Michael Vaughan is a household name in the Australian skydiving community – a humble legend of the sport with accolades in multiple skydiving disciplines. He is highly sought after as a coach at national and international events, and last weekend he came to the Toogoolawah skydiving “drop zone” for a rare coaching opportunity.

Twenty skydivers, of experience levels ranging from 50 jumps to 6500 jumps, benefited from Michael’s gentle guidance and wisdom. Over the weekend, they completed 200 training jumps between them, from the “big yellow bird in the sky” - a seventeen place Cessna Caravan aircraft!

Michael encouraged participants to get out of their comfort zone to help them achieve their goals and also had them perform some inflight exercises to increase awareness, knowledge and safety.

Spectacular photos are available from Facebook and footage is available from YouTube and below...

Michael specialises in all parachuting disciplines – teaching people to fly their parachutes together in formation, land them safely, accurately and, for the advanced parachutists, with high speeds across the ground.

“I enjoy teaching people canopy flight… people with hundreds of skydives land from their first canopy formation jump with the same exhilaration as someone landing from their first ever skydive” Michael says with a huge grin.

He is truly passionate and has an infectious optimism for his sport. “I always enjoy coming back to Ramblers… it’s one of my favourite places in the world to skydive… for the views and the people,” he contemplates on his return.

Participant, Alan Deadman of Hendra, said “Taking the course with Michael improved my flying significantly. He empowered me to be comfortable landing my parachute safely and accurately in any conditions. Michael is a fantastic coach and brought out the best in all of us this weekend!”

There were a total 20 participants from Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and regional areas.

Michael has multiple Australian titles and a World #2 ranking. Just recently at Easter, Michael’s parachuting team won their 6th consecutive Australian title and achieved a new Australian record, breaking their own record set just five months ago.

His team are about to embark on a rigorous training regime for the World Championships in Dubai, 2012, where they hope to become the next World Champions.