Welcome to the Class of 2024!

Skydiving would not be what it is today if it weren’t for the constant search for safety by Lee Guilfoyle D-50.  Because of a fatal static line jump, Lee invented, built, and put his life at risk to act as a really bad student to test his invention.  It became an FAA Federal Law to have the Assist System on all static line jumps and is now required in most countries.  It is impossible to say how many lives have been saved with the invention of Lee Guilfoyle.  In 1971, Lee was awarded the Leo Stevens Award for his contributions to skydiving. 

Photo Credit: Tim Telford

Norman Kent discovered skydiving in 1975 and quickly merged it with his passion for photography, this resulted in a unique style of imagery capturing the beauty and mystery of skydiving which inspired many to further explore the sport and others to give it a try.  His film “From Wings Came Flight” introduced Freestyle to the sport which opened the door for the creation of most new disciplines we enjoy today.  Additionally, the release of “Willing to Fly” showed the power of his intentional film designs which further inspired many with an in-depth look in to our magical sport. Norman is active and shoots most disciplines still today.  

Photo Credit:  Samantha Schwann

 

Don Kirlin, D 5372, is a sport parachutist, organizer/promoter of larger-scale aviation events, pilot, aircraft operator and owner, air frame and power plant mechanic, and aviation business owner. He founded his aviation company, Air USA, in 1994; he was the visionary and organizer of the World Freefall Convention in Quincy, Illinois, for 17 years beginning in 1990 which was, at the time, the largest gathering of skydivers from around the world; he  founded Sky’s West Parachute Center in Ft. Collins, Colorado, and he was an airline transport pilot having flown for Piedmont and American Airlines retiring in 2020.  Don is proud of his skydiving family which consists of his wife, daughter and two sons.  As a tandem instructor, he took all three of his children on their first jump at the World Freefall Convention.

 

Katharina “Käthe” Paulus (Dec. 22nd 1868 till July 26th 1935), a tailor, was the first real pioneer in parachuting. She made parachuting as a sport available for us by inventing a way to pack a parachute into a container to make it suitable for jumping from a fuselage. Without this invention parachuting as we know it would not have evolved. She was also one of the first manufacturers to produce parachutes in a large scale.

Bobby “Spider” Wrenn, D459, was deeply involved in the skydiving community from the 1960’s until his death in 2014.  He served in a multitude of positions with his primary goal to always improve the freefall world. Spider served two tours of duty with the Golden Knights.  The first as the USAPT’s Operations NCO, where he was instrumental in formulating and instituting many of Standard of Practices which are still in use today over five decades later.  The second as the First Sergeant where he realized that relative work was the next important area of competition and moved the Team toward eight way RW among many other leadership innovations.  There are four ways the Golden Knight's can honor one of their own, Spider is the only person to ever receive all four; no other individual has received more than two.

 

In 1986, Olav Zipser became one of Europe's first test pilots for AFF, igniting his passion for flight. By '88, he mastered tandem and AFF jumpmastering, delving into free flying and aerobatics. Today, based in Thailand, Olav continues to share his expertise through the Advanced FreeFly 2.0 program. Honored to have won an Emmy and Gold across world Air games ,world Games championships, X Games, Space Games and more, he feels incredibly amazed by the passion of FreeFly aviation athletes in the fastest mammal sport without an engine. Olav is grateful to all who've joined him on this thrilling journey.

Photo Credit:  FlyChi