The PD Factory Team ended its summer competition tour with a sweep of the US Canopy Piloting Nationals. Skydive Wildwood hosted the event September 1-3 at Wildwood, NJ. Tropical Storm Ernesto pounded the eastern seaboard for the first two days of scheduled competition, turning the beachfront into soup, and eventually limiting the competition to five of nine scheduled rounds. A busy summer tour in the US and abroad, combined with a poor weather forecast, resulted in only eight registered open class competitors. That didn't stop the PD and Fastrax boys from fighting it out in the mud. In the end, it was Shannon Pilcher, Ian Bobo, and Jonathan Tagle, finishing first, second, and third respectively. Although this was a non-selection year, it is possible that this event will determine the US representatives for next year's CP World Cup in Australia. Stay tuned.

The PD Factory team hadn't been to South America since 2002 (The Caribbean Challenge in Venezuela) and we had never been to Brazil, so why not? The opportunity to be part of a local event in a country that has produced so many Pro's and up-and-coming swoopers couldn't be missed.

The decision to reduce the number of pilots that the PD Factory Team would send to Brazil, came in parallel with the late announcement that the PST would no longer be sanctioning the meet, and along with the additional fact that the 1st portion of what was to be a 2 part meet was being cancelled... The "Aerial Paradise" portion may have been cancelled but "Gui's Farm" went ahead as planned... and for what it was, it was a great meet to be part of!

The meet was held on a private farm that belongs to long time skydiver and Brazilian sports TV personality Gui Padua. The farm is located between the towns of Cassia, Passos and Sao Sebastiao do Paraiso, in the state of Minas Gerais. Padua sparred no expense building his personal "competition swoop pond" right next to his private runway and went way beyond what many competitors expected when next to his 240ft x 80ft lined pond he also built a beautiful 1ft deep sand pit that encompassed the entire distance course, over 500ft in length!

The comp was not without its issues. A small lack of practical experience actually running swoop meets put Jay Moledzki in a prime position to share his wealth of experience with organizers, judges and competitors alike. This contribution proved to be invaluable component of the meet with Moledzki providing guidance in almost every area of the event. A word of thanks and appreciations goes out to all the staff and competitors who throughout the meet proved themselves open minded and ever eager to be the warmest, friendliest, and at every turn showed their desire to do things right the first time!

The competition was 10 rounds, comprised of 3 accuracy, 3 distance and 4 freestyle accuracy rounds. A meet this heavily weighted in the accuracy department, had most of the less experienced pilots thinking that it would be to their benefit. That is to say that, not having to "swoop it out" in distance and speed with Jay and by giving the little guy a chance, putting most of the points in the "who can be most accurate" category. This quickly proved itself to not be the case. The comp venue is at over 3000ft ASL and it's the end of the dry season in Brazil, and to top things off, the prevailing wind was (you guessed it) downwind. The combination listed above made for screaming fast swoops with most all the pilots blasting into the course and flying right out the end. An obvious learning curve took place when round for round the pilots gradually moved further and further back to allow for the quick conditions.

With that said this meet divvied up some great distance runs! Jay's runs were averaging about 500ft each! And of course as is the case with most competitions that include "freestyle" on the docket, this showmen's event quickly became a crowd favorite with some exceptionally well-executed maneuvers such as "blind-man", "lazy-boy" and "nac-nac" toping the list of tricks preformed by the pilots in attendance.

When all the rounds were said and done it was no great surprise to most that Jay had managed himself another victory. Jay 1st, Gordinho 2nd, Kalay 3rd,Gui 4th and Pelayo 5th , but for Jay what mattered most was two things...

First, it's about getting back a little, to where it has always started, at the smaller local meets where pilots are coming out to do their first competition ever and while they are giving it their all, their ear to ear smiles tell you they are having tons of fun at the same time.

Secondly, to the awareness of no one but Jay, this event meant the completion of a clean 2006 season... no verticals, no missed gates, no out of bounds, no overshoots just scoring runs every time, and podiums every time! It got pretty close a few times but it never went over. Nothing proves itself harder to do in Canopy Piloting than being consistent, and because of that, this small town victory was quite a bit bigger for Jay than a little swoop meet down at Gui's farm...

The PD Factory Team would like to wish all our
sponsors, friends, and family a Happy Thanksgiving.

The PD Factory Team is heading to Sebastian, FL for the "PD Challenge" swoop competition. The competition will take place on January 5th and 6th. The cash purse for competitors is over $10,000. We'll post the results in the next PD Factory Team newsletter.