Category Archives: UPT

Fly Smart. Train Hard.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Congratulations Jonathan!

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Congratulations to OEW Skydive’s latest USPA A-Licence graduate, Jonathan.
Spending 2 weeks with AXIS Flight School at Skydive Arizona, Jonathan completed is training with determination and enthusiasm. Here is a short highlight reel of his experience:

Instructors: Brianne Thompson, Niklas Daniel, Joost Luysterburg, and Murv Riggins. Special thanks to Skydive Arizona, UPT Vector, Performance Designs, Cypres, Cookie, and L&B for their support.

AXIS at CSC for 1st Vector Camp

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CSC_logoDarker.png13062454_1075000679225457_3689017340747840641_n.pngOn August 11-14, AXIS Flight School went to  Vector Camp #1 at Chicago Skydiving Center (CSC) to organize and coach in both FS and free-fly disciplines.

Brianne put together large belly groups and challenged them with formations AXIS put together. These jumps involved stepping out of the usual FS skill sets and rules and required participants to think fast and fly very precise. Nik provided video for some of the FS groups and also provided some free-fly organizing and angle jump coaching. The AXIS vs. Grillets big way belly sequential event ended up with a slightly different format than advertised. Because the turn out of the event was lower than expected, there just simply were not enough people to form four 10-way teams. Because of this, the participants were  encouraged to come together and challenge their skills with more complex dives.

Performance Designes hosted their Backyard Accuracy Challenge, where participants were able to demo the Optimum reserve and fly through a simulated back yard with obstacles. The winner of the event walked away with a free OP Reserve!

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Jason playing the didgeridoo after a couple of shots at 9am Australian local time.

On the evening of the 12th, three famous figures in the skydiving community were put onstage and asked to recall some of their favorite memories from their skydiving carriers. The evening took on a humorous mood as the mixing of crazy stories and alcohol continued. As Jason Cooke is located in Australia, he joined the event via a webcam and light projector.  13738363_1127571877301670_6289208481130646850_o.jpg

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CSC hangar during drunken skydiver history

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later in that evening…

For more images and info, check out the Vector Camp Facebook page.

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Cutaway!

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I would like to thank Mark ‘Trunk’ Kirschenbaum of Hypoxic for accompanying me on some fun jumps over Skydive Arizona. A couple of weeks ago, Trunk captured some great footage of some intentional cutaways, which AXIS Flight School intends to enter in a film festival contest later this year.
Congratulations Trunk, on snagging the October 2016  Parachutist Centerfold spot! 
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Using a tertiary canopy system, Niklas Daniel performs an intentional cutaway at Skydive Arizona in Eloy. Photo by MARK KIRSCHENBAUM.
About Parachutist: “When PCA (USPA’s predecessor) first published the magazine in 1957, it was not much more than a newsletter, but it did serve the very important purpose of keeping the organization’s members informed about news in the sport. In the mid-1960s, the magazine first began printing its cover in color, foreshadowing the glossy magazine you see today. Through the 1970s and ’80s, Parachutist’s circulation continued to grow as membership and advertising revenues increased. The magazine began to showcase stunning color photography inside and out. It not only kept members up-to-date on industry news, it served as a forum for opinion, disseminated safety information, covered the sport’s history, offered general-interest skydiving articles and listed events, drop zones and membership data for reference purposes. With the rise of internet communications in the 1990s and through the 2000s, Parachutist shifted its focus from news and reference to concentrate more on education, entertainment and safety features. That change in focus and the advent of technology is what you see today with this website. This is our effort to expand the reach that Parachutist has as both a safety and instructional tool.”