Formation Skydiving

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Within the world of skydiving, there are multiple body flight disciplines to master. ‘Belly flying’ is the body position of ‘belly to earth.’ This is the most stable body position as it offers more surface area to the wind. A more complex discipline of flying is ‘head to earth’ or ‘head down.’ This is more challenging as the surface area is much smaller.

Formation skydiving is the combination of multiple skydivers who fly relative to each other in a belly to earth position.

Like any sport, formation skydiving is easy to learn, but there are intricacies to the discipline that challenge the world’s best skydivers especially when executing different movements with others in a group. These groups can consist of 4-way, 8-way, 10-way and 16-way competition teams. The present world record for the largest group of belly flyers is 400!

Young boy smiles while flying in the tunnel at the Paraclete XP youth league.

So. Much. Fun. Including my accidental "acrobatics" and giggles. My very patient instructors were AHmazing! Our campers from UNCW Engineering Expectations LOVED the experience! Thanks, guys!

Amber Lee