This year’s USPA National Skydiving Championships at Chicagoland Skydiving Center in Rochelle, Illinois, September 4-18 will feature changes to the vertical formation skydiving and wingsuit flying disciplines. USPA is adding an intermediate VFS test event and replacing the intermediate performance wingsuit flying class with an advanced class.

Chicagoland Skydiving Center and USPA have been working together to introduce the VFS intermediate event at the 2018 Nationals. This test event will consist of six rounds with a slightly smaller dive pool than the open and advanced classes but with the same judging system and 35 seconds of working time. The dive pool will include only head-down formations: randoms A, B, E, J and L, and blocks 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 21 and 22. USPA’s intent is to attract vertical formation skydivers who are newer to the discipline, as well as experienced flyers who may not have the training time and resources necessary to be competitive in the advanced or open classes but would still like to compete and have fun.

Chicagoland will host the event concurrently with the other classes of VFS; however, any open- or advanced-class VFS competitor (performer, videographer or alternate) may also, with the permission of the meet director, compete as videographer in intermediate.

At the winter 2018 USPA Board of Directors meeting, the Competition Committee elected to eliminate the intermediate class of wingsuit performance flying and replace it with the advanced class. The board made this change due to a lack of participation in the intermediate category, as well as feedback from competitors.

In the previous intermediate class, wingsuit size was restricted to smaller suits in an attempt to encourage newer wingsuit flyers to participate. However, many of the intermediate flyers’ suits were larger than allowed, and these jumpers did not wish to compete in the open class. The new advanced class has no restrictions on suit size, so the open and advanced classes are now identical but only those who qualify in the open class may be part of the U.S. Team that attends Féderátion Aéronautique Internationale world competitions. USPA hopes that this change encourages jumpers to compete in the advanced class.

Registration for the USPA National Skydiving Championships is now open on Chicagoland Skydiving Center’s website, skydivecsc.com. Prospective competitors can find more information on the recent competition changes in the Skydiver’s Competition Manual at uspa.org/scm. Anyone interested in more information is also welcome to contact the USPA Competition Department at competition@uspa.org.