In addition, these Prep Dives will help World Team’s skydivers become familiar with the oxygen procedures, in-aircraft communications, exit procedures, and the air-to-air communication procedures.   In freefall, all skydivers will learn to fly their designated flight path to the formation, practice using special visual keys to identify their teammates who will all be wearing the same colored jumpsuits, practice their designated approach and docking procedures, and implement their designated break-off procedures.

Fall-rates will be monitored, and adjusted, as necessary.  Landing areas will be specified, and designated landing patterns will be implemented. The camera-flyers will start collaborating with designated World Team sectors. The skydivers in each sector will become familiar with their video debrief procedures. The FAI Judges will start reviewing and scoring each formation.

The use of World Team’s air-to-air communication system will be the most significant change to typical skydiving procedures.   Most likely, it will take a few jumps to get used to this new means of communicating, but the pre-event tests with this system have proven that it should be easy to adapt to.  Being able to exit the C-130s on verbal commands will be a huge benefit for the start of each jump.  Using verbal commands in freefall for building each wave of the Base 70-way will allow the fall-rate to be highly controlled.

The Prep Dives are divided into two series of dives – 100-ways and 200-ways. On the 100-ways, there are four Prep Teams – one of which includes the Base 70-way. For the 200-ways, there are two Prep Teams – one for the Base 70-way and the inside three whacker lines, and the second for the outside two whacker lines. The Alpha Team will provide stable platforms for all Prep Teams, except for Prep Team 1, which includes the Base 70-way.