Former Naperville Resident Wins Silver In Wingsuit Flying

NAPERVILLE, IL — A former Naperville man won the silver medal in a performance flying event last week. Alexey Galda, a physics researcher, recently took home the honor from the the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Wingsuit Flying World Cup in Overton, Nevada.

If you haven't heard of wingsuit skydiving, it's the sport where jumpers exit a plane wearing an aerodynamically advanced suit in order to soar through the air like a bird — or, some say, like a flying squirrel — with horizontal speeds sometimes approaching 200 mph. In competitions, Galda is scored on his horizontal distance, flight time and speed. The 30-year-old flies with the U.S. Parachute Team and competed in Overton against 37 of the best wingsuit flyers from around the world.

Illinois might seem like an unlikely location for advanced wingsuit diving, but Galda has found a suitable home base in Rochelle at the Chicagoland Skydiving Center. Illinois might also seem like an unlikely place for Galda, who grew up in Russia and earned a Ph.D. in the U.K. before moving to the Chicago suburbs in 2012 for a stint at Argonne National Laboratory. He settled for a year in Naperville before relocating to Chicago in September for another job opportunity.

Galda took his first skydiving jump only a year into his U.S. residency. He eventually completed 199 more jumps before being allowed to jump with a wingsuit.

“After that, it is still a long progression until you can safely take part in wingsuit flying competitions, with the top athletes having thousands of jumps under their belt," Galda said in an email. "With just over 500 wingsuit jumps, I am still fairly new to this sport."

The future of wingsuit flying is up in the air. It’s still relatively new and “doesn’t get the exposure it deserves,” Galda says. Even some of the world’s best wingsuit fliers don’t get sponsored. It is certainly a labor of love for the Russian-born thrill-seeker.

He’d love to acquire even more jumps, but his job as a physics research assistant professor at the University of Chicago prohibits him from jumping year-round. In order to adapt to the limited training schedule, he came up with his own technique to make the most out of his practice time.

“I perform data analysis of every skydive I make, which is possible thanks to the GPS device, called Flysight, I wear on my helmet," Galda said. "My physics background helps me analyze every GPS track in order to train very efficiently.”

The silver medal is an improvement from his 6th place standing last year during his first FAI World Championships. He's learned from it, he says. Now, instead of taking the risks that come with personal record-breaking attempts on every jump, he aims for consistency in his performance.

The Chicagoland Skydiving Center will host the United States Parachute Association national skydiving championships again next year. In the meantime, the theoretical physicist's career path in and out of the earth's atmosphere is sky high.

Main images taken by Ashlea Thomsen at the 2nd FAI World Cup of Wingsuit Flying Nov. 3 - 8, 2017.