{"id":36439,"date":"2021-09-13T09:02:13","date_gmt":"2021-09-13T09:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skydivemag.com\/new\/?p=36439"},"modified":"2021-09-14T11:29:37","modified_gmt":"2021-09-14T11:29:37","slug":"baltic-wingsuit-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skydivemag.com\/new\/baltic-wingsuit-record\/","title":{"rendered":"Baltic Wingsuit Record"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Baltic Wingsuit Meet<\/strong> was organized two years in a row. The event is based on the drive to do AWF – Airplane Wingsuit Formations.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The new 18-way AWF World Record
Photo by Tomasz Nowicki<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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For me it all started from watching on YouTube Daniel Ossio’s AWF record from 2019. <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Inspired by Daniel, who is an expert at AWF<\/a>, together with our DZ Turbo Finist pilot Bart\u0142omiej Ledwon, we tried to figure out how to repeatedly skydive together making it possible with a similar plane to Pilatus Porter. Similar but more difficult to fly by due to its speed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a few dozen jumps, we could fly together in formation without any problems, and then I said “Why not create an AWF Polish Record?”<\/em>. That is in a few words how the event came alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Training during the 1st Baltic Wingsuit Meet
Photo by Tomasz Nowicki<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The 1st Baltic Wingsuit Meet<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Last year 8 top Polish wingsuiters met together and did for the first time a Polish Record – AWF8. Everyone was super excited about the event so I said “why not again?”<\/em>… So I started planning how to bring even more wingsuiters into the project and teach them how to fly safely with the plane. My plan was to try to break Daniel\u2019s AWF World Record.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the way, necessity is the mother of invention and I believe I am the only wingsuiter in the world who developed most of wingsuit skills flying formations together with a plane and not with other wingsuiters. \ud83e\udd23 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started the Baltic Wingsuit Meet because I had a dream to do something interesting in Poland and change a bit of direction of interest for the wingsuiting community. I wanted to prove that we can do exactly the same stuff we were watching in other countries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wingsuit bigway training, preparing for the AWF attempts
Photo by Tomasz Nowicki<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The right event format for 2021<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I am long enough in the sport to remember how simple organizing boogies looked like and what you really need in order to keep the participants happy. Maybe it sounds strange but money always was the last item from the importance point of view in my recollections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The atmosphere is the most important, no tandems and quality jumps which usually you can\u2019t get on your local drop zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I put both those things together and I added a skills camp. I mixed all these elements and I finally came with the Wingsuit skills boot camp boogie “product”<\/a>. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I asked Freefly Rob Heron from Canada and Daniel Culbertson from Norway to help me make this event more interesting for participants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was taking a group for AWF they took part of tight fast formations and general wingsuit skills development. This combo made everybody happy and gave the participants the drive to change or improve something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Seems like all the birds around the DZ were cheering the team
Photo by Tomasz Nowicki<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Success <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We had 25 participants mostly from Poland but I put a lot of effort to make this event international and bring as much as possible attention from foreigners. In the end we had guys from Poland, Switzerland, Finland, Canada, Germany, and Norway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make the event more international than only having guests from abroad we decided from the beginning that all communication regarding the event planning up to regular chatting on the DZ will be in English so everybody was naturally forced to speak it. After the event, I heard some feedback from guys that they were very positively surprised that not even once did they feel the language barrier. I think this was the most important point for the success of the international boogie located on the \u201ceast block\u201d DZ. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

August in Poland is supposed to be nice but we had to face all week clouds which were putting us frequently on a weather hold. But even faced with these difficulties we managed to jump every day and achieve our goal. We broke the AWF world record! \ud83d\ude0e\ud83d\udcaa  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The setup of the event was that after the final selection to get the team warmed up by increasing the difficulty of the jumps. On the second day in the late afternoon we had already jumped from two planes. On the next day, one day ahead of the original plan, we broke the record by building the biggest wingsuit formation with the plane with 18 wingsuiters (4 more than the previous record)!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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New AWF World Record video<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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