Tom Jenkins
Vale Tom Jenkins Aussie Bigway Skydivers were saddened to hear the news of Tom's death from complication of Parkinson's disease on 29/12/2017. After returning to Houston following the highly successful Sequential World Record in Eloy, his health took an unexpected down-turn from which he did not recover. He was surrounded by friends and family over his last several hours. Tom was an enormous supporter of the Aussie Bigway Team and he will be sorely missed as one of the P3 coaches as we head towards the 2019 record. In honour of the man and the skydiver we reflect on his following achievements.
Thomas Jenkins or Tom as he is known is another of the P3 coaching fraternity that brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to every skydive he participates in.
Born in Morristown, NJ in 1956 Tom saw “The Herd” 20 way skydiving team do a skydiving demo into an airshow when he was just 12 years old in 1968. This ignited his passion and from that day on he hung around airports eventually learning to fly. For the average person that would have been fulfilling enough but as you will find out Tom isn’t an average person and it wasn’t enough as he felt he had to jump so the story continues.
The year was 1978 and the date May 20th when Tom took to the skies and did his first static line jump. After which he was hooked. He graduated from round to square parachutes after 200 jumps and finished the year on 400 jumps in total. An incredible feat and by today’s standards for current skydivers who are mainly weekend jumpers. From that moment he never looked back, spending a great deal of time in freefall and under canopy looking around and below and forward to his future in the sport.
With that type of yearly average it is not surprising that Tom continued in the sport with the same fervour and tenacity and has amassed an astonishing 21,500 jumps. (That’s 21,500 landings folks.)
It is also unsurprising that those jumps underpin some incredible statistics in relation to competition skydiving. Tom has completed in no less than 35 USPA Nationals in Style and Accuracy, 4 and 8way CFS, 4, 8,10,16 and 20 way Formation Skydiving. He has countless medals of the gold kind in each of the disciplines.
In his worldly travels Tom has competed in 2 UK Nationals, 2 World Cups and the Euro 16 way meet. This man can teach you a thing or two about being airborne both in freefall and under canopy.
Tom can hang 1000 jumps as a tandem master and 1300 as an AFF instructor from his skydiving belt and holds National and FAI Judge ratings.
Tom has been on 12 formation skydiving and canopy formation skydiving World Records. He has captained, coached or participated in state and/or national records in Arizona, Texas, California, Illinois, Florida, Australia, Russia, Czech Republic, Brazil, Peru and Ecuador, as well as Slovakia, Thailand and Poland.
With over 300 hours of tunnel coaching time Tom has trained numerous 4, 8 and 16 way teams. He has been known to post a question or two on Facebook to provide free tunnel coaching for the person with the winning answer. A great gesture.
As a member of the P3 Skdiving.com coaching team since its inception in 2005, Tom is integral to the team and was a fantastic asset to the Aussies in Perris in 2015. As current member of the Arizona Airspeed 16 way team Tom is a legend, what’s not to learn from this man Tom Jenkins D-7707. (Not quite 007 but as good as.)
