OmniSkore Coverage - World Parachuting Championships, Corowa, Australia

About Formation Skydiving

Overview | Events | FAI/IPC | Rules | Links


Overview
Formation Skydiving (formerly known as Relative Work) is the sport of building a series of formations in freefall. Formation Skydiving can be as few as two people or more than 100 (the unofficial world record largest freefall formation is 297). Competition formation skydiving consists of 3 basic events* for National and International competitions: 4-Way, 8-Way, and 16-Way. 16-Way was adopted by the IPC as an official event in 1997, and the 20-Way event popular in the U.S. was then changed to a 16-Way event, adopting the IPC rules.

For all events, each team performs as many formations as possible before working time expires. The team with the most points after the last completed round is the winner.

* 10-way is another US Nationals event but is a speed event, not sequential formations.


Events

Photo by Tim Wagner4-Way
The 4-Way event uses a working time of 35 seconds and an exit altitude of approximately 10,500 feet (about 3,200 meters). The dive pool consists of 24 block sequences and 16 random formations. See the IPC Dive Pool page on this site for more information.

At the beginning of the competition, the formations to be performed on the skydives are randomly drawn until the skydive has at least 5 or 6 points. Once the team has completed the sequence, it starts over at the first formation and continues to repeat the sequence.

Photo by Tim Wagner8-Way
The 8-Way event uses a working time of 50 seconds and an exit altitude of approximately 12,500 feet (about 3,800 meters). The dive pool consists of 24 block sequences and 16 random formations. See the IPC Dive Pool page on this site for more information.

At the beginning of the competition, the formations to be performed on the skydives are randomly drawn until the skydive has at least 5, 6, or 7 points. Once the team has completed the sequence, it starts over at the first formation and continues to repeat the sequence.

16-Way
The 16-Way event also uses a working time of 50 seconds and an exit altitude of approximately 12,500 feet (about 3,800 meters). The dive pool consists of 12 blocks and 9 randoms.

For some reason, the 16-way World Championships are held separately from the 4- and 8-way Championships. I for one would like to see them held together.


FAI/IPC
The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the world's air sports federation, was founded in 1905. It is a non-governmental and non-profit making international organization with the basic aim of furthering aeronautical and astronautical activities worldwide. The FAI is the governing body of the International Parachute Commission (IPC), which overseas international parachute competitions. The IPC solicits bids from FAI member countries to host international parachuting competitions. The world championships for Formation Skydiving are held every odd year; the championships for Canopy Formations Skydiving are held every even year.


Formation Skydiving Rules
The rules for Formation Skydiving competitions in the United States have been traditionally maintained by USPA in the USPA Skydiver's Competition Manual. USPA, however, has recently adopted the IPC rules to apply for U.S. Nationals competitions. This change will alleviate any discrepancies between national and international rule interpretations.


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