posted Feb 16th, 2011 - Original Airspeed member Dan BC began creating big-way skydiving events back in 1992. He wanted to challenge competitors in the sport to build unusual, complex formations and launched the Airmoves Invitational and a few years later the Arizona Challenge.

Finally, he created the P3 Power Play in 2005, and it has been a summer event ever since. It changed this year when Perris hosted its first winter event. Competitors both past and present descended upon Perris Valley for some Holiday fun to finish up the 2010 season and ring in the New Year.

The roster reads like a Who's Who of Formation Skydiving: Perris Fury with three members, several past and current Airspeed members, the Canadian national 4-way team Evolution, two members of the Brazilian national 4-way team CTR Optimum, Flemming Andersen of the Danish National 4-way team Voluntas, members of the Deguello 16-way team, the all-female Texas Hurricanes 4-way team, Mirror Image 8-way, Brit Chicks 8-way, Perris Moxie 8-way, Perris Cobra Kai 8-way, SPX8, Spaceland Mamba 4-way, members of the Synchronicity lineup, the U.S. Air Force team and 4-way competitors from Switzerland.

Mamba member Rich Delgado reported that the logistics were challenging for the participants: "Months before the participants were invited we were thinking of a nice warm sunny holiday vacation. Well, Perris Valley received more rain during the week preceding the event than in all of 2010 and a cold front greeted us to the DZ."

However, the P3 Power Players were no ordinary group of skydivers. They came to build complex, delicate formations that required precision flying, so cold and wet was removed from their minds for the next four days.

Two 18-way groups lead by Dan BC and Chris Farrina made seven jumps each from 12,500 feet on Thursday, December 30th. The organizers shuffled the groups on Friday and made the next eight jumps with one group making 20-ways.

Rich Delgado added some details to his event report: "During the first two days of jumping, participants moved from floating, to the base, to diving out. There were so many Cat, Outfacing, and Compressed Accordion positions that every slot was cool and sequential moves fun."

The participants had to hustle between the jumps and diligently listen during debriefings to improve at the repeat jumps. Rich Delgado said that Dan BC's organizers recognized and appreciated the efforts.

A New Year’s Eve party at the Bomb Shelter on Friday night delayed the start of the New Year's jumps until 10 am, and Rich Delgado was as little surprised as the other participants: "Knowing the partying spirit of their fellow skydivers jumping wasn't planned to start on Saturday morning until 10am, but each jump of the day was awesome and progressively better."

The group only made three 44-way jumps from 16,000 feet on Saturday due in part to the late start and then unforeseen aircraft issues. Sunday morning the jumpers arrived to clouds which parted for one jump but then closed back in and brought back more rain. Overall, 19 of 24 planned jumps were made giving the camera team of Terry Clay and George Katsoulis beautiful formations to capture.

The NSL News will follow up with more big-way stories from both the east and west coast.