Missing - Have you seen this Skydiver

So I’m axiously awaiting my upcoming jumps, which are scheduled for the 15th of March.  With any luck after the 15th I’ll be off student status, having completed all 8 stages of the AFF program, and will have done my first solo skydive.  There is one big problem though.  I seem to have lost my skydiving buddy Seri.  If you’ve seen him please be sure to send him my way.  For those of you that don’t know what he looks like here is a description

Seri - Male, 5′ something, one hundred and something pounds (not sure what the equivalent would be in stones), brown hair.  I have no idea what is eye color is as I don’t usually pay attention to details like this on guys.  He is kind of curious looking and can usually found in front of a computer when not skydiving.  Also like most brits he makes use of the word whilst instead of while (they speak the queens english you know).

Mind Boggling Skydiving Records

Skydiving is, by all accounts, a pretty insane sport, we gladly pay for the privilege of letting a dubious looking pilot take us nearly 3 miles high into the sky and then we walk up to the open door of the airplane and throw ourselves out for fun. It should be no surprise, that for some people, after they have a few (thousand) jumps under their belt, the thrill wears off and they start looking to inject a little extra excitement into their jumps. It’s due to these fearless, courageous, competitive or just bat shit crazy individuals that I’m able to present some of the most mind boggling skydiving records.

1: Consecutive accurate landings

This might not seem like much, to get a few landings, one after another, all within a small distance of one another, but, consider what it takes to hold this world record. The record is: G-1-b : Landing accuracy with 0.02 meter disc : 4 cons. landings + 0.01 m, set on the 17th of August 2007, by a Liudmyla Zem’ska in the Ukraine.
Now, think on that, for those who aren’t used to having to think in meters, then I’ll make it simple, after jumping out of a plane at a height of nearly 2.5 miles, this parachutist successfully hit a disk that was about 1 inch wide on four separate occasions, with a level of accuracy within half an inch. That’s like dropping a pea from 3500 feet up and hitting the same spot four times in a row within a quarter of an inch, admittedly the pea doesn’t have a steerable canopy, but you get the idea.

2: Most Jumps in a 24 hour period

Unimpressed huh? Well, how about this, the most jumps within 24 hours, commonly referred to as a day, but if you think about it, it also includes a night… (sorry I’m being obtuse again). Anyway, how about Jay Stokes, who from the 8th to the 9th of September 2006, at Greensburg, Indiana managed to complete not 100, or 200, or 300 but 640 jumps. That’s one jump every 2 minutes and 15 seconds, and that’s without taking into account the need to use the toilet, drink some water or hell, maybe eat a sandwich. I can only guess that they must have had a sealed bottle on the plane for him to use (don’t think of Dumb and Dumber) and maybe some amphetamine.

3: The worlds largest freefall formation (of totally blind skydivers)

Just to make sure we’re all on the same page, I’m not talking about the largest group of people to jump out of an airplane at the same time and make some pretty little shape in the sky, I mean the most BLIND people to jump out of a plane and make a pretty formation, well, how pretty can it be with only two people, but it’s the thought that counts. On September 13th 2003 at Garrettsville Ohio, the world record was set when John Fleming and Dan Rossi, two blind skydivers, jumped out of a plane and completed a formation skydive. It’s not so bad you might think, as after all, they would have had altimeters that audibly alerted them when to pull and the landing would have been assisted on radio. It’s when you realise that one of the blind skydivers had the other one tell him when to pull the cord and deploy the canopy.
To copy from parachutehistory.com “At 6,500 feet Rossi gave Fleming the pull sign, a hard shake of his upper arm. Fleming deployed in position and then Rossi, assisted by a safety diver who was lurking near by, tracked to 4,000 feet and deployed”. So you not only somehow dock with your companion who is also blind and you locate them how?, but you then allow them “who cannot see their damn altimeter”, tell you when to pull and deploy. This took something bigger than brass cajones my friends.

4: Worlds longest freefall (in distance)

On November 1st 1962, at Volsk in Rusia, Eugene Andreev jumped from an altitude of 83,524 feet and free-falled until a height of 3,134 feet. That’s a massive 80,380 feet of total free fall, or to put it another way, just over 15 miles of falling through the sky, without your canopy deployed, at a speed of around 130mph assuming a regular neutral body position and a pretty big canopy on your back. Unfortunately I’ve been unable to find out exact details of this jump, but I can only assume it was done from a balloon with the jumper sitting there and crapping themselves the whole way up. Knowing how I feel in the plane when it’s only going up to just below 15,000 feet, I would empathise with this possibly psychotic individual, that is until we come to our last insane hero…

5: The highest parachute jump in history

In 1960, on Tuesday August 16th, Captain Joseph W. Kittinger with the United States Air Force, boarded the gondola Excelsior III and climbed to a height of 102,800 feet, nearly 20 miles, before jumping from it with nothing other than a canopy strapped to his back.
For those that can’t be bothered to click the image on the right for the bigger picture, the inscription on the ledge outside the gondola reads “This is the highest step in the world”. You know, there’s nothing like a little bit of reminding that you’re about to carry out something that is in nearly every psychiatrists book, certifiably bat shit crazy. Unfortunately Captain Kittinger doesn’t also qualify for the worlds longest or furthest free fall as he had to deploy a drogue chute behind him to stabilise the fall.

So, the next time you’re in the doorway of a plane at 14,500 feet wondering just what the hell you’re doing, have a think of some of the people who have gone before you, and remember, if the view doesn’t look like this, then you’re probably going to be okay.