyers then the 6 extra flyers would sit in order of arrival for a slot to become available, normally by a flyer being axed from the formation. A strong bench means the organiser has plenty of talented skydivers to pick from above the original formation. For the European record the planned attempt is a 60 way with a 35 strong bench! 

Lift capacity ~ The amount of aircraft available to fly the skydivers in the formation to altitude. Generally lift capacity limits the size of the formation, lack of participants is not normally a problem.

Superfloater ~ A skydiver who leaves the aircraft earlier than the base and other skydivers and is the signal for floaters in the other aircraft to leave.

Weather changed for the better so most of the 15 way formations get a couple more jumps in, all the groups seem to have the odd issue with 1 or 2 flyers but it all bodes well for tomorrow with hopefully the groups joining to concentrate on bigger formations.

Here are the last couple of our groups dives, the base got the act together on the last jump to give everyone a sweet point to aim at

Weather looks better for tomorrow so if all goes well we could push 5 or 6 formation loads together, quality rather than quantity is the focus, after all this is the euro record not the euro try outs, the babylon website states fairly clearly that everyone attending should be comfortable flying in multi plane freefly formations.. hmmm, maybe not everyone is on the internet!

Ciao for now

Fordy

Sunday 7th june 09:20

The 9 am briefing will commence shortly! Spanish time

So far today the weather has played along and the loads have been getting in the air at a good pace, we have a little altitude problem with air traffic at Girona so the last few lifts have only managed 12,800ft instead of 15,000ft.. amazing how much of a difference that 10 seconds can make both mentally in the aircraft and the obvious in the jump.

Will’s group have completed 2 jumps and they couldn’t have been further apart in quality.. To be honest the mindset on the first attempt was wrong from the off, with a war cry of “get on it or f**k off” the base melted into the atmosphere throwing in a turn just for good measure.. the whole skydive was just a group of individuals looking for an opportunity to survive. Jump 2 could not have been different with less altitude and a completely different base (3 brits and an italian fella) we flew strong and fast on heading allowing everyone the opportunity to take time and get into their slot. Only 1 or 2 grips shy of a smooth 16 way from 12,800ft.. awesome.

Lunch is served whilst in the confinement of the babylon container the silent assassin wields his sharpened blade.. or it could be just Nimmo with a pen, maybe we’ll have more time too blog if things don’t go so well for me! 

  

Waiting for the Babylon crew to get the first of the larger formation loads together, always a little tension waiting for the names to be read out! To be fair each individual flyer here knows wether he or she has been in slot and done their job for the team on every jump. It might be a little bit of a shock to get cut having been in slot on every jump but shouldn’t be too much of a suprise if instability, hard docks, falling out of slot, going low, not getting to the formation have been apparent in all of the jumps so far! things should get cleaner from now on.

A lot of the flyers are wearing weight myself included, The base is rumored to be falling at over 200 mph conjouring up images of feet together hands by your sides to be near it.. it’s hard to dock if your palms are flat against your thighs to stay with the base 6 so a few pounds around the waist might just help some. BTW the rumour came from a guy in the base so should be fairly accurate.

hmmm, the call to meet has been tannoyed!! here we go..

So, 30 way from the Skyvan and Beech 99.. looks like we are training for the centre of the final 60+ will get back with a checklist of the brits involved!

Piers, Newell, Mikey C, Fordy, Richard Frame so far in this load.

30 WAY

Emotional… Aircraft communication didn’t help the exit with the Beech 99 chase plane being a fair distance from the Skyvan and the team not being outside and ready as the base exited the Skyvan and went on it’s merry way towards 210mph. The epic pace from the base catching a few of the jumpers out and causing issues. Interesting skydive giving everyone benchmark to improve from. The other 2 groups of 30 are also up and working towards the goal, how awesome to have three 30 ways practicing on one DZ.  I’m sure it will get smoother once the pace issues are sorted, that really becomes a personal issue, however i can’t seem to find a second 10lb weightbelt anywhere!

London ink take to the skies

If your a fan of tattoo’s the ink in the skin kind and not the military brass band spectaculars then you may have heard of louis Malloy, for the last 24 years Mr Malloy has been practicing the art of tattooing and is seen by many to be at the top of his profession, being the artist who created David Beckham’s Guardian Angel.

Mr Louis Malloy and entourage of like minded artists are currently working with The Discovery Channel on the aptly named Sky TV program “London Ink” and in show number 6 Mr Malloy takes to the skies on a Tandem skydive with one of his “customers” Mr Toby Goodchild  before later returning the favor with some awesome artwork on Toby in the studio.

Tandem Instructor Loz Cross along with Toby jumped from 13,000ft with Infinite Skydiving Camera flyer Andy Ford to film for the series.. 

Here are some of the images of the sharply dressed and very laid back louis Malloy making the descent.. 

Louis Malloy attched to Loz Cross with Toby Goodchild flying alongside

Regards

 

Andy Ford

Infinite Skydiving Solutions ltd.

 

Eloy VFS competition

Well, it’s Friday 18th and the team have done as much training as possible with the Tunnel flying schedule and weather conditions, so 40 team jumps completed and a mini meet draw already flown. The Skydive AZ 4 way VFS competition starts tomorrow with teams in open and Intermediate class. Outbreak Vertical are going into the open as they have tried to train the harder blocks 4,5, & 6, with some success, more practice would have been good but ya play the cards ya dealt so the team phrase “suck it up, buttercup” definitely comes into play here.. 

As a quick end to the training phase the team were invited on Matt Hills 1000th jump a 20 way that built to an 17 with all the team in slot and flying well… 

 

So the draw for the 6 round meet will take place tonight at 7pm mountain time (Arizona??) and will be uploaded along with the team shortly after..

regards

 

Fordy

www.infiniteskydiving.com

 

VFS training Jumps..

Weather still being a hinderance to getting good consolidation with the jumping, Exits seem to be getting better, after 20 jumps we are definitely all in slot and launching a good solid chunk and turning on the hill.. With some of the tougher blocks such as 6 (snowflake) and 11 Overcrank/undercrank to fly were hoping for better conditions before the weekends competition… 

Here are some more dives and some tunnel we have been working on:

More to come as we train through the week towards the Eloy VFS comp at the weekend

Fordy

www.infiniteskydiving.com

VFS updates

Windy weather has slowed the jumping a little with the heat causing some awesome but dangerous dust devils across the DZ, best avoided at all cost. Tunnel each morning at 6am for an hour then straight to breakfast for a de-brief and plan for the day. 

Some of our tunnel flying below with mark Joiner and myself doing 4 way drills whilst Jim and Dan progress onto the Head down skills… 

Tunnel fun in the mornings with the more tiring VFS training broken down to 1 minute sessions i the evenings keeps the fun and learning at an even pace, nothing like beasting yourself every session to get tired quickly. Check out some of the fun were having learning new “tunnel tricks”

Another day with 3 hrs tunnel and a few skydives, will post some jumps when I get time to edit… 

 

Laters

 

Fordy

 

VRW camp Eloy USA

Flights, transport, accomodation… blah blah, after only one run in for speeding with the local law enforcement agency, Mini van stuffed to the gunells with peeps and kit, we arrived at the Skydive Arizona tunnel. A quick waiver and off to the hotel for some well earned shut eye. As normal absolutely shattered after 20+ hrs traveling but wide awake this morning for an hour in the Skyventure AZ wind tunnel under the guidance of Arizona Arsenal Vrw team member Steve Curtis.

 

A slow start with gear checks and waivers then an hour or so with Steve walking through the 12 blocks and 12 randoms before getting airborne to run through the process all over… 

Jump 1, totally revamped exit, flew ok but will get better with time, then random A-Cross to Block-3, H/D Accordian..

 

Day1 finished with some tunnel flying with AZ Arsenal flyers Steve and Sarah Curtis with some of the team progressing towards head down in the tunnel and others doing some 4 way VRW and fun flying… 

check back for updates over the next couple of weeks..

Fordy

 

 

UK Vertical VFS team

Uk vertical embark on the first of their vertical formation skydiving training camp on monday 7 th April in Skydive Arizona, Eloy USA. The team with new member Mark Joiner look to complete a punishing schedule of 100 coached skydives and 20 hrs tunnel time in the 14ft skyventure wind tunnel located on the DZ. Mark joins Andy Ford (inside centre) Danny Parker (Tail) Jim Harris (outside centre) and Andy Lovemore (cameraflyer) 

 

 

 Team UK Vertical hope to build on the training and successes of 2007 after competing and winning the 1st European VFS Championship in Chalon Sur Saone, France.

  

Using the 2007 dive pool of 12 blocks and  12 random formations the team will train towards the UK VFS Nationals in June and the World cup in the USA in September 08. Pop back for updates on the teams progression on the training camp and throughout the year.

 

Images by Andy Lovemore 

Regards

 

Fordy 

Tandem fun between showers…

Another blustery March weekend, skydivers hoping to get a peek of the blue skies, maybe even the sun, how optimistic we are… It’s not all bad though, making the most of the short breaks in the poor weather brings success and smiles all round with Tandem students from London arriving to celebrate a friends birthday by jumping from 13,000ft, what better way to see your 30th in.  

Here are some images taken by resident photographer Mark Rayson of the lift we managed to get in the air before the skies turned grey and the rain began to fall.

The team.  

 

Kitted up.

 

Ready for the off. Final check.

  

Take off.

Landings.

Fordy & Shan come into land.

Congratulations for a great skydive… 

 

 Lets hope we can get the rest of the guy’s and girls into the air tomorrow. 

Skydiving milestones

I guess the first skydiving milestone would be the 1st Jump whether on an AFF course or a Static line jump it is the most exciting, terrifying but amazing experience, once completed there are plenty more “milestones” along the way (although every jump from the first to the 10,000 th and beyond are precious memories) 

 

 

 

 

The first freefall for a static line student is certainly a huge step as is category  8 for both S/L and AFF students. For AFF the need for an instructor in free fall is no longer required. For S/L a pre jump instructional brief is no longer necessary and the students can work towards ‘A’ license. (yep! another milestone) once achieved the student can move towards formation skydiving 1 (FS1) and freedom to choose what they do in freefall.

AFF graduate Seth Curry on his 7th consolidation jump enjoys the sunset on a photo jump with Infinite Skydiving Photographer Andy Ford 

On the same weekend Phil did his 100th jump which is also a milestone as is 200, 500, 1000th and then every 1000 onwards towards the big 10,000, which to be honest is a fairly rare occurrence. 

 

So we hope you have many memorable skydives whether it’s a Tandem, your level 1 AFF or a R.A.P.S S/L descent

 

have fun and be safe

 

Regards

 

Andy Ford 

  

Ajay and Prashant make a boyhood dream come true…

Ajay Kumar and Prashant Ajayazed made their first Skydive at the weekend at Skydive Weston in Oxfordshire with Andy Ford of Infinite Skydiving. Both the guy’s are over in the UK from India where making a skydive is fairly difficult unless you are serving military personel. The safenet employees over on secondment for 6 months decided to try skydiving whilst in the UK and braved the cool of the February skies to make their dreams come true.

 

 

Prashant’s Tandem Video

Ajay trained for an AFF (Accelerated Freefall) descent with a view to completing the course and attaining his ‘A’ license qualification before returning home in May. Prashant came along to give his pal moral support but couldn’t resist taking to the skies on a Tandem skydive.

 

After a very good level one skydive, Ajay wanted to try the level two and was briefed after watching his level one video, now looking forward to levels three and four over the coming weekend it doesn’t look like it will be long before the course is successfully completed

 

 If you would like to keep up with how the Infinite Skydiving schools latest students are doing then pop back soon for more info.. 

Ajay Kumar’s level 1 & 2 AFF descent can be viewed on Youtube & Metacafe

  

The team after Ajay’s level one. Left to right:

Andy Scott (video) Paul Floyd (Secondary instructor) Ajay Kumar (AFF Student) Andy Ford (Primary Instructor)

 

regards

 

Andy Ford