The Premise
Awesome organizers invite great skydivers for some great formations in Arizona!
It’s wasn’t a complicated plan, and it was executed flawlessly by Arizona Airspeed’s Kelsey, Joey, & Chris, a roster of 40 talented skydivers, and an elite media team of Alex Swindle, Mark “Trunk” Kirschenbaum, and a flying shoe.
A Superior Squad
- With only 40 slots to fill with participants, and a lull before the P3 camps and summer season get into full swing, the Airspeed hosts were able to draw in a high caliber of formation skydivers, and more importantly, put them to the test.
- With no warm-up needed, the group split into two groups to tackle multi-point 22-way formations on the first day. For the skydivers in the formation, phrases like “delicate,” “fragile,” and “are you serious?” came to mind as the group formed out-facing bases, long loops, open accordions, and the dreaded BFR.
- Despite increasing winds, both groups were able to form the intricate shapes with precision and symmetry, accomplishing the most important goal of all: giving Swindle & Trunk nice things to look at!
Bigger is always better
- On days two and three, the plan was almost the same: build complicated and multi-point formations – except now the size of the jump doubled to 44-ways. The Skydive Arizona pilots were ready and took the group up to 16,500 ft. in a Skyvan and an Otter in the dry desert air.
- With twice the jumpers to play with, the event organizers configured the group into even more creative designs. After careful preparation on the ground, the squad of focused skydivers started to march together under the slightly modified rallying cry: “Remember to look across the formation! (Except the 8 of you that are out-facing, of course.)”
Ok, we know this formation is challeng… oh, we got it! Moving on!
- With perfect weather on the third day, all of the organizers were inspired to bring out new formations to test the limits and get as many jumps in as we could. With the squad threatening to “one and done” each new jump, the team members developed a new system of hand signals and rapid communication upon landing to let manifest know if the team needed to repeat – or if we needed the extra time to prepare a new jump.
- The group rose to the challenge, and the videographers began to fill their memory cards with photos of 2 and 3-point formations while dodging jumpers, shoes, high-fives. As if that wasn’t enough, when the final jump of the event played on the big screen, the hanger fell silent at the beauty of “that Trunk exit.”*
(*Trunk was exiting from the trail plane, and a videographer from that plane typically will stay in that area of the formation (4-7pm on a clock, looking up line of flight). But in this jump, Trunk exited and immediately went into an aggressive “floater” body position to fly up the hill to the 12pm-1am position above the formation.Part of the fascination was just the novelty of it, but it was the speed and skill with which he flew to an overhead position – requiring Trunk to enter the stadium while avoiding divers coming at him – that impressed observers.) - After the 3-day demonstration of skill and talent, participants shared hugs & high-fives and confirmed who was sharing who’s Airbnb at the next bigway events. Luckily we don’t have to wait very long for – 2025 is the year of bigway!
- Check out the gallery of cool photos from the event here on Facebook
All Photos by Alex Swindle and Mark “Trunk” Kirschenbaum
More Bigways in 2025
2025 is a BIG year for BIG ways. Camps and events – including a combination of The 250 and the Vertical 200way WR – are being hosted by the usual suspects:
- Arizona Airspeed (hosts of The Arizona Challenge)
- P3 Skydiving (home to Spring Flings, Big Way Camps, 100-way Camps, Power Play, The Games, and the most intimidating biceps in the sport)
- Heroes Skydiving (host of the NC 100-way State Record)
- All American Bigways (home to Big Way Camps, All American Invitational, and the 250 Sequential World Record event)
