Without Jacques-André Istel, the sport of parachuting would not be what it is today.

Barotrauma is injury that occurs as a direct result of changes in ambient pressure. Boyles Law states that at constant temperature, a volume of a gas is inversely proportional to the ambient pressure.

Executive Director Albert Berchtold updates USPA members on matters of the organization. Learn more at https://uspa.org/ OR https://parachutist.com/.

For many years, most jumpers regarded the parachute as a necessary evil. It was simply the device that stopped the freefall, allowing the jumper to survive the skydive in order to make another freefall.

I was about to ride 533 miles across Virginia—west along the Potomac River, then through the mountains to the famous red caboose in Damascus in the southwest corner of the state. It would be a multi-day ride with 33,000 feet of climbing. My stomach had butterflies.

On June 1, USPA begins the process of having its members elect its 22-member board of directors for the 2022-2024 term.

In 2021, the USPA Sisters in Skydiving program celebrates its 10th anniversary!

For the first time, USPA is hosting a beginner 4-way formation skydiving competition at Nationals.

One of three main pillars of USPA is the promotion of competition and record-setting programs.

Tim Mattson started skydiving in 1991 and soon got involved in freefly, which was just emerging as a discipline. By 1997 he was traveling the globe on the SSI Pro Tour with team MadStyle.

Just a few years ago, I felt that my dreams of returning to flying were over. I had gotten my private-pilot license in the ’90s, but life got in the way, so I had not been flying for more than 20 years.

It was 8 a.m. on the first day of the year 1984. I was a young guy outside a hangar in Stow, Massachusetts, hooked into a 151-foot-tall tower of helium balloons that I called “Aprealis.”