Sky surfing is a type of skydiving and extreme sport in which the skydiver wears a custom skysurf board attached to his or her feet and performs surfing-style aerobatics during freefall. The boards used are generally smaller than actual surfboards, and look more like snowboards or large skateboards. Custom bindings attach the board to the feet, which is removable with the use of a 3-ring release system. A neutral position maintaining stability is to stand upright on the board during freefall, this is also the position required for deployment of the main parachute whilst surfing medium and expert boards. The combination of rigid board and relative wind requires control to maintain stability during freefall. The jumper must control the board and their body position so as to open the parachute in a stable configuration. More advanced aerobatics such as loops, rolls and helicopter spins are possible. Since some moves involve high G-force spins some skysurfers tightly wrapping ace bandages all the way up the arms to keep the blood from pooling at the end of the limbs. Even with the bandage technique, however, many techniques in skysurfing can be extremely painful and result in temporary paralysis of fingers along with subconjunctival bleeding. When a skysurfer is filmed by another skydiver falling alongside them, the resulting film gives the appearance that the skysurfer is riding on the air in the same way a surfer rides on a wave. The downward motion is not very apparent and this creates the illusion that a skysurfer is floating on the relative wind. A skysurfer falls at speeds comparable to any other freefall or freeflying skydiver, with speed varying depending on orientation. The competitive discipline of skysurfing is a team sport consisting of a skysurfer and a camera flyer with a video camera.
History
Skysurfing was invented by two French skydivers, Dominique Jacquet and Jean-Pascal Oron, in 1986, and became popular during the 1990sthanks to the efforts of the first few exponents to master the more complex aerobatics, such as the late Patrick de Gayardon, Eric Fradet and Phillipe Vallaud. The rise of skysurfing coincided with other new-age disciplines in skydiving, such as freestyle and freeflying. In 1991, after performing standing on a surfboard for a skysurfing advertisement of Coca-Cola Ray Palmer became the first Australian skysurfer. Skysurfing reached its peak in popularity during the mid to late 1990s. Skysurfers were featured in prime time television commercials for major brands like Pepsi AT&T Sony Playstation. Competitive team skysurfing was featured as part of the ESPN X Games from 1995 to 2000. In 1996 and 1997, the SSI Pro Tour staged eight X-Trials qualifying events in both North America and Europe. During this six-year period, pro skysurf teams received a total of $392,000 in cash winnings and the discipline garnered over 100 hours of global TV exposure without incident. After ESPN decided not to renew the sport for the seventh season, skysurfing has become exceptionally rare in the skydiving community. Reasons for the decline include the rise in popularity of freeflying and wingsuit flying, the hazards associated with flying and releasing the board, the amount of time required to master the large board and moves whilst a dwindling number of experienced skysurfers to train new pilots. Skysurfers either made custom boards or purchased these from one of two manufacturers; Jerry Loftis or Tom Stanton.
Competitions
A sky surfing team include two people; sky surfer and a camera flier. Judges give scores to a sky surfing team not only for the variety of moves and the total performance but also for the skills of camera flier to catch the best moments of performance. 50% of the total score is calculated on sky surfer's performance, and 50% on the cameraman's score. The first Skysurf World Championship was held in Efes, Turkey on 13–21 September 1997 by the International Parachuting Committee. Main sky surfing competitions were SSI pro tour, ESPN X games, national sky surf championships in USA, UK & Switzerland, also Boards Over Europe and Sky surfing world Championships.
