Bonsall CA– Bonsall resident Jay Sanders is heading to the 2018 World Canopy Piloting Championships in Wroclaw, Poland, next week as a member of the prestigious U.S. Parachute Team. Sanders will go up against more than 80 of the best canopy pilots from around the globe at the World Championships July 3-7. Sanders earned his place on the U.S. Parachute Team, the nation’s most elite aerial athletes, at the 2017 U.S. Parachute Association National Championships.
In canopy piloting, often called “swooping,” skydivers fly high-performance parachutes that can generate high vertical and horizontal speeds. By performing speed-inducing maneuvers, these very experienced skydivers can glide inches above the ground for hundreds of yards at speeds approaching 90 mph.
The canopy piloting championships include competitions in speed, in which pilots try to fly as quickly as possible through a course; distance, which involves flying as far as possible across the ground; and accuracy, in which canopy pilots must stop on an exact spot for maximum points.
Sanders, 41, has completed more than 14,000 skydives. He works as a welder and a professional skydiver. He trains locally at Skydive San Diego in Jamul.
About USPA
Founded in 1946, the United States Parachute Association (USPA) is a non-profit association dedicated to the promotion of safe skydiving nationwide, establishing strict safety standards, training policies and programs at more than 220 USPA-affiliated skydiving schools and centers throughout the United States. Each year, USPA’s nearly 40,000 members and hundreds of thousands of first-timers make roughly 3.2 million jumps in the U.S. USPA represents skydivers before all levels of government, the public and the aviation industry and sanctions national skydiving competitions and records.