RAPA Inter-Services Parachute Championships

The all ranks Royal Navy and Royal Marines Sports Parachute Association (RN&RMSPA) entered an 8-strong squad into the 42nd Rhine Army Parachute Association Championships in Bad Lippspringe, Germany recently. Included in the squad were personnel from many units including CTCRM, RNAS Culdrose, FLEET and Lt Dave Lee RN from HMS Sultan. The competitors varied from the Royal Engineers to a group of Army Medics and the staff from the Joint Services Parachute Centres in the UK and Germany.

The inter-services Skydiving competition involved 2 main disciplines in the sport, the first being formation skydiving. This discipline requires a team of 4 jumpers exit an aircraft from 13,000ft above the dropzone, closely followed by a cameraman to capture the jump on film. The team freefalls together for about 60 seconds with the aim of building a sequence of different formations or ‘shapes’ created by the jumpers taking different grips on each other in the air. A point is awarded for each correctly built formation. The second discipline is the accuracy event, in which the competitor steers his deployed canopy to land as close as possible to a point on the ground.

Lt Lee, HMS Sultan’s Training Information Systems Officer (who is also a member of the Royal Navy Raiders Parachute Display Team) entered 2 Intermediate level Formation Skydiving events and one junior level event and he achieved 2 Gold medals and 1 Silver medal in these events respectively. His individual efforts yielded him a Gold medal for winning the intermediate accuracy event, his best score being 0.02m from the accuracy point, and additionally a Silver medal for team accuracy. Lt Lee and the other RN&RM teams are now preparing for competition at the Armies inter-services Skydiving Championships at the Joint Services Parachute Centre, Netheravon, in early August.

All competitors in the RN&RM Squad left the competition with prizes, and collectively the RN Squad picked up the Commandant’s Cup, the award for the biggest contribution to the competition as a whole. Preparation for this event included many hours of Navy team training in Europe’s largest vertical wind tunnel and a training Camp to California over Easter leave. The future of Skydiving in the Royal Navy has never looked brighter.

The Royal Navy & Royal Marines Sports Parachute Association aims to promote RN and RM Skydiving and runs regular courses, trips and training camps for interested service personnel. Personnel interested in getting involved in this exciting sport should contact the RN&RMSPA though their Unit PT staff.