Paul Wyckoff (right) gets freefly coaching from P.J. Jackson at Skydive Paraclete XP in Raeford, North Carolina.

Tasos Michalopoulos (center), B-45316, celebrates his 38th birthday with 10 friends at USPA Foreign Affiliate Skydive Athens in Kopaida, Greece.

The International Skydiving Museum & Hall of Fame is honoring the Canopy Formation World Record Team with its Path of Excellence Award.

The Performance Designs Factory Team began 15 years ago as a 4-way formation skydiving project composed primarily of PD employees. It later became a high-performance canopy piloting team. For 2019, PD is expanding the team to include classic accuracy.

Red Bull is hosting the fifth edition of its Illume Image Quest photo competition—which incorporates all manner of imagery, including skydiving and BASE jumping—and is accepting submissions now through July 31.

T.J. McGrath (center), D-3581, and his sons Tom (left) and John—who have both made tandems with their dad—get matching “blue skies” tattoos to celebrate T.J.’s retirement from the sport.

The Parachutists Over Phorty Society held its 49th annual SpringFest April 4-7 at Skydive Lake Wales in Florida. Longtime POPS member Dave DeWolf—who passed away the month after SpringFest—supported the event with a generous donation.

In mid-April, like the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano, members of Skydivers Over Sixty, Jumpers Over Seventy and Women Skydivers Over Sixty returned to Skydive Perris in California. The event kicked off on April 19 with the JOS formation skydiving record attempts.

The organizers of P3—Perris Performance Plus—know that it’s spectacular when a large formation comes together. So, each year in May they host a trifecta of four-day formation skydiving events—the P3 Big-Way Camp, 100-Way Camp and Spring Fling—at Skydive Perris in California.

On Memorial Day, West Tennessee Skydiving in Whiteville joined forces with the Forever Young Senior Veterans and WREG News Channel 3 to honor four military veterans.

Skydive West Plains “the Ritz” in Ritzville, Washington, hosted a great Memorial Weekend Boogie May 24-27. Weather didn’t allow jumping on Friday, but the evening potluck, karaoke and bonfire made up for it.

In early April, USPA’s Executive Committee voted to allow the Phantom Airborne Brigade to jump at Group Member drop zones. The Phantom Airborne Brigade is one of several groups that performs military-style static-line jumps using round parachutes.

April was a rainy month in Texas, with almost every weekend either too cloudy or windy to jump. Fortunately, the last weekend in April was crystal clear at Skydive Spaceland­–Houston in Rosharon, Texas, just in time for the third annual Spaceland XRW Skills Camp.

On May 16-19, Skydive Elsinore in California—one of the few drop zones with a lakefront view and enough outs to host canopy formation events—hosted its Kick Off to Summer canopy formation (aka canopy relative work or CRW) boogie.

In the photo by Jeff Donohue on the cover of the June issue, Scott Callantine is on the left, Kyle Lobpries is wearing the gray wingsuit and Wes Sandler is backflying below.

USPA is looking for 15 remarkable photographs for the 2020 USPA Skydive Calendar. Email submissions to communications@uspa.org  or  visit parachutistonline.com/p/submissions. If emailing, please indicate “calendar submission” on the subject line. Photographers must submit entries by July 31 for consideration.

The National Aeronautic Association selected the four-point 42-way head-down world record as one of its most memorable aviation records of 2018. The skydivers set the record on June 30 over Skydive Chicago in Ottawa, Illinois, surpassing the previous record of 33 set in 2014.

At Skydive City Zephyhills in Florida, Doug Cross reveals the source of chem trails as Marcie Smith looks on.

Rich Grimm, D-18890, started skydiving in 1980. He has been a competitor and a DZO, but he’s best known for being the creator, facilitator and organizer of epic international boogies in exotic locations.

After college I wound up in an unhealthy relationship. I was depressed and needed to do something about it. One of my coworkers, Ray, had recently started skydiving and was always encouraging people to come to the Ranch in Gardiner, New York, to try it. I was pretty desperate, so I figured, “What the hell?”