posted Dec 12th, 2007 - BJ Worth recently wrapped up his Kaleidoscope Dives at the SkyQuest 2007 event with a summary that he sent to all his participants. The 17 dives in November were the best ones that any group of Kaleidoscope Divers had done to date ever since the invention of the event in 2001. BJ plans to build on this foundation and make the jumps even better and more challenging next year.

The local NBC News TV station got a hold of some freefall footage that was provided by SkyQuest and featured Gustavo Cabana's freefall imagery. The short clip with one of the Kaleidoscope Dives was broadcast several times on Sunday between 6 pm and 7 pm. The video can be viewed by clicking here.

Kaleidoscope Dives 2007

By BJ Worth

Hello Kaleidoscope Divers,

I want to thank everyone who participated on the Kaleidoscope Dives this year for making 2007 our best series of big-ways to date. It was so much fun making one great skydive after another. Each dive had its own unique set of challenges, and we learned to handle all (most) of them with a progressive learning curve until we achieved our desired goals. All those smiles and positive vibes on the DZ made my heart sing.

The stable weather (albeit nippy in the mornings), the professional support from Skydive DeLand and National Skydiving League, and the expert guidance from our talented Plane Captains gave us the opportunity to raise the bar, but it was a combination of consistent individual performances and collaborative teamwork that made the magic happen in the sky - over and over again. Thank you!! Thank you!! Thank you!!

There are a lot of moving parts when putting 100+ skydivers in the sky together, and an injury free (almost) event doesn't happen by chance. Thank you ALL for keeping the "Safety First" lamp burning throughout this event!

Our Camera Team led by Andrey Veselov, along with Gustavo Cabana and Phil Roberson did a super job recording debrief video as well as snapping some incredible images of our handiwork. We would like to have a DVD made of these dives, but I hesitate to commit to an event DVD that requires using PAL and NTSC video formats and material from three nations... but we are trying to make this happen. There are, however, great opportunities to get photographs for our walls by perusing the following websites, and making contact with the photographer(s) of our choice:

Andrey Veselov - Gustavo Cabana - Phil Roberson

So what do we do for next year? Let's try to improve the Kaleidoscope Dives everywhere we can, so we can raise the bar another notch! And how do we do this? I encourage you to let me know your thoughts on ways that we can improve this event. Already, we have decided to provide the Plane Captains with better tools to work with, such as having a separate debrief area for each Plane Team. I am sure there are many more ways to make additional improvements. So, please send me any and all of your critiques.

Until next year, then, I wish you all a happy holiday season.

Safe skies,

bj

PS: For those of you on World Team '06, you will be getting a special present in the coming weeks - finally!