Chris Schindler

12,000 hours total time flying. 3,000 hours flying skydivers. Flew as lead pilot for the World Record 246-way 12 aircraft formation  at Skydive Chicago, Ottawa, IL July 1998 and was responsible for spotting the loads. Flew as left wing pilot on Airspeed 300-Way at Eloy, AZ December, 2002. Graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 1992 and is currently a captain on the CL-65 (CanadAir Regional Jet).

Chris is the creator and content manager of DiverDriver.com. Contact Chris

Christy West

50 hours flight time, occasional right seat ornament, several hours of freefall/5000+ skydives, Accelerated Freefall Jumpmaster (lapsed), Women’s World Record (118-way), multiple U.S. National Skydiving Championships medalist in 4-way, 8-way, 10-way, and 16-way, editor, web site designer.

Christy is the webmistress responsible for developing and managing DiverDriver.com.

John Kallend, BS, PhD

John received his bachelor’s degree (1967) and PhD (1971) from the University of Cambridge (England). His college was Trinity Hall. After post-doctoral work at Cambridge and UC Berkeley, he joined the IIT faculty in 1978. He is a skydiver in the Chicago, Ill., area and an affiliate at Los Alamos National Laboratory and at Argonne National Laboratory.

  • Associate Dean, Armour College of Engineering, 1989 – 91
  • Chair, Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, 1991-95
  • Dean, Undergraduate College, 1995 – 99

John developed the Freefall Drift Simulator on this site.

Philip Artweger

2 years of Ops, about 600TT and 1800 Flights roughly…. plus 17 years of operation at Pink Aviation.

Philip wrote the Skyvan article on this site.

George Merle

4,000+ hours total time mostly in F-18 and F-14 aircraft US Navy. Civilian ATP and CFII. 100+ hours in PAC 750XL.

Neal Alders

Neal Alders, chief pilot, Skydive Space Center, Titusville, Florida.  Neal has about 10,000 hours total time, and holds an Airline Transport Pilot, Multi-Engine land, with a type rating in the DeHavilland Dash 8 and has flown 3500 hours in skydiving operations.  He also holds a Commercial Pilot certificate with ratings in Multi-Engine Sea, Single Engine Land, and has Private privileges in Gliders.  He is a CFI in single and multi-engine aircraft.  He specializes in training tail wheel, formation and aerobatics.  Neal has flown jumpers in King Air’s, Twin Otters, CASA 212’s, Porters, PAC 750’s, Cessna’s and Stearman biplanes.

Chris Rosenfelt

Chris holds a Commercial Pilot Certificate with Multi-Engine and Instrument Ratings. He has logged about 3000 hours flying skydivers and ferrying Caravans all over the country. He is also the owner of CaravanPilot.com.