Finding a good balance between the life of a professional nurse and a hard charging, skydiving, wingsuit camp organizing BASE jumper might sound like a lot to take on, but if you're Anna Muller, you manage to do that and have extra energy to spare! an Aussie with as much grit as you might expect, Anna takes on the challenges both the 'real' world and the world of airsports throw at her with a deep desire to not only help advance and guide those around her, but to push the line that defines her o...
Dec 15, 2024•54 min•Ep. 357
A tribute re-release of Katelyn ‘Compton’ Escott and her story of incredible drive and determination. Blue Skies… It was an easy choice. $300 for a tandem skydive, or $200 for a first jump course and a 3,500 foot instructor assisted jump. Not really a hard decision for a then 19 year old trying to pay for it all. Growing up in a small town in Western Canada, getting started in skydiving wasn't nearly as easy for Katelyn Escott as it has been for others, but from even before that first jump it wa...
Dec 09, 2024•51 min•Ep. 356
Back in the can to talk, boogies, big game and top tear African adventures, it's the one and only Billy Sharman! Growing up watching his mom huck herself out of airplanes in California, not only making over a thousand jumps on rounds, but earning herself a California State Championship, there was simply no way that Billy Sharman wasn't going to at least try one jump. Of course, as seems to be the case, with a first wonderful experience at Skydance in Davis, CA and a little salesmanship from Ray ...
Dec 08, 2024•58 min•Ep. 355
Catching up with the one and only Jeff Weatherall, this Kiwi Aussie transplant is still hard charging, even if that sometimes includes potty training and a bit more of a domestic Lunatic Fringe... As a young Kiwi, starting out with sport was a pretty natural thing, and Jeff Weatherall excelled. Surfing seemed to be a natural fit for him, and competition became the standard at a young age; but as is known to happen when you push for the top, Jeff found himself burned out on the waves, and instead...
Dec 01, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 354
As a kid, things like big wave surfing seemed to be his driving force, but if you ask Scott Hiscoe to describe his ability compared to his passion, he'd be the first to say it was lacking. In fact, when it came to surf boards and big waves, his greatest talent turned out to be recovering from gnarly wipeouts. So of course the next logical step for an injury prone beach bum was proximity wingsuit flying. Luckily for the skydiving and BASE communities, Scott quickly came to the realization that to...
Nov 24, 2024•1 hr•Ep. 353
One of the rare ones who saw his path from the very beginning, Phil Webley had his parents consent to his enlistment in the army at the ripe old age of 16. Back then, a 600 foot exit on a round parachute seemed… normal, but his real goal was the almost fabled Red Devils, and all that came with being a member. With a fire for jumping properly lit, it became freeflying, tunnel training, and eventually canopy piloting that drove Phil to hard charge. Now, a Flight-1 instructor and canopy competitor,...
Nov 17, 2024•56 min•Ep. 352
Raised in Mexico City along with his three siblings, it was a pretty normal childhood all and all; with one exception. At a very young age, along with the motorcycles and outdoor adventures, Norman Kent found what would become his lifelong passion. Photography. Making his first skydive at the age of 19, he will be the first to tell you the its as standard a first jump story as any, but his love of photography showed him a side of skydiving that most people don't get; or at least not on their fir...
Nov 10, 2024•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 351
It's been an interesting mix for Evan Santangelo. Like most kids of a certain disposition, he would go out of his way to try and find new and creative ways to have fun. From trampolines onward, he found a real joy in body awareness; so when skydiving entered the mix... well, there was little doubt that he was all in (even after getting sick on his first tandem.) Balance that with his work as a professional musician, and a pretty solid presence online and you get a guy that not only keeps it comi...
Nov 03, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 350
Back in the can after a busy "summer" off, Jamie Webster brings us up to speed on what it's been like chasing his Lunatic Fringe dreams of flight... A recap of round 1 - Absolutely horrible. Having passed on the idea of a tandem and gone straight to AFF, Jamie Webster's instructors told him upon landing from his first jump that perhaps skydiving just might not be for him. Luckily, Jamie isn't exactly the type to take no for an answer, and from jump number two on things started looking up. Thousa...
Oct 27, 2024•59 min•Ep. 349
A second generation skydiver, there was never any doubt in Gonçalo Resende's mind that jumping was the thing for him; or more specifically, that the dropzone was where he belonged. Even from a very young age, it was the organization itself and the inter-workings of a dropzone that truly intrigued him. Small for his age at the time, jumping wasn't an option for him as young as he would have liked, yet that didn't stop him from racking up thousands of jumps by the time he grew out of his teen year...
Oct 20, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 348
With aviation as the dream, but without the means, there was a real chance that becoming a pilot would have remained out of reach for Chris Rosenfelt, but he simply wasn't that kind of person. Working multiple jobs and having a mother willing to match dollar for dollar, Chris pushed hard towards his dream of becoming a pilot. Yet in modern aviation in the United States, simply having your pilots license doesn't mean much without opportunity. It was the world of skydiving that offered him a real ...
Oct 13, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 347
Skydiving absolutely was not on the agenda. It was chemical engineering. That was the direction he had taken, and Brian Naiman was happy with the choice. But as it's been known to happen, skydiving snuck up on him, and a random invitation by a skydiver to join him at the drop zone let him down a new path. When everything from dissatisfaction at work to a pandemic got it the way, the once unthinkable became reality. Enter the new partner of Skydance skydiving in Davis California. Now, handling ev...
Oct 06, 2024•57 min•Ep. 346
Twenty seven years and still going strong. When Matt Yount got his start in skydiving, tandems were just becoming a normal way to enter the game, and now… Now not only does Matt find himself a tandem examiner but he finds himself traveling the globe helping to share our sport with individuals and skydiving federations worldwide. With trips to incredible places like Nepal, Iceland, the Maldives, Egypt and many more, he is absolutely one of the authorities on what it takes to make it as an interna...
Sep 29, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 345
With childhood roots firmly planted in Pennsylvania, Amish country to be exact, the tribe that was Crosskeys in 2005 was about as different as you could possibly get, but different was exactly what Kylie Rhodes was on the lookout for. It was under canopy on her very first jump that she found herself asking her very charismatic and handsome tandem instructor how she could do 'this' for a living. Before she knew it, she was working in manifest alongside Liz Mann, one of the greatest ever to touch ...
Sep 22, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 344
Spending a solid portion of your first skydive trying to figure out how to get back in the King Air might not be how you’d expect a championship skydivers career to begin, but that’s exactly how it went for Richö Butts. A self proclaimed mellow child, it wasn’t until motorcycles entered his life that Richö Started to see the appeal in a slightly more ‘radical’ lifestyle. Even with motorcycles having become a passion for him, one might think an individual whose profession is risk assessment might...
Sep 15, 2024•1 hr 41 min•Ep. 343
From jump one, Sherry Schlater Butcher wasn't just all about jumping, she was all about the process of learning - and of teaching. For her, skydiving turned out to be a perfect mix of the two, so when she found herself swimming in the deep end almost right away, it was with a real purpose. From static-line to AFF, Tandem Instructor to Skydive University coach, Master Rigger to AFF Examiner and all the way through to National Judge and DZO, there pretty much isn't any role that Sherry cannot fill...
Sep 08, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 342
Boiled down to the basics, Matt Fry is all about the big stuff. Having learned to balance a productive job in the 'real' world against outlets like skydiving, climbing and mountaineering. He may not exactly leave himself a lot of free time to just do his own thing, but that suits him just fine. From state records to the big 200 way coming up in Chicago, Matt sees his drive for adventure sports leading him from massive groups of friends holding hands at 150 miles per hour, to the solo endeavors d...
Sep 01, 2024•53 min•Ep. 341
At 4 years old he was already hooked. Watching his father make a static line jump, the then toddler Connor Figg was all in - like wearing swimming goggles and jumping off whatever he could, in. The fixation with skydiving never left him, and after graduating college with a degree in engineering (even though his real focus during school was always aimed toward the DZ) he did exactly what his parents hoped he wouldn't. Like so many degrees, it worked on collecting dust, while Connor worked toward ...
Aug 25, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 340
Back in the can for a second round, Laurie Lubbe sits down to talk about her beginnings in the sport of both skydiving and tunnel flying. How a sport and career that in her home country of France was not, at the time, an easy one to navigate led her to move to a less than obvious choice. With her sights set on the French Nationals of skydiving set to take place at the end of August, Laurie points out some of the differences between competing in the tunnel as opposed to the sky, her true love of ...
Aug 18, 2024•59 min•Ep. 339
By the time he graduated high school, Sean Chuma had already made more than a hundred and fifty skydives. Add to that being an avid gymnast and pole vaulter, and you could say that he started mapping out one hell of a future for himself from a young age. Having attended university studying psychology, which would turn out to be yet another tool he would put to use in the future, his life in airports also continued to expand. Although there would be substantial hurdles to overcome before he could...
Aug 11, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 338
Mad John made his fist skydive in 1969. With initial ambitions pushing him towards becoming a nuclear physicist, it would have been easy for his first skydive while attending UC Berkeley to simply be a one off, But that simply wasn’t meant to be. A lack of money to skydive, and grades not quite up to nuclear physicist levels, John ended up going in a different direction. When the opportunity to get his certification as a math teacher presented itself, John was easily able to complete the equatio...
Aug 04, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 337
Back in the can for round 2, professional race car driver, professional skydiver and the first ever NASCAR driver to ever skydive into a race, Matt Jaskol sits down to talk his beginnings in the sport of skydiving, how racing led him to our community and the unique opportunities it's presented him with. With days worth of stories that most "normal" people won't ever believe, it just goes to show, the Lunatic lifestyle works just as well with wheels as it does with propellers.
Jul 28, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 336
To say it's been a crazy ride for Daphny Morali would be an incredible understatement. It all started as a kid with a blanket and a window. Then it was aerial acrobatics and the circus. Add a tandem skydive to the mix, and you have a pretty good idea of where this story goes. Jumping and flying in the tunnel in Israel, she was told that making it "big" in airsports was going to be difficult, and when she lost her tunnel sponsorship just prior to the world championships a few years back she would...
Jul 21, 2024•57 min•Ep. 335
This guy... It's been quite a while since we've sat down to talk with the one and only "Junior", and man has he been up to a lot… Having transitioned out of his full-time gig in the Middle East, a little bit of luck and a whole lot of skill has taken him in a whole new direction. A Lunatic Fringe OG and sometimes host, he's as experienced a skydiver and instructor as there is - hell... He's got more than 600 rides upfront helping TI's get their ratings. If that's not crazy, I don't know what is....
Jul 14, 2024•46 min•Ep. 334
"The other Morrocan" in skydiving, Youssef Elmajdoub kicked off his skydiving career thinking he was simply going to the dropzone as moral support for a friend. Little did he know, a tandem skydive in Dubai had been purchased for him as well. That as they say wasn't exactly all it took though. Youssef continued in the sport not because he had an incredible passion for his newly discovered sport, but because he didn't think he handled it well enough the first time around. That mentality was a maj...
Jul 07, 2024•58 min•Ep. 333
As a kid growing up in Ohio, the idea of jumping out of an airplane had been something Rich Grimm thought about often enough that when the opportunity to make a skydive came up he didn’t think twice. What did make him think twice was round parachutes and belly mounted reserves. Luckily not only for Rich but for skydiving as a whole, his relocation to Southern California and the advances in parachute technology got him back in the sport. A 30 year career as a professional firefighter probably did...
Jun 30, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 332
Back in the can to discuss not just all things nylon, but the work that goes behind keeping it in the air, the Head Honcho of the USPA, Mr. Albert Berchtold catches us up not only on his beginnings in the sport and what it's like to sit in the big seat these days, but about an upcoming worldwide project, World Skydiving Day. A special event around the globe to celebrate the amazing lunatic community that is the world of skydiving on the 13th, the second Saturday in July.
Jun 23, 2024•58 min•Ep. 330
She had always dreamed of dancing and flying. They were two dreams that did not necessarily fit together. At least not until she saw two Titans in our sport dancing in the sky. That moment, coupled with the fact that her father lived only a few kilometers away from a skydiving center, and Roberta Mancino knew it was for her. Balancing a busy career as a model, and her new passion for skydiving, it didn't take long for her to begin combining those two as well. Not only did she find herself workin...
Jun 16, 2024•58 min•Ep. 331
Like many long time skydivers, it was a great from pretty much the first jump for Sven Jseppi. With a supportive family, and the early realization that you could actually make money jumping out of airplanes, he had his path. Through luck with timing and weather he met his wife as she and her friend made their first jumps, and it's with her that he's carved out his own little corner of the sport as a successful tandem skydiving operator. Yet the competition bug was always something Sven had in hi...
Jun 09, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 329
A random off field landing. It happens all the time at skydiving centers all around the world; but this off landing in the early 90's changed the course of Steve Burrow's life. A working man and a father of two sons and a daughter at the time, skydiving may not have been the normal path to take, but it was the one for Steve. With a supportive wife and family, he became an active and passionate skydiver up until 2005, when he made the choice to step away from the sport and give his attention to h...
Jun 02, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 328
