posted Sep 25th, 2009 - The end of the 2009 season is coming closer quickly. The USPA Nationals 2009 in three weeks includes the major Formation Skydiving competition in the USA this year. SkyQuest 2009, including the NSL Championship 2009, concludes the NSL 2009 season in November.

BJ Worth's Kaleidoscope Dives have become the largest ingredient of the annual SkyQuest event. The success of the project now has motivated BJ Worth to go even bigger and invite a second group of Kaleidoscope Divers to SkyQuest 2009. This year's event will see a friendly big-way competition.

The Kaleidoscope Dives started in 2001 as a show-element of SkyQuest, which was held at Fantasy of Flight by then. From its inception, this fun event has attracted a stellar talent-pool of international skydivers – resulting in numerous completions of multiple-point 100-ways. On each dive, the geometric shapes of the formations are transformed – similar to the shifting images one sees when looking through a kaleidoscope.

The Kaleidoscope Dives at SkyQuest 2009 have become even more important, as the event also serves as a test and training for the World Team. BJ Worth explained in his first bulletin what he has in mind as of the connection between SkyQuest 2009 and the World Team:

"Since this will be the last big-way event prior to the 252-way sequential dives in Thailand, many new World Team skydivers wish to join the 2009 Kaleidoscope Dives. We don't want to expand the size of the Kaleidoscope Dives themselves, but including more World Team skydivers could be fun.

So we will expand the number of participants, mix our collective talent pool as equally as possible, and jump as two teams – performing the same dive sequences. The size of these teams will be based on maintaining a very high quality of dives."

All of the 2009 Kaleidoscope Dive Organizers are current World Team Leaders: BJ Worth, Kate Cooper, Larry Henderson, Roger Ponce, Mike Johnston, Solly Williams, Tom Jenkins, Lou Tommaso, Pål Bergan, Patrick Passe and Victor Kravtsov.

BJ Worth said that many of the 2009 Kaleidoscope Divers will be heading to Thailand in January for the first event of the new World Team project, the 500-way world record. Therefore, several World Team elements will be incorporated into this year’s Kaleidoscope Dives as a dress rehearsal for World Team of 2010.

SkyQuest 2009 is scheduled for November 19 - 22 at Skydive DeLand. The NSL Championship begins on Friday afternoon. BJ Worth has once again scheduled 16 Kaleidoscope Dives for this year's event, including four different big-way dive sequences, each consisting of two or three formations with challenging transitions.

Two of the 2009 Kaleidoscope Dives will include segments of World Team's new world record design. The other two dives will be totally new and creative. The 2009 Kaleidoscope Dives – designed by BJ and drawn via AutoCAD by Rags Raghanti – will soon be available on the SkyQuest website.

BJ Worth himself is looking forward to meet his World Team and Kaleidoscope friends: "It's that time of year again – to fly through the sky with 100 up to 200 of our most talented friends, and raise the bar on some hot big-way sequential dives."

Participation at the Kaleidoscope Dives 2009 is limited to invitation only, while the 4-way competition is an open event. The international Kaleidoscope team of 140-200 highly skilled skydivers who want to skydive hard and have lots of fun in the process, are being invited to participate by BJ Worth and his dive organizers. Although the organizers wish they could introduce big-way sequential to many up-and-coming skydivers, the 2009 Kaleidoscope roster will be restricted to proven experts.

Skydive DeLand's aircraft fleet will consist of one Skyvan and four Twin Otters and be flown by Deland's team of professional pilots with extensive formation-flying skills. Exit altitude for the Kaleidoscope Dives is 18,000 feet for all dives. Everyone will use the new World Team in-aircraft oxygen system with nasal cannulas or masks. World Team members are expected to use the bail-out oxygen system as well, and will be available for any other participants who wish to use it.

More information can be found at the SkyQuest website, which will be updated regularly with new information. The same website provides information of the NSL Championship 2009.