164 Skydivers Link Up In The Sky Over Chicago To Set A New World Record For Linked Group Skydiving

If anything new and exciting is going to happen in extreme sports, you can expect to find Red Bull involved. Published on the Red Bull website is the story of a new world record being set for linked group skydiving.

The story of this event was told on red bull’s website by author, Kevin McAvoy. According to the story, for an event like this to be a world record it’s not just a case of 164 people linking in a random formation. The formation must be predetermined and it is carefully judged after the jump to assure that the formation was formed as designed and that complete links between skydivers existed.

Red Bull Air Force team members Jon DeVore and Mike Swanson were co-organizers of the event, along with Rook Nelson of Skydive Chicago. The article indicated that skydivers involved in this sort of an event are highly skilled and some even attend special training camps to assure they are qualified for this sort of activity. In this respect, it’s similar to aircraft organizations that require certain qualifications before allowing formation flights in their aircraft.

It was explained in the article that the formations are initially planned on the ground and then flights are taken with only portions of the formation that form the base planform; this might be 40 or 50 skydivers. This way, they can “test fly” the concept of the formation before trying the real thing.

Multiple aircraft were used during this record-setting event, and the initial exit altitude was between 18,000 and 19,000 feet. They descended in a heads down position with speeds reaching as much as 175 mph.

When team member Jon DeVore was asked for predictions regarding the next record, he is quoted as saying. “All I can say is that it’ll definitely be over 200. There’s no way we’d do it if we didn’t break the 200 mark, we’re way too close to it.”

(Image: screen clip from Red Bull website video)

FMI:Red Bull web site