posted Jun 15th, 2005 - Morning came early Saturday, arriving at about the same time as the sun in the eastern sky. Although there were clouds Saturday morning, none of them were over the front range of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. The landing area looked as if it were about a mile high.

Thus was the scene for the second installment of the AA Class meets for the Colorado Skydiving League. The meet was again held at Mile Hi Skydiving Center.

The meet had been postponed for a week to take advantage of the Skydive Arizona Skyvan that was scheduled to be on hand for a boogie, instead of using the KingAir that normally propels Colorado skydivers to 18000’ MSL.

As luck would have it, the Skyvan was out of commission at the start of the meet, forcing me to manifest the teams for the KingAir instead. As other luck would have it, the Skyvan came back on line, just as the teams were preparing to gear up for the KingAir. So, we re-manifested, and started at about 10:00 am, rather than 8:45 am.

Mile Hi Skydiving did a fantastic job of getting us in the air. They accommodated us as never before, doing everything possible to make sure we got our jumps in. Thanks to Lisa LaPointe and Melody Schock for their help at manifest, and thanks to Frank and Tom for making it all possible! We got six rounds in, probably a new Colorado record for 4-way competition!

With Courtney Frasch judging the meet, and manifest keeping us jumping, there was nothing left for me to do as meet director, so I got to compete with G-Gap.

With the awesome facilities, the great weather, and the enthusiastic welcome from the DZ, the fanatical Colorado 4-way enthusiasts turned out in droves. We had an unbelievable (fanfare, please) three teams, two of them from the Air Force. Oh well. If anyone knows what motivates skydivers to learn, improve, and compete, please tell me how to get some of that in Colorado.

The Air Force instructor team (LOC) walked away with the meet, winning every round by a comfortable margin. They look pretty sharp, flying with an economy of movement that would make the greatest efficiency experts nervous about their jobs.

The battle for second place was much closer. G-Gap won the first round by a point, then started giving up ground to Prodigy. By round three, Prodigy was five points ahead. G-Gap started making a comeback, and was only two points down going into round six. But Prodigy pulled it together and outscored G-Gap by one point in round six, crushing G-Gap with a 3-point defeat.

The next meet is a AA meet, scheduled for July 10.

See ya there!

Brian Vande Krol, CSL Director