On February 11, United Parachute Technologies announced that it had identified problems affecting the reserve deployment on some of its Vector SE student containers and has offered a field fix, as well as a permanent fix.

In 1997, Patty Chernis, newly elected to the USPA Board as a regional director, suggested that USPA create a special day to get jumpers current and prepared for the upcoming skydiving season. Now in its 25th year, Safety Day has grown increasingly popular, morphing from year to year to address current trends.

A hard-opening parachute is certainly not a new phenomenon. Skydivers have been dealing with hard openings throughout the history of sport parachuting—particularly during the early 1970s when the first ram-air main canopies and the various devices used to try and tame their openings were developed.

Photo by Norman Kent | D-8369

Jumpers exit during the Florida Head-Down Record attempts hosted by Collective Pitch at Skydive DeLand, where they set a 47-way state record.

Pteam Pterodactyl—Andrew Velazquez (left) and George Hargis—practice some acrobatic wingsuit routines over Skydive Arizona in Eloy.

Kirk Verner (front) and Niklas Hemlin of 8-way team Airspeed XP8 land in succession after a training jump at Skydive Arizona in Eloy.

Skydiving didn’t really change my life, it was my life. It started at a very young age, even though I didn’t make my first jump from an airplane until I was 18.

In 1962, I was in winter training with the U.S. Navy Parachute Team, the Chuting Stars, in El Centro, California. One day, we were quite surprised to see Jacques-André Istel, president of the Parachute Club of America (USPA’s predecessor organization), arrive in his shiny new Cessna 182.

Stewart McArthur, D-24588, is a British skydiver who now lives in the U.S. Since his first jump on Halloween Day in 1989, he has racked up a wide variety of skydiving and aviation accomplishments.

From time to time, knots like the ones shown in this photo can magically appear in brake lines.

During the 2019 summer board meeting, USPA adopted and implemented an updated PRO-rating program with new jump requirements, qualifying areas and distances (the old standard of 10 accuracy jumps into a 32-foot circle no longer applies) and types of qualifying canopies.

Each year, roughly 55,000 Oahu locals and tourists visit Dillingham Airfield to skydive, glide and fly.

I’ve renamed this column “Anemometer,” as I intend to convey how the wind blows by providing information that USPA members will want to know.

The USPA Board of Directors held its fifth meeting of the 2019-2021 term in Cincinnati, Ohio, January 29-31. For the second time, the board meeting was broadcast live via Zoom Webinar for USPA members to observe and over 130 USPA members registered to attend the virtual meeting.

At its January meeting, the International Skydiving Commission of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (world skydiving’s governing body), continued its discussions regarding the fate of the 2020 (rescheduled to 2021) World Skydiving Championships Mondial in Russia in August.

The country of Egypt has no civilian drop zones, but that doesn’t stop Skydive Egypt—a club of jumpers who are working to promote the sport in their country—from putting together spectacular boogies that feature jumps over the Great Pyramids of Giza.