Rhode Island International Leapfest by Dave O`Brien

The Rhode Island Leapfest is an international military parachute competition held in North Kingstown, RI. It is the oldest and largest such competition in the world.

Held on August 9th, the 26th annual Leapfest included international teams from the United Kingdom, Germany, Serbia, Honduras, El Salvador, Ecuador, Peru, and Nicaragua. There were also US military teams from the Army, Air Force, Army Guard and Army Reserve, and a pair of teams from the US military's main parachute testing facility, Natick Labs.

Each team was made up of four people, who jumped three times each. A CH-47D Chinook carried the parachutists to 1500’ AGL, from which they jumped into a large field marked with an orange X. The judges would time each jumper as they hit the ground and carried all their gear to the center of the X. The time for all four team members over the three jumps was added up, and the team with the lowest total was the winner.

Before their jumps, the teams were held in a staging area where they would help each other into their parachutes. The teams would then form up into lines and take the next Chinook to the drop zone. At times, all three participating Chinooks, from the Connecticut and Georgia Army National Guards, were in the drop pattern. A UH-60 Blackhawk carrying competition officials and media circled above the drop ships.

The lowest individual time was a three-way tie between tied between TCO3 Navarro of the US Army’s First Special Forces Brigade, SGT Rondorf of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), and SSGT Bronzo of the US Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (USACAPOC). Headquarters and Headquarters Company (HHC), 1-160th SOAR took first place for combined team time with 117 seconds. Second place went to the 2nd Infantry Battalion from Honduras with 145 seconds, followed closely by HHC USACAPOC with 148 seconds.

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