As the winter skydiving season came to a close, Skydive Arizona in Eloy hosted state wingsuit flying record attempts in conjunction with a training camp for the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale World Record attempts scheduled for November 16-20 at Skydive City Zephyrhills in Florida.
Event organizers Scott Callantine (who is the lead organizer for the world record attempts) and local jumper Cameron Stiles designed the April 27-29 event to give both new and experienced wingsuit flyers a chance to hone their skills. Nineteen jumpers attended. On the first day, the group put together a 16-way skydive with the ultimate goal of besting the standing 4-way Arizona record. Each jump was a learning experience for the newer wingsuiters, who showed clear improvement on each attempt. By the second day, everyone was flying in the grid after only three jumps together. Unfortunately, weather interfered, and the group had to put off further attempts until the next day.
By evening, the weather improved enough for four jumpers—Clinton Pearson, Tiponi Potts, Trevor Sayre and Stiles—to set the National Record for Largest Ungripped Night Wingsuit Formation. The jumpers hope that this record will promote future attempts to fly larger formations at night.
On day three, the organizers cut the size of the formation to 14. On the second jump of the day, the group saw success but kept the achievement quiet so they could do the same jump again and let Callantine get a good photo of it. That jump was a success, as well, and Matthew Barrientos, Ralph Grimm, Jason Grimm, Jason Hanson, Laurel Hargis, Pearson, Potts, Simon Repton, Sayre, Stiles, Alex Swindle, Hemanth Vasantrao and Andrew Velasquez set the Arizona Record for Largest Ungripped Wingsuit Formation on back-to-back jumps. This achievement highlighted the talent and skill of the jumpers, whose performances had improved tremendously in only three days.
With the amount of talent available, Stiles hopes to improve on both records. He is looking forward to the fall and is planning many small wingsuit camps, as well as some larger events, at Skydive Arizona in the months to come.
By Cameron Stiles | D-36364
Eloy, Arizona