Old Lyme -- A native of Old Lyme has found his passion flying in the sky.

Jeff Harrigan, 27, competes in wingsuit flying, a skydiving discipline in which participants wear a special suit with arm wings, among other features, that magnifies their every movement as they move through the air.

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Video courtesy of U.S. Parachute Association

"It is an extremely fun and challenging discipline," Harrigan said.

As Team Flatspin, Harrigan and his girlfriend, Sarah Chamberlain, of Simsbury and videographer Mark Krasinski of Somers, earned a gold medal for acrobatic wingsuit flying in last month's U.S. Parachute Association National Championship of Wingsuit Flying in Rochelle, Ill.

They will head this November to Zephyrhills, Fla., to compete in the Wingsuit Flying World Cup.

During the recent championship, the team performed acrobatic maneuvers while skydiving from a plane about 13,000 feet above ground.

They competed in both compulsory rounds and free rounds in which the team performed original maneuvers.

Acrobatic wingsuit flying is a new and exciting part of the sport that has become popular in recent years, said Harrigan's teammate, Krasinski, who started skydiving more than 30 years ago and wingsuit flying about 15 years ago.

Krasinski said the team, which has been together for about two years, gets along well and he enjoys seeing how well Chamberlain and Harrigan have progressed.

"It's just really great flying with them," he said.

Harrigan, who now lives in Coventry, had discovered skydiving while a student at the University of Connecticut, where he studied after graduating from Lyme-Old Lyme High School in 2007. He joined the University of Connecticut's skydiving team — and has been skydiving ever since then.

The foundation for skydiving was laid even before then when Harrigan participated in theater and chorus at Lyme-Old Lyme High School, activities he said helped him become comfortable trying things.

"It gave me some of the confidence I carried into skydiving," he said.

When he began training for skydiving, he thought that if he was able to get up in front of the room and sing before hundreds of people, he should be able to stand up in front of people and complete an Accelerated Freefall, a component of the extensive training required to do wingsuit flying.

To become qualified for wingsuit flying, the first step is to get a skydiving "A license," which entails a progression of 25 jumps, usually in a program called Accelerated Freefall, Harrigan said.

The next step is to amass a total of 200 skydives and then go through a ground school for a few hours learning about the wingsuit and how to use it safely, he explained. After that, the aspiring wingsuit flyer does a jump or two with a coach who can sign off that the trainee has flown safely, enabling him or her to be cleared to fly a wingsuit.

Harrigan said he has had so much fun meeting his fellow skydivers and also seeing how his skills progress from one jump to the next.

Harrigan, who is working toward a degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Connecticut, said wingsuit flying will continue to be a lifelong pursuit for him.

When skydiving, Harrigan said all he thinks about is what he needs to get done and how to make the skydive as smooth and efficient as possible.

"At no point during a skydive am I thinking that I'm hurtling towards the ground," he said. "There's no fear during the skydive — it's all focus. There's an incredible amount of focus on every skydive. I enjoy it just so much."

k.drelich@theday.com