Chasing the Worlds Fastest Man

Posted on October 30, 2021 by AXIS Flight School

The 2021 United States Parachute Association National Championships were held October 18-30 at Skydive Arizona. The aim of the event is to:

1) recognize and honor U.S. National Champions in the following disciplines: Artistic Events, Canopy Formation, Formation Skydiving, Accuracy Landing, Canopy Piloting, Mixed Formation Skydiving, Vertical Formation Skydiving, Wingsuit Flying, Speed Skydiving, and

2) to select the best competitors in the United States to form representative U.S. Teams from the appropriate disciplines for participation in selected international competitions.

Speed competitor Niklas Daniel at the 2021 USPA Nationals at Skydive AZ.

“Speed Skydiving is a new skydiving discipline with as simple a definition as it gets. Achieve the fastest speed possible over a given distance. It has developed over the last few years and represents the fastest non-motorized sport on Earth. In essence, speed skydiving is the discipline where only one aspect of skydiving counts – freefall speed. The speed achieved by a human body in free fall is conditioned of two factors, body weight and body orientation. In a stable, belly to earth position, terminal velocity of the human body is about 200 km/h (about 120 mph). A stable, freefly, head down position has a terminal speed of around 240-290 km/h (around 150-180 mph). Further minimizing body drag and streamlining the body position allows the skydiver to reach higher speeds in the vicinity of 480 km/h (300 mph).” – FAI ISC website

Competitors are not allowed to wear weight and can only use standard skydiving equipment. Performance is recorded using a speed measuring device (SMD), a GPS tracker that is attached to each individuals helmet. For more information and rules of the event, please click here.

A new world record was set in round 1 by the current World Champion Kyle Lobpries (USA) with a speed of 512.97km/h (318.74mph)! Kyle broke his own record he had just set a couple of months earlier at the 3rd FAI World Speed Skydiving Championships in Tanay, Russia.

2021 USPA Nationals Speed Skydiving Results posted on SKYDERBY.

AXIS Flight School coach Niklas Daniel claimed second place with an average speed of 486.86 kmh / 302.52mph. Nik’s single highest scoring round was 495.36 kmh / 307.80mph, which occurred in round 4.

Nik reached a top speed of 502km/h (311.92mph), but unfortunately this peak in performance happened after the end of the scoring window. Joining the 500 club will have to wait 😉

Exit weight 100.8kg / 222.22lbs. Photo by Karl Mayer.

Nik’s gear of choice for the competition was a Cookie G3 helmet, Vertical Suits Speed Suit, L&B Optima II, Freefall Data Systems Color Alti, Cypres 2, UPT Micron (V316), PIG gloves, adidas lite racer adapt 4.0 shoes, and some strategically placed gaffers tape 🙂

Nik’s performance earned him a spot on the USA Team to compete and represent the United States at the upcoming World Championships in Eloy Arizona next year.

2021 Speed Skydiving Podium. From left to right: Niklas Daniel, Kyle Lobpries, Anthony “TJ” Landgren. Photo by Kay Robinson.

Nik would like to thank his sponsors for their continued support. In no particular order: Skydive Arizona, Skyventure AZ, Cookie Composites, Cypres, L&B Altimeters, Performance Designs, UPT, and Vertical Suits.

2021 Chicks Rock Boogie recap

Posted on October 8, 2021 by AXIS Flight School

On September 30th – October 3rd, Skydive Elsinore hosted its annual Chicks Rock Boogie. 2021 marked the event’s 20th anniversary, which had a space odyssey theme. Over the weekend Brianne and Nik of AXIS Fight School organized a variety of jumps including belly, free-fly, tracking, angle flying, canopy flocking, and even an 11-way hybrid with an orbiting wing-suiter. Jumping form Caravans, Otters, and a Skyvan, there was something for everyone. At night there were festivities, live music, and many opportunities to socialize. Brianne and Nik also participated in the night swoops event. Check out the recap video below. Looking forward to next year!

Sunset Canopy Flocking Jump by Brianne Thompson.

AXIS Flight School launches its first App!

Posted on December 27, 2019 by AXIS Flight School

Over the past 3 years, AXIS Flight School has been working with Good Goblin Games to develop a new kind of skydiving app. Featuring Woody, an animated and interactive figurine that helps demonstrate body-flight and canopy-piloting concepts. In addition, the app features many more useful tools for everyone from the casual jumper to instructors and competitors.

AXIS Skydiving

Skydiving Tutorials and Tools.

A great compendium of exercises, knowledge, visualizations, and tools for skydivers and tunnel flyers.

Meet Woody! Your interactive wooden dummy guide with comprehensive information using amazing skydiving and canopy animations for a broad spectrum of experience and skill levels. Great for novice jumpers who wish to learn more, and a fantastic tool for coaches who need visuals for their students.

Available in the iTunes App Store, and Google Play.

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Features

● Education:

-Hi-res animations and photos of each exercise

-Easy-to-understand detailed descriptions

-Search by body-flight orientation or canopy piloting skills

● Calculators:

-Exit separation,

-Reserve Repack Cycle,

-Wing Loading,

-Canopy Size Orientation Guide

● Competition tools:

-Adjustable count down timer with audio cue,

-Pace, score and bust tracker

-Draw generator

-Performance analyzer

-Dive pools

If you are looking for more in depth knowledge, consider supporting us with an annual subscription. We regularly update adding new skydive content and features.

Fly Smart. Train Hard.

Posted on April 11, 2019 by AXIS Flight School

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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.