Gold Team lights up the Sky in Florence, SC

The Gold Demonstration team did a jump on Friday the 4th of June into a performer and sponsor social at the Pee Dee Airshow in Florence SC.

The jump took place at 8:30 at night. Due to weather coming in fast the team exited the aircraft at 8000 ft. The first two jumpers out of the aircraft performed one of the signature maneuver’s of the Golden Knights which was the Baton Pass. SFC JD Berentis and SSG Steven Robertson performed that maneuver. At 4000 Ft, they separated and SFC Berentis deployed his main parachute, after the parachute opened, SCF Berentis lowered the pyro chain. The pyro chain is a 30 ft cable with 6 points of pyro that light up the night sky for the crowd on the ground.

The next three jumpers were SSG Noah Watts, SGT Dan Cook and SGT Chris Clark. These jumpers performed a Tri-Bi Side. Which all three parachutes are connected and flying as one. This system was perfected by SGT Clark after many jumps making small corrections to this system. Around 3500 ft these three jumpers altered the flying angles of their parachutes so all three were facing earthward. This is called a down-plane. Around 1000 ft these jumpers leveled their parachutes back to the Tri-Bi Side and separated just prior to landing.

The last but definitely not the least of the jumpers was SFC Greg Windmiller. SFC Windmiller was jumping a high performance parachute which travels across the ground at speeds of excess of 80 mph. SFC Windmiller traveled about 350 ft before he brought his high performance to a halt as the crowd cheered him on. SFC Windmiller is a world record holder in the sport of Canopy Swooping.

After all the jumpers were on the ground the team presented to batons which were flown in free fall to two distinguished members of the airshow. There was also a 20 minute photo session and an autograph signing.

The airshow will be going on during the 5Th and 6Th of June. The team will perform twice daily at the airshow, at 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm each day.

In these pictures, SSG Ryan Ray exiting the aircraft as the narrator for this show and the down-plane.

Photos by SSG Aaron Figel