In anticipation of the upcoming season Skydive Danielson hosted their annual “Just Huck It! Wind Tunnel Invasion” camp at Sky Venture in Nashua, NH. 15 jumpers of all experience levels from AFF students, to seasoned jumpers attended the sold-out event. Even Danielson’s new full time pilot (aka, “Pirate”, as the full-time pilot is always named at SD) joined the mix. DZ owners Laura and Rob Morris, coach Jon Farley and Christine R. handled all the details of the camp well ahead of the event, planning groups and printing dive flows so everyone was well organized by the time the flying began. The main focus of the camp was group skydiving. This gave jumpers the chance to work together on skills that will help them have successful formations in the coming season.
Fliers were dived into three groups according to experience levels from fledglings, belly busters, and free-fliers. Indoor Skydiving Every group had their own coaches with Rob and Jon taking the newbies, Laura helping the intermediate belly group, and Christine joining the free-fliers. Each group had three, 30 minute sessions in which they rotated slots so that most of the jumpers got the opportunity to fly with everyone else in their group. The format allowed fliers to get a lot of time in the wind. The newer skydivers showed great improvement putting in rounds of two and three ways flights with multiple points. By the time the intermediate belly group got to the third session moving onto 4-way dives, fliers were putting in more than 4 minutes at a time, practically making it an endurance event! The free-fliers were not to be outdone, showing off some impressive carving and multiple level group skills. For a grand finale, all three groups joined together for the “Just Huck It” session.
Each flier was allotted 2 minutes of time to try what ever they wanted with whomever they wanted in the 15 person group. The antechamber was tightly packed with excited jumpers planning dive flows and putting groups together on the fly (pardon the pun). Everything could be seen during that session from soloists dialing in their flying, belly groups, free fly formations, to mixed formation 6 ways. The staff tunnel coaches earned their keep throughout the whole event. They did their part keeping everyone safe, diving in like referees in a wrestling free-for-all when fliers got tangled. By the end of the camp everyone was both tired, and inspired. Many commented on the sore muscles from their wind workouts, and sore cheeks from the laughs and perma-grins. There’s no doubt that the jumpers from the camp will bring their group skills to the drop zone to put together fun skydives in 2016.