BREMERTON — What started 29 years ago with someone else’s hobby has turned into a successful competitive career for local wingsuit skydiver Scott Callantine.

Callantine, 47, of Bremerton, was recently awarded a spot on the eight-person U.S. Parachute Team after competing in the Parachute Association National Skydiving Championships in Rochelle, Illinois.

“When I was growing up, my uncle used to skydive,” Callantine said. “When I went to college, I had the opportunity to try it. I started, and I never looked back.”

Over the years, Callantine has completed more than 6,000 dives, and said he began “discovering different challenges,” such as formation skydiving, team jumps and, about 12 years ago, wingsuit jumping.

“It kind of opened up less of a feeling of falling through the air, and more a feeling of flying through the air,” Callantine said. “That really got me going again.”

With wingsuit jumping, Callantine said the regular one minute of free-falling air time after jumping out of the airplane can turn into three minutes before the parachute is released.

Callantine has been involved in competitions for years, and now he has the opportunity to represent the United States in the first-ever Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Wingsuit Flying World Championships in Florida this November.

“As a kid, you always want to represent your country,” Callantine said. “Getting the chance to do something like this, it’s exciting and makes you very proud.

“I can’t say I’m at a lack for words, but I’m super excited for the opportunity to represent the United States at the world championships.”

Scott Callantine, of Bremerton, earned a place on the U.S. Parachute Team for the first international championships. Photo by Curt Vogelsang

At the wingsuit competitions, each diver takes nine jumps, and is judged in three different categories: flight time, horizontal distance and horizontal speed reached.

The world record for speed is over 300 kmh (about 186 mph), but at competitions divers generally reach the upper 200s (200 kmh is about 124 mph), Callatine said.

Callantine’s favorite aspect is the timed task, he said.

“I really enjoy being able to stay up in the air as long as you can,” he said. “I used to hold the national record for time, and somebody just beat my record. One of my goals (for the international competition) is to get my national record back.”

But the sport involves more than just jumping out of planes. Callantine said one of the most difficult aspects of the sport is “adjusting to the conditions that we have for the day.” Cross winds and temperatures can have an impact on a jump, and Callantine said it’s important to be able to factor all that information into a game plan in order to be consistent throughout the competition.

Callantine is involved in the sport in other ways, as well. He also judges skydiving competitions and participates in team formation jumps. Next year, he said, he might be involved in an attempt to break a world record for the largest formation skydive.

“I’ve been jumping for a long time, and being able to make the (national) team is sort of the highlight of the journey I’ve been on,” Callantine said. “It’s gratifying to have success in something I’ve been doing for so long. I’m hoping that the success that I’ve had, somebody I know or somebody who’s just looking at the sport can get involved as well.”

Callantine said that over the years, skydiving equipment “has become so reliable, it’s definitely something I encourage people to try.” He suggested first-timers do a tandem jump with a trained instructor to get a taste for it.

“If there’s something there that you really like about it, I would suggest taking the class,” he said. “A tandem sky dive is a great way to get the full experience with minimal input.”

Plus, it’s a sport that doesn’t discriminate between the ages, either.

“It’s one of the things where a lot of people are younger, but gravity doesn’t seem to care about age as much,” Callantine said. “It’s definitely fun for me to go out and beat people younger than me.”

In order to do that, Callantine said he’s performing practice jumps pretty much every other weekend — his day job as an account manager for BioExpress doesn’t enable him to jump much during the work week — or otherwise being involved int he sport.

“After the world championships? I’m going to continue jumping,” he added. “I’ll continue to compete.

“It definitely isn’t the end after the world championships.”