Members of the U.S. Military Academy Black Knights Skydiving team won multiple gold medals and set a new national record at the 2017 U.S. Parachute Association National Collegiate Parachuting Championships, the oldest and biggest collegiate skydiving event in the world, Dec. 27-Jan. 2 at the Florida Skydiving Center in Lake Wales, Florida. This year’s championships drew more than 80 collegiate skydivers from around the country to compete for the title of national collegiate champion in four spectacular skydiving disciplines: Formation Skydiving, Vertical Formation Skydiving, Sport Accuracy and Classic Accuracy. West Point cadets won gold in the two-way, advanced four-way and six-way formation skydiving events.
In formation skydiving, the team leaps from an aircraft more than two miles above the ground and then races against the clock to form prescribed geometric formations in freefall before opening their parachutes. Two-way team members were Class of 2020 Cadets Zachary Daines and Seamus McGettigan. Four-way team members were Class of 2019 Cadets William Derrick, Johnathon Muraski, Thomas Rounds and Jeremy Stanley. The six-way team included those on the four-way, along with Class of 2019 Cadets Michael Colella and Camm Johnson. The six-way team set a new national record by completing the six-person formation in a mere 9.16 seconds after exiting the airplane. In addition, Kristopher Hayhurst '18 took gold in the classic accuracy competition, in which jumpers exit an airplane more than 3,000 feet in the air and then steer their parachutes and try to land on a dime-sized dot on a landing tuffet. Andrew Winski '20 also won gold in the novice sport accuracy event. In this event, skydivers try to land their parachutes as close as possible to a target while flying across the ground at high speeds. Story