Many jumpers have learned big-way formation skydiving skills by trial and error. But now, the body of knowledge has developed into a science. And any skydiver can attend a big-way camp to learn and practice that science in a low-pressure, non-threatening environment. Perris Valley Skydiving in Southern California hosted a great one June 26-30.

Dan Brodsky-Chenfeld's group works on building a 35-way.

World record holders Kate Cooper, Tony Domenico and Dan Brodsky-Chenfeld co-organized the camp. Experience levels ranged from 300 to more than 4,500 jumps.

By 7:00 Thursday morning, the group had 87 camp participants from 15 U.S. states, Canada, the U.K., Japan, Australia, Mexico, Sweden, Korea, Thailand and Italy.

The jumpers were divided into three groups. Domenico and Cooper each took a group for single-plane 20-ways, while Brodsky-Chenfeld started with a 30-way two-plane formation load.

Since most of the jumpers had experience out of Twin Otters, Perris brought its Skyvan into service to provide experience launching 6-way bases from a tailgate airplane. Brodsky-Chenfeld's group managed to complete a 30-way on the third jump of the day, using jumpers in positions to which they were unaccustomed-late divers floating and base people leaving late.

At Saturday's closing meeting, Brodsky-Chenfeld announced that the group would go for an 80-plus-way on Sunday, with completion as the goal. The group made four jumps from 16,500 feet on Sunday. Each skydive provided a great learning experience in building loops and whackers, even though none of the formations completed. Still, Domenico added ten new jumpers to the 100-way invitational event he and Cooper are organizing at Perris in October as a direct result of seeing their performances at this camp.

The participants at the Perris Big-Way Camp gather before a jump.

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