Yesterday I went to watch a swooping competition. It's a form of parachuting. The participants bail out at 5000 feet, open their chutes and at the last minute nearly free fall and skim the water. At that point they are traveling nearly 100 mph! The sound the chute made as they came down was like the wind blowing through the trees.

The event was held about 5 miles from my house at a place called Fantasy of Flight. I thought I'd get bored after a few minutes of it but each jump was slightly different and all of them were exciting.

Because this was a competition, the jumpers had to pass through a series of flags in front of the judges and then make the most graceful landing they could on shore. Some landings were better than others.

The only bad part of the day was the heat! It was around 95 degrees and no shade. After 2+ hours of this I was ready to go home.

So here are some pictures, mostly of the parachuting but a few others as well.





The seaplanes get ready to take off.




Competitors taking off.



And now some landings.


The first guy was competing, the second guy was filming his jump.



BTW, it wasn't just guys jumping. Several woman were also part of this. Nice to see the gals can be just as crazy as the guys.





Packing up.


Anyway, it was really fun. I just wish it hadn't been so darn hot!

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Those are cool pictures. Did they not worry about landing in that water and possible alligators?

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I had to read the post becasue I had not a clue what swooping was. This looks really neat and THANK YOU for posting photos.

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