It’s fast. Freefall of more than 200 kilometres an hour. It’s furious. Formation work is set to 35 seconds. It’s filmed. Every move of The Flying Spaghetti Monsters must be in frame.
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Look to clear skies in the Manning Valley and you may see Matt Howarth, Josh Beverley and Ben Stokes jump from the aircraft of Mark Brody of Skydiving NSW Drop Zone at Taree Airport. The men live in different locations in NSW – Crescent Head, Newcastle and Sydney – and travel to the Manning Valley once a month to train for the Australian National Skydiving Championships.
Matt Howarth of Crescent Head loves the sky above the Manning Valley and says the team will continue to train at the drop zone in the lead-up to the championships in March 2017. The goal is to secure a podium place in the championships to get them into the Australian Skydiving Team.
Matt and Josh are a two-way free flying team and Ben is the cameraman. The championships require the men to do set formations in freefall and Ben must perfectly capture their formations for judging.
“We practice about 24 formations and in competition we must complete a selected set in 35 seconds. We earn points for each formation and points can be deducted if it’s not fully captured, so Ben’s skill with the camera is integral to the success of our team,” Matt said.
Wind tunnel time in Penrith also forms part of The Flying Spaghetti Monsters training, but at $1400 an hour it is an expensive investment in their skills development.
“We’ve done about eight hours in the tunnel and it allows us to practice our formations before we try to do them.”
Matt enjoys the challenge of formation work and says it adds to his love of skydiving.
“I love the freedom. That moment when you’re stepping out of the plane absolutely nothing else matters – the phone call you missed, the stuff that is stressing you, none of it matters. In 60 seconds I get to focus on nothing else other than being in the moment, it’s a bit of therapy for me.”
Skydiving is an extreme sport that can attract extreme personalities but for Matt, Josh and Ben, the sport is about living and “not taking yourself too seriously” and their team name reflects that attitude.
“Our team name ‘The Flying Spaghetti Monsters’ puts it out there. So many teams take the team name so ridiculously seriously. It doesn’t matter how extreme your team name is, for us what counts is how you perform in the sky.”
ainslee.dennis@fairfaxmedia.com.au
