QLD Mentor Update May 2018

A German, a Canadian, an Australian and a Swede walk into a bar …

In this case, the Bomb Shelter bar and restaurant at Perris, CA.  Over 100 participants attended each of the P3 Bigway and 100-Way camps at Perris this year, from around 27 countries.

Not sure whether you have the skills to get into the next Australian national RW record in 2019?  If you’re not sure, you can get them – get over there!

Picture 1 – 105 participants in the 2018 100-Way Camp

Picture by skydivingphotography.com

Off topic, once you’ve been there, it’s great to catch up with friends from many countries.  Or maybe not so off topic.  RW skydiving is not a solo sport.  The skills we exercise are but a mirror of those exhibited around us – ever tried docking on a moving target or been in a zoo jump?  I learn massively every time I travel, to Perris or elsewhere to jump, and you can too.  And what a group to learn from; I’m not talking just about the coaches, either.

Kristina Hicks: “To be honest, every day has pushed my experience to the max”.

Including, Kristina, exposure to the infamous Perris dust when a landing off the grass is seriously downwind.

Picture 2 – Perris dust

I’ve found that the camps each time are a great reunion of friends from around the world, and over four or more days you catch up with what’s been happening elsewhere in world skydiving, where the best camps are (in addition to P3 of course) and the latest and greatest tips – there’s so much to learn and so many people to learn from. And you WILL acquire friends around the world, and the opportunity to sleep over in innumerable spare rooms in many different countries ?

What will get you into a P3 camp is your capabilities in these things – stable exit; reliable dive to a formation; stop and dock; track with a group; and, most of all, exercise self-discipline in all things.  Read everything you can before you go, starting with the Star Crest and Bigways Guide http://www.aussiebigways.com/star-crest-bigway-guide/

Sounds boring? No way.  This was my exit view on day 1, jump 1 of the 100-way camp – oxygen on the way up, calm, visualise, exit-present-identify-intercept:

Picture 3 – view of a 5-plane formation on exit

Picture by skydivingphotography.com

The facilities at Perris are excellent and the planes are truly awesome – twin Otters and Skyvans as far as the eye can see. Until you’ve been up with views of (in the second camp four) other aircraft beside yours, you haven’t lived.

P3 at Perris generally runs six RW oriented camps (four days each) each year:

• Two sequential camps, around February and October – smaller numbers, around 60, aimed at turning points with fragile formations
• Three camps on consecutive weekends in May – a Bigways camp aimed at teaching Bigways skills, a 100-way camp (self-explanatory) and the Spring Fling that is for more advanced Bigways jumpers with delicate and difficult formations in the 60–70 participant range
• The Power Play at the end of June, a step up from the Spring Fling

Generally you have to qualify camp by camp – do well in the first one and you will get into the second, and so on.  So bring your best game, in the air and on the ground.

Dates for upcoming P3 events are at https://p3skydiving.com/calendar.php,

and those for the 2019 record have been set – go to http://www.aussiebigways.com/records/2019-aussie-150-way/

If you have the time, I strongly recommend that as well as the Aussie Bigways preparatory camps, you also attend as many P3 lead up camps in May 2019 as you can – apply early, they filled up quickly this year.

We had a great contingent from Ozland and everywhere else in the world this year – 120 jumpers in the first camp, 105 in the second.

Here’s the team lining up beside our fleet between jumps: (l to r) Leachy, Gus, Cullen, Kristina, Kerry Hook, Matt Chambers, Too Tall and Matty. Bid Ash also joined us for the first camp but was not around for the photo.

See y’all in 2019.

Martin – Mentor for Sth QLD