The 2019 USPA National Canopy Piloting Championships at Skydive Paraclete XP in Raeford, North Carolina, this September will now include a freestyle test event. The three-jump event is scheduled for September 10, with official registration on September 9.
Because the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale officially adopted freestyle as an international competition event, the U.S. now needs to select competitors for the U.S. Team to compete at FAI World Championships and World Cups. In recent years, the U.S. has simply allowed the U.S. Team for the traditional CP events to compete in freestyle. However, the USPA Board’s Competition Committee has determined that freestyle should have its own qualifier, and Skydive Paraclete XP has agreed to hold a test event at this year’s Nationals.
The top 12 open competitors from this competition will qualify to compete on the U.S. Team at the 2019 World Cup of Canopy Piloting in South Africa later this year (see more here), and the top eight open competitors will qualify to compete on the U.S. Team at the 2020 Mondial World Skydiving Championships in Tanay, Siberia (Russia).
Since this is only a test event, there are no corresponding competition rules in the USPA Skydiver’s Competition Manual, so the event will use the International Parachuting Commission’s competition rules—2019 IPC Competition Rules for Canopy Piloting - Freestyle—with some minor modifications, detailed at the following link:
USPA Changes to the 2019 IPC Competition Rules for Canopy Piloting – Freestyle
If you have any questions, please contact Steve Hubbard, USPA Director of Competition & Records, at competition@uspa.org.