There is only one more weekend before Summerfest (July 28th-August 5th)!!! For those of you who haven’t heard, the Perris Jet has been confirmed to be at Summerfest! It will be here July 30th and stay until the end of the event! 
Other confirmed aircraft include 2 Super Otters, a Casa, King Air, Hot Air Balloon, and Pitts Biplane. There are going to be plenty of RW, Freefly, and Wingsuit organizers at Skydive Chicago for the event! Brian Germain will also be here giving a canopy seminar.
The Freefly world record attempts will be happening during Summerfest: August 1st-4th! If you would like to be a part of the record and have not yet gotten an invite there is only one more opportunity to get one! There will be a camp on July 30th-31st. If you want to try out for an invite, then be sure to be here for the camp!
Plenty of vendors will be here, so be sure to check out the booths!
There is plenty of entertainment planned for the evenings too! There will be several bands, a Texas Hold ‘em tournament, the famous Hellfish Toga party, and fireworks!!! 
The 5th annual Film Festival will take place the last Saturday of Summerfest. Get a video together and enter for a chance to win prizes from Icarus Canopies, Alti-2, Ouragan Suits and more! It can be any video of your choosing (skydiving related or not), but it must be somewhat appropriate (there are kids around)! Winners will be voted on by the crowd.
Entries must be submitted no later than Friday, August 3rd at 9pm. They must be labeled with your name, the Title, and your address and should be in VHS, DVD, or Mini DV format. Entries should also be less than 8 minutes long. Be sure to enter a copy, because the video will not be returned to you. For further details e-mail Rook: rook@skydivechicago.com.
Regular jump tickets will only be $20 and registration for the event is only $45 for the whole event or $25 per day! Be sure to bring your USPA card, logbook/protrack, and in-date gear.
Check out the Summerfest website at www.sdcsummerfest.com to register early for the event. You can also see the latest confirmed vendors, organizers, aircraft, and events on the website! 
Summerfest T-shirts will be available in Para Concepts, the onsite gear store. There will be girly T’s available too!
In other exciting news, one of the Super Otters (10EA) is getting its engines replaced this week. With the bigger and better engines the plane will be able to fly loads even faster…which means less wait time for you! 
Thanks to Dan (of CSC), John, and Donovan for working hard to get the engines transferred over in time for this coming weekend! As of right now it is only Monday afternoon and one engine is already completely off! 
Saturday was beautiful, except for the strong winds! It turned out to be a great day for everyone to enjoy the things Skydive Chicago has to offer other than great skydiving.
There were plenty of people hanging out around the pond, even taking some kayaks from River Adventures for a paddle. Others took advantage of the wind to fly kites for a while. 
SDC’s On The Fly grilled and bartended at the Tiki Hut on Saturday, so there was a lot of great food and drinks (sangria!) to be had. Thanks for hosting for the night!
SDC’s On the Fly would like to thank everyone who came to our fundraiser cookout on Saturday. We had a blast feeding you food and drink, and we’re very grateful for your support! 
The 3-Way RW Scrambles for novices that was supposed to take place on Saturday is being moved to August 18-19. Hopefully it will be less windy!
The AFP program is going great this year! We had five new AFP students go through class this weekend! There is a new package available to new graduates of the AFP program…50 jumps for only $850 ($17 per jump). The package must be purchased within two weeks of graduating the program and does not include gear rental.
Sunday turned out to be a perfect day for jumping and the surf was definitely up! The new AFP students were able to get in the air and we also did 121 tandems! Congratulations to Dan Manka who just got his ‘A’ License.
I want to thank all of the staff, especially the tandem masters and AFP instructors that worked very hard on Sunday to make sure all of the students got in the air. It’s great to see the members of the SDC family that work hard to make it happen! 
Patrick Heaney organized the VRW Skills camp on Sunday also. Thanks ‘Bubba’ it looked like everyone had a great time.
Congratulations to John Kallend who made his 2,000th jump and Terry Lewis who made his 300th jump this weekend!
Don’t forget to take advantage of $20 experienced jumps Tuesdays here at Skydive Chicago!
This Sunday, July 22nd, we will be holding water training at the pond at 10am. Remember that water training is a requirement to obtain a ‘B’ License and this will be the last water training before Summerfest. A‘B’ license is needed in order to jump the balloon or the Pitts Biplane, so signup in manifest to do your H2O training!
Don’t forget to mark your calendars for Summerfest…see you there!
Erin |