[Luke Oliver]

Hi y’all,

Greg Jack, Tom Begic and a couple of others have asked me to run some reporting on the Australian 100 Way record attempt in Perris Valley, California; the official meet’n’greet is tomorrow, with the record attempts commencing on June 10.

If you have an interest, I’ve come well-armed with the intent to keep you up to date. Note that because of the time zone differences, if you get up at 7am on the Eastern seaboard it’s about 2pm the day before here.

Here’s the plan:

I’ll be mainly Twittering. If you have a Twitter account, follow @aussie100way for the news as it happens.

These “tweets” will feed into FaceBook shortly thereafter; if you “Like” the “Australian 100 Way Formation Skydiving Record 2010” page on FaceBook, you’ll get updates probably not long after. Go to http://www.facebook.com/aussie100way and become a fan.

There’s a YouTube account for video. Planning to upload a heap of stuff as your friends take on the challenge, and cross promote as above: visit http://www.youtube.c...er/aussie100way and subscribe to that channel if you want to see it first J

There will, of course, be a digest of stuff at Skysurfer.com.au: some features may require registration. The public location of the Aussie 100 way forum is http://skysurfer.com...hp?showforum=83

Email me at aussie100way@gmail.com if you want to get in touch. Note that I won’t be doing tech support (free or otherwise) whilst this project is running.

Last but not least: Want to call or SMS me? +1 310 773 7041. Call quality may vary (beer is quite cheap here).

I can’t guarantee that everything will be interesting or professionally produced... but I will get you news as it happens, and I’ll do my best to share the experience with you.

That’s about it for the moment… there’ll be some noise in about twenty five hours.

[dugy]

Closest thing I've done to skydiving since getting here is run around naked in the snow at 10,000ft....

Good luck with the 100way guys. Might seeya on the final sunday.

[Luke Oliver]

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Well, everyone's registered, the fun starts tomorrow. Here's today's Skysurfer of the day:

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Today was bump-in day. Three activities - waiver, gear check, and finances. I don't think anyone had any trouble.

Received a nice show bag; couple of shirts, discount vouchers and a guide to the event. More on that as we progress.

A group meeting was held in the Bombshelter bar - every participant, starting with the load organisers, was asked to talk a little about themselves and their goals. It took a couple of hours, but well worth it. Also worth noting that they allegedly considered closing the bar for the duration. Australians appear to have a reputation, and they haven't had a hundred of them here at once before. They did run out of three types of beer this evening.

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My take on the crew attending? There's a mixture of people and skill levels, from about 200 jumps up to the thousands. A lot of Load Organisers and CIs here. Picton has an outstanding representation. I think everyone here has a chance of being on the last jump.

Three themes pervaded the goals for the camp. Safety was the winner; Success second; and Sharing #3. Everyone wants to take new skills home.

There's about 80 people here for the first camp; we're doing three days before the first rest day working on technique. We're expected to fail, and fail often; finding our limitations is the key for the first stage. For example, if you are a lightweight by appearance, you're likely to earn a base slot and some lead. People with a heavy set appearance are likely to be asked to dive.

I've informed them I've done nothing but the super floater slot and demanded a challenge

There was an invitation to attend a big-way basics seminar in the evening. Mark, the presenter, duly printed up fifteen handouts. Nearly sixty people attended. I think we're serious.

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Probably four or five jumps a day for the next few days. 8AM with jumpsuits. About 30 degrees, peaking at 38 on Saturday (first rest day).

Two of my favorite jumpers: LeaCake and Shazza

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More tomorrow.

[jenny-n]

[Luke Oliver]

Pretty awesome day. Five jumps for all the players, five intensely regimented skydives: engineered, dirt dived until we all got it. Lots of exit practice at the mockups, working with he floaters and first line of divers. A long time in debriefs for all.

Pretty "Deluxe" skydives, too. Formation loads, with about ten in each plane. With five outside and three in the first row of divers, last out was usually just the second row. This meant that we had 20 jumpers in freefall about 1.5 seconds after exit. Made for very concise dives.

Focus today was on radials, stadium and waiting before you dock. Spent a lot of time developing trackign groups too. If you're reading this and you don't understand that, ask the question, otherwise I'll move on.

The dives built a lot of confidence, and a lot of understanding as to what's required as you approach and dock on the formation.

Tomorrow will be trickier I think; single plane exits will mean longer dives for all. It's a good thing we practiced what to do when you get close today

Some fun stuff...

Group Briefing
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Twin Otter formation setup
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George Tang (there's a ban on sleeping in the plane)
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Gypsy Rose following the Shark
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Some wet concrete foolishly left outside the bar
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A good reason to be here.
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There's some fun stuff on YouTube, too: a malfunction interview and an in-plane interview with an unfortunate individual (who did, I'm pleased to report, ply the dropzone with alcohol thereafter). I'm managing to get that out pretty much as it happens, so consider subscribing if you have a YouTube account.

'til tomorrow

L.

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[Winston]

That george dude is always sleeping on the plane. Thanks for the updates Luke, so jealous.

[Luke Oliver]

Going to take me an hour or two, but I've got some vid tonight. Absolutely awesome day. Stand by.

[tozer]

Luke Oliver, on 04 June 2010 - 01:38 PM, said:

Going to take me an hour or two, but I've got some vid tonight. Absolutely awesome day. Stand by.

Yeah sure mate.... I mean Whatever!... Its not like we are all waiting with baited breath or anything... I was doing some sales reports anyway and that was pretty exciting,... take your time

[Luke Oliver]

tozer, on 04 June 2010 - 02:23 PM, said:

Luke Oliver, on 04 June 2010 - 01:38 PM, said:

Going to take me an hour or two, but I've got some vid tonight. Absolutely awesome day. Stand by.

Yeah sure mate.... I mean Whatever!... Its not like we are all waiting with baited breath or anything... I was doing some sales reports anyway and that was pretty exciting,... take your time

Fair point. Well, I might just leave you with a couple of videos from the day in any case and save the cool stuff until you've finished your sales reports.

All present got shuffled into new groups today; I haven't worked out the rationale yet, but I guess over two camps each load organiser will get a day with each jumper. It kind of sucks that they can memorise our names in the space of a single load, makes appearing invisible difficult.

I was working with a guy called Doug Forth today, he's pretty cool. We did some very wide skydives - very thin radials - and then a couple of build-very-neatly skydives. Doug retains a "Beer Cop", which works well... if he calls you out for (say) turning the wrong way on breakoff, his beer cop will seek out money for a six pack, or more for other offences. After the last load, Beer Cop provisions decent beers, and it all gets pretty hazy after that.

Other groups did other interesting stuff; swapping slots and so on, with a focus on stretching out the dives. It's not a huge amount of time from 12500 to 5500 (breakoff, we're all practicing tracking groups), so it gets pretty intense.

No malfunctions today, no real trouble, all played well.

Day 2 wrapup



Megan's patriotism



Sorry I don't have photos; technical issue. And did a first today. I'll post the vid later, needs a little work.

[Pilot Dave]

"Camp 1, Day 2 wrapup"

Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!

How cool was that!

Luke, thanks for taking the time to put this stuff up for the rest of us to see. You guys are going to have some fun over the next week or so, can't wait to see even the small portion you can get on to the net.

Dave

[Luke Oliver]

The one I couldn't sort out last night. Natural sound, so you might want to ride the audio.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxljxANhRWc"]http://www.youtube.c...h?v=WxljxANhRWc[/url]

[dugy]

Nice work on the updates.

Çheers.

[Luke Oliver]

Sorry for the late update. Some technical issues (perhaps related to Sizzler). Anyway.

Great day yesterday. The five groups were broken into three, and development of the plan continued. It's certainly been refined since the 400s.

Three groups of thirty five. Six way bases. Three zippers, and an anchor person off the zipper. Weed whackers from the anchors. Formation loads.

They went well. Really well. I think a couple were completed, although that wasn't the aim of the exercise: we're all being encouraged to take more time before docking. Being in slot without a grip gets higher accolades.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmG21diCUZc"]http://www.youtube.c...h?v=PmG21diCUZc[/url]

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJy00e7SQtQ"]http://www.youtube.c...h?v=BJy00e7SQtQ[/url]

Craig Trimble, known to these forums, is part of the camera pool. He's also given us some photos to check out.

Ben Nordkamp landed a ripped canopy crossways in the main landing area.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlteDw5wxg0"]http://www.youtube.c...h?v=PlteDw5wxg0[/url]

I did the remedial tracking jumps with Doug Forth; was a good exercise. Most of the "Tracking" jumps we see in Oz are really "Delta" jumps or something along those lines; today, we actually went tracking. Deluxe stuff. And I got to run the Pond after the second one, a chance I'm unlikely to get again in a hurry.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K4o9r1fPME"]http://www.youtube.c...h?v=0K4o9r1fPME[/url]

A couple of other vids at youTube, I'm going to run out of space here

About 70 Aussies went to Sizzler as a group last night. I don't think they were expecting us; the General Manager was professional but seemed to have a look of fear in his eyes. Need to catch up with a hungover CI and see if he's happy for his, um, actions to be posted on YouTube. Noisy, hungry and increasinlgly inebriated good fun.

Day off today. Some folks did balloon jumps this morning, but Cake and I are heading for the hills. I'll be twittering again tomorrow and report back as we start camp 2.

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Check out the tracking groups!
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[gregiem]

Thanks for the great up dates Luke. Is there a list of the people from Oz who are in attendance?

[jenny-n]

Try Here

http://www.facebook....ts.html&h=cea35

[Luke Oliver]

jenny-n, on 06 June 2010 - 12:29 PM, said:

Try Here

http://www.facebook....ts.html&h=cea35

Direct link:

http://www.aussie100...rticipants.html

Lots of other good stuff at the site too

[gregiem]

Thanks Luke. Good luck and E.F.S to all involved.

[Luke Oliver]

Busy times. And I had to buy 37 beers yesterday.

I'd convinced myself that I was docking on the right hand blue in the base. Did all my mental rehearsal, and got out of the plane.
Docked: smooth, sweet, precise.

Bugger me if the other half of my zipper was in the wrong place.

I started playing air cop; waving and gesticulating to my partner to move on over. Eventually I looked back across the centre, and it hit me. Well, two things hit me. One, that the picture was all wrong, and two, Ben thumping my legs.

Oops.

Swam around to the right slot, tracked, got down safely.

Debriefed myself in the group debrief, bought 37 beers. It was a 38 way... Ouch.

Couple of other mistakes yesterday, will try not to do again!

The camp is going well. Everyone has come with their game on, chances of success are high.

From Greg:



From Adrian Lloyd:


From Craig:



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[Luke Oliver]

From Perris Terry (flyingcamera.com):

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[Luke Oliver]

Luke Oliver, on 08 June 2010 - 01:08 AM, said:

From Perris Terry (flyingcamera.com):

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