World parachute champs for Pretoria
17 October 2008
The second FAI World Parachuting Championships in Canopy Piloting takes place in Pretoria between 17 and 23 November, with numerous competitors from both South Africa and abroad expected to take part.
The event is being jointly organised by the Pretoria Skydiving Club and the South African Canopy Piloting Committee, with full support of the Parachute Association of South Africa.
The competition will determine the world champions in canopy piloting, in terms of distance, speed and accuracy. In addition, there will also be an overall winner taking the three fields into consideration.
According to a bulletin released by the Pretoria Skydiving Club earlier this month, the competition will take place at the Pretoria Skydiving Club, based at the Wonderboom Airport, situated about 15 kilometres from downtown Pretoria.
Canopy piloting
Canopy piloting encompasses several disciplines, the club's website says, all involving the flight of a skydiving parachute either at high altitude or close to the ground.
"Swooping" is one form of canopy piloting and is a growing activity in the skydiving world, and many think the reason for this is that it is one of the few skydiving related events that are spectator friendly.
Swooping entails the canopy pilot deploying their canopy at 5 000 feet (1 524 metres), piloting their canopy to an "execution" point over the swoop course, and then turning into a rotating dive dramatically increasing the canopy's speed.
"The canopy pilot stops the canopy's rotation on the proper course heading, while at the correct altitude allowing their canopy to recover from the dive and level out with maximum speed before entering the course, with maximum speeds regularly reaching in excess of 90 miles per hour (about 145 kilometres per hour)," the website states.
Practice sessions
At the time the bulletin was published, the competition had received entries from a total of 60 competitors from 14 countries, including South Africa.
The size of the participating teams varied from eight (South Africa, Australia, Russia and United Kingdom) to one participant (Austria, Finland, Lithuania and New Zealand).
Judges for the competition hail from Australia, Austria, Canada, France and the United States. Contestants will be able to have practice sessions between 17 and 18 November, while the actual competition starts at 6am on 19 November.
Source: Pretoria Skydiving Club
