Cadet Grows Wings At West Point
by Jorge Garcia United States Military Academy at West Point
January 24, 2022
Before enrolling at the U.S. Military
Academy, Class of 2023 Cadet Kai Burgman saw skydiving as a
one-and-done task he would one day cross off his bucket list. Now,
following his 127th jump with the West Point Parachute Team,
skydiving is a practice that has become intrinsic to his being.
U.S. Military Academy
class of 2023 Cadet Kai Burgman practices a six-way jump with the West Point Parachute Team in preparation for the
2021 National Collegiate Parachuting Championships in Elsinore, California
on December 30, 2021. The West Point Parachute Team earned three gold medals including one in individual novice accuracy won by Class of 2023 Cadet Kai Burgman, one in team accuracy and a victory in two-way formation skydiving by Burgman and Class of 2024 Cadet Stephen Keyes. (Image
created by USA Patriotism! from courtesy photos by U.S. Army West
Point Parachute Team.)
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“Skydiving makes your everyday problems look smaller by
comparison. It’s like seeing all of your problems grow smaller and
smaller as you go up on the plane,” Burgman said. “Coach always
talks about how he thinks that one of the reasons why members of our
team typically do well academically is because once you jump out of
the plane, it’s just you and the sky, and there’s really nothing
else out there like it ... skydiving is very freeing.”
For
Burgman, skydiving on the team became much more than simply jumping
out of a plane. Thomas Falzone, the team’s head coach, taught
Burgman the importance of teamwork and trust and has repeatedly
emphasized that “you can’t do well in the air if you hate each other
on the ground.”
Before jumping as a team, everyone becomes
familiar with one another’s idiosyncrasies. From traveling on the
road, staying in hotels, and eating and training together, Burgman
managed to find himself an extended family through the team, he
said.
“Two of the biggest things in the air are
communication and trust. You can’t develop those qualities in the
air. You have to establish that foundation beforehand,” Burgman
said. “All it takes is one person doing something stupid when you’re
all together in the air and everyone’s messed up with parachutes
getting tangled, canopies colliding in the air and if something goes
wrong in the air, everyone pays for it. So, it takes trust and
camaraderie to go up there with people and feel comfortable with
them in the air.”
Moreover, it’s very challenging to
communicate verbally in the skies, so a parachuter must pay strict
attention to their team member. Therefore, there are nuanced
gestures that can be used to communicate a jumper’s intent while
gliding in the air, Burgman said.
“We make sure to always
have the most experienced people on the bottom guiding the new team
members during a jump so that we don’t make mistakes,” Burgman
added. “Occasionally, there’ll be a small slip up, but I have yet to
see someone just go careening downwind.”
So, after two years
of parachuting at the academy, Burgman’s love for skydiving was
accompanied by accolades he and his teammates earned during the
2021 National Collegiate Parachuting Championships Dec. 19-Jan. 2 in
Elsinore, California.
“My mindset was, ‘I’m just gonna go do
the best I can,’ and that was the mindset of some of my teammates I
talked to as well,” Burgman said. “As long as we do that, then
regardless of what other teams do, it’ll be a successful
competition.”
Sticking to that winning mindset was all the
team could do with the limited training schedule they were granted
last year. Before the competition started, the team had missed out
on many practice opportunities due to COVID-19 mitigations.
Typically, the team conducts part of their training sessions at a
facility called Ifly, where indoor fans, known as wind tunnels,
generate vertical wind speeds over 150 miles per hour so that the
team can perform sky diving maneuvers.
Also, a significant
part of the competition involves formation skydiving, which relies
on precise movements in the air, and the wind tunnel is a
time-efficient way to perform the sequenced skydiving move-sets,
with guidance from Falzone, Burgman said.
Nevertheless,
management changed at the Ifly, which made coordinating the usual
training schedules difficult. Regardless, the team managed to
squeeze in some practice time.
“We were jumping through some
hoops with the people at Ifly,” Burgman said. “We just haven’t had
as much wind tunnel time, and so we really did our practice in the
short time leading up to competition where we were able to get into
the wind tunnel a couple of times and then practice some maneuvers.”
During the competition, half the team’s families came out to
California to show support. In addition, every day, the families got
together to bring lunches to the team during the event.
“Whether it was some catering, or one of the parents who made
homemade fajitas and brought them for the team, they were just
insanely supportive,” Burgman said.
Another critical aspect
of skydiving that a parachuter considers is weather and temperature.
Moreover, the temperature decreases about 5 degrees for every 1,000
feet the plane gains in elevation.
“It’s like 50-60 degrees
outside (on the ground), and then you go up, and you’re like ‘oh
man, it’s 10 degrees up here.’ It gets absolutely freezing up
there,” Burgman said. “Typically, when we go all the way up in
altitude, we usually get up to 13,500 feet which is above most
mountain tops. When you open the door (to the plane), there’s also
80 mile per hour winds you deal with.”
As Burgman ascended
the skies, all he could do was think about the skydive and what he
would do during the competition. Mental visualization, Burgman
alluded, is essential for a parachuter.
“Especially during
competition, you’re really focused on every turn and move set you
have to make. And then one thing that I always found super
interesting. I don’t know how it works. But the moment you jump out
of the plane, all the cold vanishes,” Burgman said. “The adrenaline
just takes over, and you don’t even notice anymore because you’re so
focused on the dive.”
And so, as the competition culminated,
the team earned 32 medals from the championships, competing in
formation skydiving, more commonly known as relative work. The team
took first- and third-place in two-way relative work and second
place in vertical relative work.
During relative work, two or
more skydivers fly adjacent to one another while holding on to each
other in a hovering position with their bellies facing downward as
they descend.
Vertical Formation Skydiving is where two or
more skydivers fly relative to each other while locking hands,
typically with their head up or their head down.
Each jumper
uses specific body positions to aid in staying relative to another
team member.
Consequently, the West Point Parachute Team
earned three gold medals. Burgman earned one in individual novice
accuracy and a victory in two-way formation skydiving along with
Class of 2024 Cadet Stephen Keyes.
“I’m just super proud of what
our team was able to accomplish,” Burgman concluded. “I couldn’t be
more thankful that I’ve had the chance to work with these people
over the past two years.”
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