FallingIllini.org

Another beautiful and very eventful weekend for the Falling Illini! Congratulations to Jeff Rohalla, Kacie Liederbach, Mostafa Dehghanpour, Audra Robinson, Alberto Moitto, Mike Deliberto, Andrew Rockway, Krysta Hanson, Jessie Pipal, Phil Street, Mark Boktor, Jason Walsh, Adam Schaedeke, Amber Rudolphi, Kevin Case, Gwen Soult, Jonathan Chino, Colleen Gibbons, Katy Pyer, Stephan Lane, Tiffany Webb, Peter Hillstrom, Matt Doyle, and David Zulkey for coming out this weekend and making their first skydives! Congratulations to Hanna Albrecht for making her first solo skydive! Also, congratulations to Laura Thompson on completing her A-License check dive! And finally, congratulations to Justin Tobin for getting his A-License! Great work everyone!

Phil Street, Jessie Pipal, Krysta Hanson, and Mark Boktor

Matt Doyle, Stephan Lane, and Katy Pyer

               

Hanna Albrecht

Saturday’s First Jump Class

Kacie Liederbach and Jeff Rohalla

If you went skydiving this weekend then you got to experience the best weather yet this year! What a beautiful weekend. A ton of congratulations to Nate Gorman, Andrew Rockway, John Murphy, Marcy Fridman, Jiyeon Baek, Nisha Mathur, Alfa Herrera, Beth Labuszewski, Denise Studer, Dallas Castillo, Aamina Akram, Abigail Schmink, Deanna Gallo, Kyle Johnson, Kara LaRocca, Jacob Kochs, Catherine Shasteen, Kathryn Hamilton and Alex Zajac for coming out and making their first jump. Well done everyone, I know you had fun!

                  Abby Schmink, Alex Zajac, and Deanna Gallo

                                         Daniel Bedford

                                               Kara LaRocca

 

 

                                                Kyle Johnson

                                     Sunday’s First Jump Class

                                             Katie Shasteen

 

 

Here is Justin Tobin peforming his A-License Check dive over Archway Skydiving Centre in Vandalia Illinois. Great job Justin!

Though we had cloudy weather for most of the weekend, we still had close to record turn-outs, and quite a few people got to skydive. We had over 20 tandems alone signed up to go this weekend. Thanks to everyone who made it out yesterday and today despite the weather! For those of you who made your first jumps today, I’ll get you up on the list for next week. Thanks! 

Congratulations to all the people who went out and jumped this Labor Day weekend! Congrats to Nick Langellier, Hanna Albrecht, Preeti Vasudevan, Trisha Rosenkranz, Fan-Chung Hsu, Abdulrahman Hassaballah, Kirsten Ploanin, Sarah Joseph, Jesse Luehrs, and Rouhollah Alizadegan for all completing the first jump course and making their first skydives! A big hand to Laura Bowers for going on her first tandem skydive! And well done to Chris Reed, Artem Chakirov, and Mike Murphy for all performing their first freefall skydives! Thanks for another great weekend!

Laura Bowers

Mike Murphy

Artem Chakirov

 

This weekend was a fantastic start to a great year of skydiving! Congratulations to Rachel Keeney, Chris Reed, David Shim, Igor Lukin, Artem Chakirov, Fei Wang, Xander Wilde, and Richard Kasper for completing the Static Line Jump course and making their first skydives! Congratulations  to Michael Murphy for completing the class as well while making his second jump. And a big congratulations to Manan Patel for making a tandem skydive for his first jump! I know we will see you all up there again.
     
Congratulations to Laura Thompson and Justin Tobin for being named as the Social Chairs! Make some fun events for us! Thanks for another great weekend everyone!
    
    
    
     Artem Chakirov, Chris Reed, and Igor Lukin
    
    
    
     Justin Tobin celebrating an accuracy
     
    
    
     Kevin Patrick 
     
    
         
     David Shim
     
    
     
Manan Patel with Jason Papke
     
    
    
     Fei Wang
     
    
    
     Xander Wilde
    
    
    
     Rachel Keeney
    
    
    
     Igor Lukin
    
    
    
     Saturday’s Jump Class: David Shim, Richard Kasper, Michael Murphy, Igor Lukin, Artem Chakirov, and Chris Reed
    
    
    
     Chris Reed
    
    
    
     Artem Chakirov
     
    
    
     Sunday’s Jump Class: Xander Wilde, Fei Wang, and Rachel Keeney

The weather was great, the people were amazing, and the celebrations were the best! For those of you who missed it, the Flatville Boogie was quite possibly the best of the summer. Congratulations to Alyssa Kritzman for coming out an making a tandem skydive! And a huge congratulations for DZO owners John and Lianne Rash for getting married! Thank you so much for having us!

Katerina Polychronopoulos waiting for her jump in the PAC-750

 

 

Daniel after his sweet canopy ride on DZO John Rash’s Spectre 190

 

John and Lianne Rash’s Wedding

Even though it’s summer, we’re still bringing out new people to jump. I’d like to congratulate Meng Liang and Georgios Tsekenis who did Accelerated Freefall (AFF) and Radhika Rangarajan who made a tandem on Sunday. I’d also like to give a shout to Rachel Hillmer who obtained her A-License, and is now ready to start jumping in big-ways! Way to go, guys!

Radhika Rangarajan and Instructor Todd Morman

Meng Liang comes in for a landing.

Meng Liang

Georgios Tsekenis

On Sunday I graduated from the U of I, and so I’m retiring as President of the Falling Illini. The past year has been great, all you guys are awesome, and thanks for all the jumps. I’m leaving the club in good hands, though, as Daniel Bedford is going to be fearlessly leading many trips into the sky next year. I will be around for most of the summer, before I move to Colorado (strangely, Brad Schlesinger, the FI President before me, also moved to Colorado after he graduated), and we’ll be jumping as much as possible. We won’t be sending out weekly emails until the fall, but if you’d like to come and jump with us during the summer, send an email to Daniel (bedford2@uiuc.edu), and he’ll get you off the ground.

As my final act as President, I’d like to congratulate some new jumpers that came out and jumped on Mother’s Day this past Sunday. Tomoaki Hayamizu, Tomoki Yamaguchi, and So Nagaoka made tandem jumps, and Ho-Sung Chung went through the static-line first jump course. Way to go, guys!

Nick Escobar wrote a terrific article about the Falling Illini in last Wednesday’s DI. If you missed it, you can check out the online version.

We had several first time jumpers out last week, so I’d like to congratulate Leah Goldberg, Michael Jacobson, Kristen Rocha, Kyle Branyik, David Pirszel, Lance Stafford, and Heather Barrow for coming out and jumping with us. They all had a blast.

We also had a special treat last Sunday. Jeffrey Steinkamp ‘73, who was the VP of the Falling Illini from 1971 to 1973 came out to the dropzone to hang out with some of the current jumpers. The equipment has changed a lot in the past 34 years, but he was glad to see we were still out there in the sky having fun.

David Pirszel, Kristen Rocha, and Kyle Branyik

Lance Stafford and Heather Barrow

Aaron VanDevender, Jeffrey Steinkamp, Justin Tobin, and Laura Thompson