Skydiving

Taya and Jessica Edgeington rocking an XRW surf dock over Lake Elsinore, CA

Skydiving Bio:

Taya Weiss is the first female skydiver to perform “XRW” (Extreme Relative Work) – linking up with female canopy pilot Jessica Edgeington of the PD Factory Team. The pair have held hands and completed rodeo and surf-style docks with Weiss in freefall wearing a wingsuit and Edgeington under an open parachute.

Taya has 3000 jumps, a USPA D-license and coach rating, and jumpmaster and coach ratings from the Parachute Association of South Africa, where she did her first thousand jumps. She was an organizer of the 71-way unofficial world record wingsuit formation in 2008, the lead organizer of the 2009 official US National Record 68-way wingsuit formation, and is an advisor to the International Parachuting Commission’s Wingsuit Working Group tasked with bringing wingsuit records and competition to the world stage.

She is currently organizing and getting ready to fly in the next Wingsuit World Record Formation, to be held at Perris Valley Skydiving in California in September 2012.

Demonstration jumps include one into San Francisco, flying with a group of wingsuiters past the Golden Gate Bridge for a T-Mobile product launch, and the world’s first XRW show into the opening ceremony of the International Defense Expo in Abu Dhabi.

Combining her deep experience with non-profit and community work and her professional skydiving, Taya founded Raise the Sky, a non-profit that connects skydivers with charitable causes and promotes the sport as an inspirational tool for community involvement.

For more, read Parachutist Magazine’s profile.

Sponsors: