DAY 3: PRACTICE, PRACTICE & PICKLED PIZZA?

“I’ve been around a long time,

and life still has a whole lot of surprises for me.”

Loretta Lynn

Breakfast of Champions Part 3 – Nothing like a fresh serving of baked fish and white rice for breakfast to start the day off right.  Chase it down with some instant coffee and hit the bus…

“DOBRA OTRA!”

We were happy when SGM Young and SFC Eric Heinsheimer arrived yesterday without incident after hearing about their harrowing trip that concluded with a 170 kmph ride from the Kazan Airport to their hotel.  Their driver?  The President of the Russian Parachuting Association.

We, the US Army Parachute Team, recently completed the Army’s Readiness Assessment Program (ARAP) which is a safety survey of the units attitudes and observations during which MANY of our Teammates noted that:

“The most dangerous thing we do everyday is drive to work.”

I believe them.

Because today brings another day of practice jumps, we wanted to give you some of the background on the competition and how it works before things get kicked off…

The IPC Dive Pool*

There are many different disciplines in the sport of skydiving.  Here at the World Parachuting Championships (WPC), the Golden Knights are focusing on 8 Way FS. Meaning – Formation Skydiving, involving 8 jumpers in the sky simultaneously.

You may wonder, “How does a team win a skydiving competition? Wouldn’t simply jumping and landing safely constitute as a win?” You might think so, but a nationally rated team will complete nearly 1,000 training jumps a year to prepare for just one major competition.

So how does a team actually win the World Parachuting Championships and be crowned as ‘World Champions’?   It all boils to a race against the clock.  A standard FS meet is comprised of ten rounds.  Each team competing is out to score as many points possible over those ten rounds.

Whoever has the most points at the end of the meet, WINS.

This brings up a poignant question: “How do teams score points?”

Each formation completed in one jump is worth one point. But, there are no more than six formations per jump.  This means that once the jumpers have completed those six formations, they must start over again from the beginning.  A round is scored by how many formations are completed within the first 50 seconds of the skydive.  The highest score ever attained on one 8-Way jump was 31 points; the Golden Knights set this record in 1997.

Before each meet a ‘draw’ is held.  The draw is a random sequencing from a pool of 38 formations, spread out over 10 rounds.  There are two types of formations that are drawn from this pool.  The 16 formations called “randoms” are single formations that are worth one point.  The 22 formations called “blocks” require the jumpers break the current formation into sub-groups and build a new formation.  Each block formation is worth two points.  To see a list of each block and random formation, and pictures of how they are built in the sky check out a PDF file of the IPC 8-Way dive pool.

On Day 3 of training GK8 worked on the following jumps:

- Star – Star, Crank, Lego – Eye

- Compressed Diamonds, Stereo Bipoles, Venus

- Double Satellites, Sidebody-Donuts, Caterpillar

Learning and remembering all of the formations and the quickest ways to assemble them takes intense concentration…there are literally millions of different combinations.  And that’s why you’ll often see many of the Competitors conducting visualization exercises in addition to the dirt dives as a part of their pre-jump rituals.

* The IPC, the International Parachuting Commission of FAI. FAI’s parachuting activities, in particular World Records and International Competitions, are conducted under the direction of the IPC.

Stay tuned for more info on the fascinating world of formation skydiving as GK8 prepares for the start of competition of the 19^th Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Parachuting Championships.*

* The FAI is the World Air Sports Federation.  Learn more at www.fai.org

RUSSIAN WORDS OF THE DAY:

Very much – “Bal-SHOY-AH” (For example: “Speh-SEE-bah  Bal-SHOY-AH” as in Thank you very much!)

I’m Fine – “At-LEECH-no”

Have a nice day – “Pre-yat-NO-va  Din-YAH”

RANDOM FOOD CURVEBALL:

Many of us ordered what we thought was a pepperoni pizza last night for dinner.  Instead, we received 6 deluxe pizzas that included among the other toppings – SLICED DILL PICKLES! And the surprise was that a number of the guys liked it, a couple didn’t notice and only one didn’t care for it.  I’d compare it to black olives…not really a significant change to the flavor if they’re there or not.  Try it some time!

THANKS to Ellina for the help coordinating the bus trip to the market and Anastasia for translating for all of us at the grocery store.

Have a great afternoon (“DOBRA DEN!”) and we’ll be back with more tomorrow… @GKJoe and Drew Starr signing off.

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RUSSIAN PHRASE	RUSSIAN PRONUNCIATION	TRANSLATION
Пожалуйста	Pozhalujsta	Please or It’s a pleasure.
Спасибо	Spasiba	Thank you
Извини (те)	Izvini (te)	Excuse me
Привет!	Privet!	Hi!   Hello!
Пока!	Poka!	Bye!
Да	Da	Yes
Нет	Net	No
я пока не говорю по-русски.	ya poka ne govoryu po russki.	I cannot yet speak Russian.
Говорите ли вы по-английски?	Govorite li vy po angliyski?	Do you speak English?
Поздравляю!	Pozdravlyayu!	Congratulations!
Счастья и здоровья!	Schast’ya i zdorov’ya!	(I wish you) Happiness and health!
Успехов!	Uspekhov!	(I wish you) Success!
Вчера	Vchera	Yesterday
Сегодня	Sevodnya	Today