August 1-10, the World Freefall Convention drew nearly 3,000 attendees to Rantoul, Illinois, where they made more than 42,000 skydives. Once some initially foul weather cleared, jumpers could make ten or more jumps each day from a wide variety of aircraft, including the usual array of twin turbines, a C-130, a Pitts Special, a turbine Sikorsky helicopter, hot air balloons and more.

Jumpers fall out of the helicopter into the still air.

Some jumpers got up early to make the daily loads from 30,000 feet with organizer and HALO jumper Kevin Holbrook. The jumps included military-type high-altitude jumping equipment, required oxygen pre-breathing, safety briefings, continuous oxygen monitoring and plenty of back-up equipment on board.

As at every World Freefall Convention, organized loads were at the center of activities, with Gary Peek organizing sequential skydives in the 8-way to 16-way range. DJan Stewart put together smaller jumps that included instruction and post-jump critiques. Jumpers could also join the Muff Brothers, Rodriguez Brothers, Roger Ponce de Leon, other people named Bob and many others.

Dave Brown of the Freefly Training Center ran this year's freefly instruction and organizing, with Spaceland Anomaly members Trent Alkek, Steve Boyd and Jed Lloyd assisting. Max Cohn made 96 freefly coaching jumps over the ten-day period.

Thirty jumpers entered the individual sport accuracy competition, and there were daily pond swooping competitions. The Golden Knights put on daily demonstrations for non-skydiving spectators at the DZ and various civic and charitable organization sites around the town of Rantoul.

In event organizer Don Kirlin's own words, "Sixty seconds of freefall are the same everywhere. At the convention, we add specialty aircraft and a family setting."

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