FallingIllini.org

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

The April Showers contest was a huge success, despite some high winds on a few days. A lot of people came out and made a ton of jumps, but the undisputed champion is Dave Barron, who made 15 jumps during the month of April and was awarded $150. Congratulations Dave!

I’d also like to congratulate Daniel Bedford, who finally got his A-License. You can see his check dive here.

We also had a lot of first timers come out and jump with us recently, so lets give it up for John Koval, Sangmee Lee, Matt Hoffman, Matthew Feery, Daniel Gonzalez, Matt Brusich, Blake Sullivan, Erin Houlihan, Jason Ruzic, Audrey Bauer, Kevin Kamien, Bethany Cluskey, Arina Ivanova, Brett Jaros, Sneha Kumar, Jared Young, Kyle McKay, Amil Patel, Stacey Millsap, Fumitaka Sugiguchi, Stephen Moser, Thomas Janicke, Matt Perry, and James Holtman.

We’ve had a bunch of jumping going on recently, and I’d like to give a hand to all the International Illini that came out to make their first jump with us the past couple of weeks: Martin Swoboda, Christian Aillon, Felix Pflaum, Martha Henkile, Vincent Weiss, Sarah Gleisner, Alexandre Govlet, Silvio Tannert, Jan Nottmeier, Paige Bovard, Katie Healey, Takashi Nishimura, Kyoko Kawashima, Pong Wee Yeo, and Paul Wang. Also first jump shout-outs go to Fumitaka Sugiguchi, Vysali Soundararajan, Daniella De Prizio, Jami Cizma, Steffen Ahrens, Daniela Sorger, Christoph Greilberger, Peter Rieger, Matthias Felsberger, Muhamad Jamaludin, Nurul Yahya, Kevin Solecki, Donald To, and Jennifer Linsermeyer. Finally, give it up for Aaron VanDevender (hey, that’s me!) for getting his C-License.

Aaron VanDevender

Katie Healey and Silvio Tannert

David Ashkenasi and Daniella Di Prizio

Jami Cizma

Jan Nottmeier

The first weekend in the sky this semister was a beautiful one. We couldn’t have asked for better weather. It was warm, sunny, calm and clear all day. A big hand goes out to Kevin McCuster and Mark Rolla who made their first static line jumps, and to Matt Gornick, Andrew Navik, Brett Mattas, and Derek Lesco who made tandem jumps. And for those wondering about me and my tiny canopy, I landed on my feet every time. No face plants!

Kevin McCusker and Mark Rolla

Group of jumpers including Matt Gornick, Andrew Navik, Brett Mattas and Derek Lesco

The bar crawl was a huge success. Thanks to everyone that came out. I’d also like to congratulate the winners of the various challenges. They are:

We had a great time skydiving last weekend. Several people are getting very close to their A license, so we should have a bunch of new licenses by next term. We also had several first timers this weekend. Vasanth Sivasubramanian made his first tandem skydive, Janet Monsivais, Kevin Schulz, and Austin Ouyang took the static-line first jump course, and Erin Henry and Kat Kramer completed the Accellerated Free Fall first jump course. Way to go guys!

Also, check out Charley’s new Birdman Wing Suit.

Vasanth Sivasubramanian and Brian Turek

Kevin Schulz

Janet Monsivais

Kevin Schulz, Janet Monsivais, and Austin Ouyang

Kevin Schulz

We had great weather last weekend for skydiving. We had Kathryn Homann, Matt Hofner, Dave Twarog, Alex Wagner, Sarah Laborde, Ben Vandentorren, Jeremy Attali, Jae-Hee Hong and Fumi Sugiguchi make their first tandem skydives, and David Medellin took the static-line first jump course. Laura Thompson, Justin Tobin, and Carlos Bohorquez graduated from static-line and did their first solo freefall jumps. Way to go, guys!

Jeremy Attali and Sarah Laborde

Jeremy Attali, Sarah Laborde, and Ben Vandentorren

Kathryn Homann

Alex Wagner, Dave Twarog, and Matt Hofner

We’ve had a bunch of new jumpers come out with us over the past two weekends. I’d like to congratulate Inna Yao, Kristijan Krajnc, Ali Abu Yousef, Brian Shea, Natalie Perillo, and Jenny Holliday who made tandem jumps, and Fi Ferrer who did the static-line first jump course. Also, I want to give a hand to the U of I Law School who came out in force with 11 law students and the dean of the law school and did tandems. So congratulations to Stacy Weber, Ho-Jung Jun, Dan Rock, Chi-Hung Hsu, Vysali Soundararajan, Lauren Gallagher, Mike Sirlag, Arata Matsui, Eric Sirota, Yi-Cheng Su, Dean Heidi Hurd, and to Ho-Sung Chung (video) for convincing his fellow future lawyers to take a flying leap.

Ho-Sung Chung

Law School Jumpers Stacy Weber, Ho-Jung Jun, Dan Rock, Chi-Hung Hsu, Vysali Soundararajan, Heidi Hurd, Lauren Gallagher, Mike Sirlag, Arata Matsui, Eric Sirota, Yi-Cheng Su, Ho-Sung Chung

Heidi Hurd, Dean of the Law School

Jenny Holliday

Fi Ferrer

We had a fantastic weekend on Saturday and Sunday. All together we had 35 Falling Illini make around 50 total jumps. Making their first jumps in the Static-Line Course were Sara Daleiden, Jim Daleiden, Doug Sahm, Eric Ranz, Sara Kerkemeyer, Kunal Shah, Allyson Troutman, Katy Hoover, Jenny Snapp, Martin Leitgab, Vadim Albert, Lothar Ratschbacher, Madeline Keleher, Michael Maur, Grace Maloney, Saori Nakagawa, Amanda Larson and Liz Brabeck. Making tandem jumps we had Melissa Levin-Cohen, Zachary Wynveen, Brooke Damery, Joe Keefe, Sesean Bridges, and Rachel Nielsen. We also had Rachel Hillmer and Daniel Bedford complete their Static-Line jumps and make their first solo freefall jumps. Who will be the first Falling Illini to get their A-license this semester?

Sesean Bridges jumping tandem.

Rachel Nielsen after her skydive.

Grace Maloney and Madeline Keleher.

Joe Keefe and Brooke Damery.

Lothar Ratschbacher.

The weather was very uncooperative this weekend, but the Falling Illini made jumps on Sunday anyway. Making tandem skydives were T.J. Mikulencak, Vivian Canchola, Stephanie Bonk, Steve Berry, Michael Kunevich, Brett Zitny, Tracy Green, Stephen Schmitt, Rob Kuang, Andrew Erikson, Brad Topol, Numan Velioglu, Sameer Kalwani, Brandon Oi, Anil D’Souza, Keshava Shobhit, and Vinayak Sathyamoorthy. In our static-line first jump class we had Rachel Hillmer, Andrew Khalifa, Stefano Truschke, and Carlos Bohorquez. I’d especially like to give it up for the American Society of Civil Engineers tandem crew who woke up at 4:00am so that they could make the sunrise load. That’s some serious dedication to skydiving. You guys rock!

ASCE tandem crew Stephen Schmitt, Numan Velioglu, Rob Kuang, Andrew Erikson and Tracy Green

ASCE tandem crew Brett Zitny and Brad Topol

Brett Zitny tandem skydive

Anil D’Souza, Keshava Shobhit, Brandon Oi, Vinayak Sathyamoorthy, and Sameer Kalwani

Carlos Borhorquez and Rachel Hillmer

Andrew Khalifa

Stefano Truschke