{"id":55103,"date":"2024-08-20T12:02:29","date_gmt":"2024-08-20T12:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skydivemag.com\/new\/?p=55103"},"modified":"2024-11-01T11:40:40","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T11:40:40","slug":"catching-up-with-felicia-sturgeon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skydivemag.com\/new\/catching-up-with-felicia-sturgeon\/","title":{"rendered":"Catching up with\u2026 Felicia Sturgeon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Felicia Sturgeon, to me, is incredible \u2013 an amazingly talented flyer who seems to excel at every sharp end of our sport. She\u2019s a bad ass swooper, BASE jumper, wingsuit skydiver, speed flyer and freeflyer. Oh, and freestyle snowboarding, skiing, roller-blading, and \u2013 hey! \u2013 let\u2019s put some of those together!<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Felicia’s Rollerblade BASE jump from KL tower in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Photo by Vandabau.Photo by Vandabau<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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How did you start skydiving Felicia? <\/strong><\/h4><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I did my first skydive at the Air Force Academy, on 23 July, 2012, with the military. They do five hop \u2018n\u2019 pops, that\u2019s essentially the program. From there I knew I had to keep doing it, I loved it. I started AFF at the local dropzone at Colorado. I had no idea skydiving was a sport. I didn\u2019t know you could just sign up at the local DZ to do a jump, I thought it was only for the military. I had no exposure to the sport. I wasn\u2019t the person who grew up watching videos on social media. All of a sudden, I found myself jumping out of a plane and I\u2019m like \u2013 Woo, this is wild!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can you remember about your first jump?<\/strong><\/h4><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The moment I stepped off the plane I remember thinking, \u2018This is it!\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When did you put on a wingsuit? For both skydiving and BASE? <\/strong><\/h4><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t start wingsuiting that early in my jumping. I had probably a thousand jumps before putting a wingsuit on. I started BASE jumping in 2016, and started wingsuiting skydiving around 2018. And I did my first wingsuit BASE jump in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Felicia’s goals always include having fun
Photo by Jesse Hall<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Why did you start wingsuiting?<\/strong><\/h4><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I started wingsuiting kind of by accident. I started traveling to Utah to jump and everyone was wingsuiting there at the time. My best friend that I grew up with, she\u2019s the same size as me, so she had a wingsuit in my size and just suggested I try it. I was like \u2018okaaay\u2019. Before then I thought wingsuiting wasn\u2019t cool-looking. I was also really into swooping and freeflying, and, you know what it\u2019s like, swooping and wingsuiting don\u2019t mix! The dropzone you grow up at, you just do whatever is considered cool there. Once I was at Skydive Utah, she just gave me her wingsuit and all of a sudden, I found myself flying a Swift with all these super-experienced wingsuiters around me. I was like \u2013 woah, this is actually pretty cool!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You said swoopers and wingsuiters don\u2019t mix, why is that? <\/strong><\/h4><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s about the canopies. You can\u2019t jump a swooping canopy with wingsuits. That\u2019s what steered me away from wingsuiting for so long because I thought I couldn\u2019t fly a parachute I thought was fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Backfly dock with Jesse Hall on a BASE jump at Monte Brento, Italy
Photo by Jesse Hall<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Did you find it easy flying a wingsuit ? <\/strong><\/h4><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I was instantly okay at it \u2013 because of my freefly background and I had a lot of tunnel time, it didn\u2019t feel overwhelming. I just felt I could fly it the way I wanted to fly it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you think some people rush to put on a wingsuit too early?<\/strong><\/h4><\/div>\n\n\n\n

For sure. I see this a lot at my dropzone, because wingsuiting is the cool thing to do. When you get to 200 jumps, of course you\u2019re gonna put on a wingsuit. And \u2013 boom! \u2013 let\u2019s put on a Go Pro at the same time!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wingsuiting can be very scary in ways that I think people don\u2019t understand at that stage. At 200 jumps most people don\u2019t even know how to fly without the suit on so it seems a little crazy to add a suit. Of course it\u2019s very dependent on the person, with some people it\u2019s more reasonable than others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Felicia docking head down with a tandem at Skydive Utah
Photo by Foxy<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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What can be scary about wingsuiting?<\/strong><\/h4><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The speed you can generate with a wingsuit and the collisions that can happen are high speed, scary. We just had an incident that went to an AAD fire with a wingsuiter. She had a collision on exit because she got out of control, that knocked her unconscious. The suits can just generate so much speed that when you collide the chances of getting knocked out are pretty high. I feel there are a lot of accidents with wingsuit collisions, way too many. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can we prevent that? <\/strong><\/h4><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The education needs to be a little better at some dropzones. Sometimes people just have their friends teach them, without always getting a first jump course.  It\u2019s just a number but 200 jumps to put on a wingsuit is kinda low.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you manage flying such different canopies as swooping and BASE?<\/strong><\/h4><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Flying a parachute, there are a lot of the same things that carry over for each type of canopy; reading the wind, feeling it. The more experienced you are, and the more canopies you\u2019ve flown, the better you get at reading each wing. Speed flying, swooping and flying a BASE canopy are very different but they contribute to each other, they are all complementary. Especially with speed flying and swooping. I have a Mutant coming very soon, I\u2019m excited to see how that compares to speed flying. I\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s going to have a lot of carry-over. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Zipline BASE jump in Moab, Utah<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Do you have a favorite discipline?<\/strong><\/h4><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It depends on the month! Sometimes I\u2019m super stoked in BASE and other times I can\u2019t stop talking about speed flying!  I guess I just want to do it all! [laughs]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What makes you want to do everything? <\/strong><\/h4><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Man, I feel like here in Utah this is the Mecca for everyone who wants to do everything. Climbing, skiing, snowboarding, BASE jumping, speed flying, skydiving. Utah has it all. I started snowboarding when I was five, and switched to skiing about six years ago to be complementary to speed flying. I just wanted to be good enough at skiing to speed ride… and then I kind of got obsessed with skiing and I haven\u2019t really stopped since! It\u2019s funny, I competed in freestyle snowboarding and I never thought I would be a skier before I took up parachute sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u00a0Felicia speedriding in Switzerland<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Do people rush into BASE?<\/strong><\/h4><\/div>\n\n\n\n

For sure. Again, there are a lot of BASE courses out there that just have a number of jumps requirement, a bare minimum. 200 jumps is just a number \u2013 barely enough. Most of the base jumping in the US is lower, slider-off. A lot of people think the skydiving requitement is to do with the freefall awareness \u2013 but it\u2019s their canopy skills that are lacking. People get hurt because they are not comfortable under a parachute. That\u2019s 95 per cent of the BASE jump. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s very dependent on the person from what I\u2019ve seen. Some people are better at flying parachutes than others. That\u2019s just the way it is. Some people can fly a parachute well at 200 jumps and others may need a thousand. I wanna say, why is it 200 jumps for everything? Why put a number on it at all?! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you have any advice for someone who wants to get into BASE?]<\/strong><\/h4><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Often, the canopy skills are really lacking for a lot of people getting into BASE. And that\u2019s the part that\u2019s going to hurt you. It\u2019s easy to just jump off a bridge and throw a pilot chute. The parachute is going to open \u2013 but landing it where you want safely is a different skill. People think because it\u2019s a big 200-plus square foot canopy, that it\u2019s no big deal; but it\u2019s actually very technical to land well. It\u2019s easy to jump off an object but it\u2019s typically what happens under the canopy that can break you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most people that ask about getting into BASE, I first look at their canopy skills. Are you a proficient canopy pilot.? Are you landing consistently where you want to? In any conditions? If not, that\u2019s what you need to work on before going near BASE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That being said there is no USPA of BASE jumping and that’s part of what makes it awesome. It’s your own journey and you have to decide for yourself if you’re ready for it or not. Talk to people you trust that understand your abilities and can give you honest feedback. In my opinion, finding a mentor is the best thing you can do for your journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell me about your ski base journey<\/strong><\/h4><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Probably about four years ago now, I started jumping with Jesse quite a bit, right after Covid. I was traveling to Utah to jump. I started a jumping relationship with Jesse. We were both super-fired up on it. He has a lot of history in the sport, he became my mentor in base and wingsuiting . He obviously is one of the top ski-basers in the world, he\u2019s been doing it longer than most. As I started skiing and hanging out with him, the idea of it became more of a reality. We\u2019ve totally had a blast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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