Kyra Williams
News Editor
During his time at Costa, alumnus Jack Allen played water polo and was editor-in-chief of La Vista. After graduating in 2015, Allen joined the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, which he says was a dream of his since seventh grade.
Allen is currently in his junior year at the academy. He has been competing with the Wings of Blue, the U.S. Air Force Parachute Team, since the beginning of his sophomore year, when he was a Cadet 3rd Class. The squadron takes part in aerial contests and parachutes into football stadiums. Allen said he is also a jump-master for the USAFA’s Airmanship 490 program, a program that helps teach people how to freefall from an airplane.
“The Air Force Academy made sense to me. I wanted to push myself, break my limits and see what I was made of,” Allen said. “As for the Air Force itself, I’ve always had this dream of flying that I wanted to chase that and give myself the opportunity to do something abnormal.”
Allen visited the USAFA during his senior year at Costa, and met a Wings of Blue team member who told him about his experiences on the team as a skydiver and instructor. Allen said that his meeting with the member and learning about his experiences inspired Allen to join the Air Force.
“Not everyone has the chances that Manhattan Beach and Costa gave me. Less than 1% of U.S. citizens serve in the military,” Allen said. “It’s not for everyone and that’s perfectly okay, but my intrigue and passion for those who chose to walk that path increased my aspirations to join.”
In order to make the team, one must take Airmanship 490, which is the Basic Freefall course of the Air Force. After taking the course the summer after freshman year, one has the opportunity to apply for the team, Allen said. Allen filled out an application with a series of questions and essays and was one of 50 applicants picked to attend the tryouts. After that, the Wings of Blue squadron invited him for a day for further evaluation. Eventually, he and 24 others made the team.
“It’s a very special and humbling role to be able to teach students, and give them the courage to jump out of a plane by themselves for the first time ever,” Allen said.
Allen won gold for intermediate sport accuracy at the 2017 U.S. Parachute Association National Collegiate Parachuting Championships, which took place at the Florida Skydiving Center in Lake Wales, Dec. 27 to Jan. 2.
“I knew I had a pretty good shot at scoring well in the event just from practice, but that’s all of us,” Allen said. “Everyone on our team has the talent to win an event like this because of how hard we push each other. I guess it was just my day.”
Eighty divers participated in the competition. They each jumped from 3,500 feet with the goal of landing as close as possible to a frisbee-sized disk. The scores are measured as a distance from the center disk, with the lower the score, the better. Allen won the competition by hitting the disk three times in a row, with a total overall score of 0.00.
“I was surprised and thrilled for him! Especially when he explained how small the target is,” Jack’s mom, Beth Allen said. “Being a W.O.B. is a huge time commitment in an already challenging cadet schedule, the training is rigorous and I was so happy for him that his efforts paid off in competition.”
Allen is also on the freestyle ski team at the Air Force Academy. He is still considering his options before he makes he final decision for what he would like to do next year.
“I still have a big passion for flying so as of now I hope to go to pilot training after graduation and see where that takes me,” Allen said.
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