Mondial - Day -1

Saturday, 10 September 2016

19.10  As the day draws to a close the setting sun lights up the MONDIAL statue on the drop zone - a magical moment, captured for us by Roman Alba of the Mexican 4-way team.

Today is registration day, Judges Conference and practice jumping.  The judges arrived at 7.30 in the rain.  By 12.30 the first aircraft load was called and we had broken cloud and blue skies.  The registration has been set up in the Auditorium and was a very busy place, with lots of staff on hand to help with the process.

At the Judges Conference we learnt about the first major problem for the organisation, the alternative DZ at Cushing Field is non operational, due to the very heavy rain whcih has left the runway (grass) waterlogged.  The plan had been to use that DZ for Canopy Formation and Freefall Style, so now arrangements are being made to incorporate these two Disciplines into the operation at Skydive Chicago, but the Meet Director Bill Wenger has already worked out how to make it work.  If the conditions at Cushing Field improve (and it is hoped they will do so by Monday) then it is back to plan A.

The Jury had to approve this change to Bulletin 2 and so they have issued their First Report.    (You can also find this under Documents - Events - Mondial - USA - 2016).

Sammy Vassilev of Skydive-TV, along with his wife Iva and Presenter Beau Riebe have set up their studio in the Auditorium and they will be broadcasting live, twice a day, 9.00 and 5.00 (17.00), plus his usual daily releases;  the first of which is available here:

As the day is progressing, so is the weather and  full use is being made of the large number of aircraft available here at Skydive Chicago (5 Twin Otters and 2 Caravans). 

The judging rooms are set up and the panels are refreshing themselves on the OmniSkoreHD judging system (Formation Skydiving, Artisitc Events, Canopy Formation) or the Speed judges on the Intervision software and the Larsan & Brusgard Protracks.  Ted Wagner is here with his father Roy, to operate the OmniSkoreHD system.  For the first time Style will be judged on OmniSkore at an FCE and Andy Houston's accuracy system is being used.  He has set up his system with a camera so that Skydive-TV will be able to show "live" accuracy on their transmissions.

Karla Cole, Chief Judge for Formation Skydiving has published the two practice jumps for both 4-way (1 and 2) and 8-way (1 and 2), so that teams can do one of them if they choose, or they can let Karla have a copy of the dive they intend to do on their "official" Practice Jump.  Either way their practice jump will be judged.

15.30  Announcement

The manifest announced that the plan was for wheels up at 8.00 a.m tomorrow, and the FS judges have now published the two practice jumps for VFS (1 and 2).

Another Roman Alba picture - capturing the moment - Sunset Planes