Earlier this year the IPC made some changes to the 4-way FS dive pool, replacing blocks 1 and 13 with new versions. Special thanks to Arizona Airspeed‘s camera flyer David French for sharing the team’s training footage.
Block 1
Block 13
If you wish to see all the blocks of the 4-way FS open dive pool, check out the
Photo by Samantha Schwann
Being competitors at heart, Niklas and Brianne do their best to improve on a daily basis. This applies not only to competitions, but also their business and life’s work – AXIS Flight School. AXIS has gone through an incredible online transformation, which could be called a “Cyber Grand Re-opening”. These changes have been taking place behind the scenes for over two years.
The AXIS website has always been packed with lots of useful tools and information. In order to make the site more user friendly and to keep up with the times more than a facelift was needed. In fact, we started over. Major improvements include a color coded menu system which is easy to navigate, condensed information on every page, and not to be overlooked – The AXIS Skydiving Repository. Here we developed a digital sorting system that categorizes all or our articles and reference materials for faster recall. Now users can search for categories such as solo skills, canopy, camera, and much more to find what you are looking for.
In addition, AXIS Flight School now uses sig.ma, a platform on which you can keep track of accomplishments, IDs, licenses, merits, etc. in a digital form. This allows us to send merits to students who have demonstrated their proficiency to our AXIS Coaches™ and acknowledge their achievements. Available Merits are displayed at the top of each web page, and their colors correspond to the new menu system.
Our online tools are still available to all for free. All AXIS dive pool images, Draw Generator, and ChronoPrism have all been updated with the new 2019 formations.
After nearly two full days on the ground due to weather, the first events wrapped up at the 2018 USPA National Skydiving Championships at Chicagoland Skydiving Center in Rochelle, Illinois. The vertical formation skydiving event completed five of 10 scheduled rounds, with five teams in each division.
In the open class, SDC Core once again took the gold, 30 points ahead of second place. Arizona X-Force won silver, and Golden Knights VFS took bronze.
In the advanced division, Skydive Midwest Chemtrails won gold, with Dynasty in second and STF Pickle Ricks in third. This year’s Nationals included an intermediate-class test event, with ECLIPTIK taking the top spot.
The 2017 USPA Nationals were held at Skydive Perris, CA. AXIS Flight School members Brianne Thompson and Niklas Daniel entered three separate events: VFS open, MFS open, and Speed.
In the 4-way VFS category there were 3 teams in open, and 4 in advanced. After completing close to 400 training jumps at Skydive Arizona, and spending about 30 hours in the Skyventure Arizona wind tunnel, the team finished 3rd with a competition average of 14.20.
Left to right: Johnny Gunn, Seth Studer, Keith Fournier, Brianne Thompson, Niklas Daniel
VFS Competition draw, recreated using the AXIS draw generator:
(VFS team Arizona X-FORCE by David Wybenga)
In the MFS category there were 6 teams in open, and 8 in advanced. This is the first time AXIS competed in MFS at the USPA nationals. Without having trained this year, the team walked away with a 12 point average and a 4th place finish.
Left to right: Brianne Thompson, Keith Fournier (video), Niklas Daniel
MFS Competition draw, recreated using the AXIS draw generator:
The speed category had its largest USA turn out ever, with 15 competitors on the roster. Though speed is not an official USPA event, it is a FAI recognized world event. Therefore the discipline is still considered a “test event” in the states, because past participation has been very low. However, this competition was a qualifier for the World Championships that will take place next year at Australia’s Gold Coast.
Brianne Thompson ended up collecting 3 records as the fastest female in several 
categories: State (CA), Nationals (USA), and Continental (North America). Flying at 347.05km/h, approximately 216mph, in round 2. Nik’s best round was his first, with a speed of 447.32km/h (approximately 278mph).
Congratulations to all participants, and a big thank you to all our sponsors for their continued support!
