Flying High Above You During The 2007 Indianapolis Air Show: Frogs!
US Navy Parachute Team — the Leap Frogs — join line-up for Aug. 25-26 charity event at Mt. Comfort Airport
INDIANAPOLIS, IN — March 02, 2007 — Yes, you knew that some angels would be flying high above Mt. Comfort Airport for this year’s Indianapolis Air Show, Aug. 25 and 26. Now, some frogs will be joining the family fun, too!
The US Navy Parachute Team – known to most as the “Leap Frogs” – is set to delight crowds during the 2007 Air Show, joining the previously-announced headliners, the US Naval Flight Demonstration Squadron, or the “Blue Angels.”
The Leap Frogs are a fifteen-man team comprised entirely of Navy SEALs – Sea, Air, and Land commandos. Each member comes to the team for a three-year tour from one of the two Naval Special Warfare Groups located on the east and west coasts. Upon completion of the tour, members return to operational SEAL Teams.
A typical Leap Frogs performance consists of jumpers leaping out of an aircraft at an altitude of 12,500 feet. During free fall, jumpers reach speeds of 120 m.p.h. and can accelerate up to 180 m.p.h. by pulling their arms to their sides and straightening their legs into what is called a “track.” The jumpers typically open their parachutes at around 5,000 feet by releasing a smaller pilot chute which deploys their main blue-and-gold canopy. After deploying their chutes, the Leap Frogs fly their canopies together to build dramatic canopy-relative work formations.
The Leap Frogs are renowned for exciting and complex formations such as downplanes, sideplanes, dragplanes, diamonds, big stacks, tri-by-sides, and T formations. They are the only demonstration parachute team in the world to execute the quad-by-side formation.
In 2006, through the generosity of a Central Indiana Community Foundation fund, the Air Show donated more than $130,000 to Indianapolis’ Riley Hospital for Children, bringing the total contributed to the hospital to more than $1 million since the show’s inception in 1997.
On top of the Leap Frogs and Blue Angels, this year’s Air Show will feature additional military demonstration teams, local and national stunt fliers and pyrotechnicians, celebrities, classic cars and planes, and the NASA Space Camp.
Media Contact:
Tina Noel, (317) 709-3103
Kerrie Henderson, (317) 813-0180
