Everyone knows that skydiving is a niche sport. However, we can find skydiving enthusiasts everywhere in the world. Even though only a tiny part of the population has the guts to jump off a perfect airplane, the part that does have the balls is evolving a lot more since the wind tunnels have become more available outside the USA and Europe. The people who have had the opportunity to travel to those places brought back home enough knowledge to start their own skills camps and share it with jumpers with less experience or with the ones who haven’t had the chance to travel to a try-out camp or similar.
Skydivers from Brazil are an excellent example of that. They united the passion for skydiving, the commitment to training, and the willingness to keep repeating the same things to build the crew they have today. One of the people behind this is Paulo Pires. His nickname is PP, and he is the person you are looking for if you decide to go vertical in Brazil. Besides all the records he has been present in the past, Paulo Pires created, in Brazil, the Vertical Training and is one of the heads on every skydiving record in South America.
How did the Vertical Training idea begin?
Paulo tells us that after a disappointment when participating as a regular jumper in a Brazilian Head Down Record, he decided to travel abroad to discover and learn how skydiving records were organized. He found out that not only TryOuts and the Skydiving Record week exist; in between that, experienced skydivers were also organizing training days (vertical camps) to enable other skydivers to participate in the records.
A few trips later, and with the desire to have a new challenge in his life, Paulo decided to start training with Brazilian friends for the first South American Skydiving Record. After that, the training with his friends began to call other people’s attention, and eventually, other groups started to show interest in being part of a vertical formation. There were born the Vertical Training Tribe.
“Brazil is my home and where I have most of my friends. I want to help Brazil and South America be within the map of the biggest skydiving formation records.”
Paulo Pires – FlyOn FreeFly
The next step was the skydiving record in South America. Luís Prinetto and Paulo Pires were together organizing this event, and that was the proof Paulo and the guys in South America needed to see how vital these training are. Since then, many people from Brazil and South America have joined forces during the Vertical Training days to improve their skills and be ready for the biggest formations in the world.
Who is Paulo Pires?
Paulo Pires (+- 7000 jumps) has been in love with skydiving since his first jump in 2007. While telling us his stories about skydiving, the love in his eyes provoked his son to join the sport. Nowadays, he shares the sky with his wife and son.
Why are you in South America?
“I decided to set the first South American record because I have several friends in South America, and until that moment, few countries had their own records. So I invited Luís Prinetto, and we put together the first South America Vertical Skydiving Record,” says Paulo Pires. After that, many skydivers asked him to keep pace with the training and the agenda with new records.
The next plan was the Brazilian Vertical Record. Unfortunately, the adhesion of Brazilians was not very large at that point, and for this reason, we were not successful.
Let’s Profissionalize Vertical Training
After failing in the Brazilian Vertical Record, Paulo Pires decided to professionalize vertical training. The first step was to create a group of organizers to help engineer, coordinate the events, and motivate people.
Jean Agostino, Humberto Nogueira, Vitor Cruz, and Davi Costa joined the Vertical Training Crew. They helped create one of the most important arms of skydiving in Brazil. Their energy, passion, and devotion to this sport helped Paulo Pires, and today we can see vertical training with more than 45 participants.
“Most of my friends in the world are from South America and Brazil. For that reason, I took it as my personal goal. I want to maintain these training events and set more and more new records,” says Paulo. I can tell from the outside that evidently, Paulo’s mission is inspiring several of his friends, including me. As a result, the idealization and realization of many other vertical records.
Keep coming back
In 2021, Paulo was involved in training athletes or helping organize vertical skydiving records in Chile, Argentina and, Paraguay.
If you want to participate and skill up your flying level, these are the dates for the next events in 2022.
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