FallingIllini.org

We have teamed up with WPGU 107.1 to give away some free first jumps. If you’ve been wanting to go skydiving, but just couldn’t come up with the cash for the first jump course, this is for you. Listen to 107.1 over the next week to find out how to win. No experience necessary, we will teach you everything you need to know to make your first skydive.

We’re going to be making a trip to the dropzone this weekend. Sunday looks the nicest, but we may send a Saturday group as well. If you’d like to jump on either day, please email me your name, phone number, type of jump you want to do, and if you have a car. If you’re thinking about jumping tandem, please let me know sooner rather than later, as those slots have been filling up fast.

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

Video of Laura Genis making a tandem skydive with instructor Jason Papke.

We’re going to be making a trip to the dropzone this weekend. Right now the weather forecast says rain for Saturday, but I am undaunted. If you’d like to go this weekend, Saturday or Sunday, let me know your name, email, phone, jump type, and if you have a car. Also, we have some stylish Falling Illini shirts, so be sure and pick one up at the dropzone after your jump.

This is a video of some falling illini doing their static-line first jumps. The frist jumper is Falling Illini treasurer Paul Ahn.

We had 18 Falling Illini make skydives on Saturday, including 11 first timers. I’d like to congratulate Shuting Ong, Jinyuan Yeong, Tony Ordonez, Laura Genis, Rachel Hillmer, Tim Kennedy and Amanda Goddard for making tandem skydives. Also congratulations to Perry Chodash, Hana Kwon-Engles, Tiffany Wong, Caitlin Fischer and Sigi Schobesberger for completeing the static-line first jump class. Finally to Elliot Tagtmeier, who did 5 jumps on Saturday, for completing his static-line jumps and making his first solo freefall jump.

Skydivers head to the plane

Caitlin Fischer and Tiffany Wong

Rachel Hillmer and Tandem Instructor Jason Papke

Laura Genis

Static line student comes in for a landing

We’re going to be making another trip to the dropzone this weekend. The weather for Saturday looks beautiful, so if you want to jump, let me know (name, phone, jump type, car) and we’ll get you in the sky. Last weekend was huge, but I think we can make this one even bigger. Sunday is an option too, and though the weather looks not quite as sunny, I’m sure we’ll be able to get some jumps in on Sunday as well.

This past weekend was a huge one for the Falling Illini. We had 38 people make skydives, some more than once. The majority of them were first-time jumpers, so I’d like to say congratulations to those that came out and jumped with us. I hope to see them again in the air very soon. Taking the first jump static line course were: Richard Wlodarsk, Dave Barron, Michael Lindsey, Daniel Bedford, Ben Hodes, Steve Slavicek, Chris Triphahn, Jon Westerhoff, Cody Ward, Mandy Morse, Alex Petersen, Ryan Ewald, Anand Lakshmanan, Jonathan Mun, Daniel Jose, Aram Cho, Nick Zombolas, Paul Bradarich, Wayne Sutton, Jason Blalock, Dimitry Braznichenko, Kevin White and Elliot Tagtmeier. Making tandem jumps were: Nathan Price, Alexis Walz, Luke Heaton, Colleen Lyons, Anne Munaretto, Steve Daar, Nisarg Vora, Carlos Bohorquez, Jeff Mason, Mark Smith, and Lianna Bosher. Way to go!

A huge group of Falling Illini gets ready for a day of skydiving

Nathan Price, Jeff Mason, Alexis Walz and Luke Heaton

Static-Line Instructor Louie Puder comes in for a landing.

An excited Alexis Walz after a tandem skydive.

Ryan Ewald after landing his parachute on a sunset static-line jump.

Here are clips from 3 different tandem jumps.