Blog

Skydive Utah Wingsuit Weekend

• July 2009
• Fly

Skydivers like to have this thing called a Boogie. Basically, lots of skydivers get together at one drop zone and jump a lot and party. It’s extra exciting when the Boogie is at your local drop zone, because friends converge from all over the world, and lots of special things too, like bigger jump planes or balloons–the September Moab Boogie is always a highlight of the year, for me.


The Skydive Utah drop zone, in Tooele, Utah, is a great operation. It’s about a half hour from Salt Lake City, and my brother Virgil’s house, and it’s beautiful landscape to fly over. I was climbing in Rifle, thinking about how I hadn’t been skydiving enough recently, when Virgil called to tell me there was a big wingsuit boogie set for the weekend in Tooele. Holly, my sister-in-law, has just started jumping a wingsuit too, so of course I got in the car and headed back to Utah!

This event was dubbed the FreeFlock Utah Boogie. There are a few things you can do with a wingsuit. One very cool thing is to fly in formation, like jet fighters. Since I am usually jumping by myself or BASE jumping, I don’t get the opportunity to jump with a big group of other wingsuit flyers. It was very interesting to see how the flocks are organized. Especially since organizing jumpers is very much like herding cats. Scott Callantine, and Justin Shorb of Flock U, did an impressive job of managing the formations.

First you take little wingsuit magnets and write people’s names on them. Don’t ask me where you get little wingsuit magnets.

Then everyone goes outside to stand in their spot. This is a good way to start getting to know the other jumpers. There is usually some discussion about how to get everyone out the door of the plane in a timely fashion, some practice door lineups on the tarmac, a lot of confusion about where the imaginary plane actually is in relation to everything else, and then everyone goes inside to put on their wingsuit and line up again with “colors”.

Flying in formation is pretty different than performance flying (pure speed, which is a little more what you want to do with BASE jumping). The sight of the flock in the sky, when everything is working, is a very beautiful thing.

Highly specialized photographers, who fly above the flock with cameras on their helmets, film the entire jump, and then everyone watches the video afterwards to see what worked and what didn’t, and just to enjoy seeing the flock from a different view.

The flocking was interesting and special, but perhaps my favorite thing is jumping with one or two other people, flying at higher speeds and trying to do things like docking, where you grab the other person’s hand and fly together through the air. I especially like flying with my brother, since he is basically the male version of me, and we seem to naturally be able to fly with each other without much effort.

I recently got a new wingsuit, a Phoenix Fly Vampire 3 to upgrade from my old Vampire 2, which is basically in tatters by now anyway. I decided to stay an extra day to jump, after the boogie was over, to put some jumps on the suit by myself, and start to learn it better. The V3 is even bigger and faster than my old V2, and the body positions are a little different, both for optimal speed and for fine control, so it takes time to find them, which you can only do by skydiving.

Though most of the jumpers were gone, a few folks were still at the drop zone. I ended up doing some jumps with Justin (who was psyched to do some 2-way flights after all that cat herding) and Scotty Burns (an excellent wingsuit camera man) the next day.

Justin jumps a massive wingsuit built by Tony Suits, called the XS, which seems to be a good match for the super turbo V3, and we had a blast flying fast and chasing each other.

For me, the opportunity to fly with Justin, a superb wingsuit flyer, was definitely the highlight of the boogie. Our jumps were unbelievably fun, and also taught me a lot about controlling my new suit.

If you ask me, flying as fast as you can and looking over at a friend beside you in the sky is about the most fun you can have with a wingsuit on…. 🙂