I don’t think any of us expected to get over 50! For the first ever attempt at a Head Up World Record we had no real idea what was going to happen. There were a lot of things to learn coming into the attempts. We were experimenting with Break offs, approaches, even how to fly the formation itself. All we knew was that we wanted to keep it safe and slow!
Too often with Head up formations we would find grips getting too high, the speed would increase making it too difficult to dock and, usually, would be way past the point of being able to slow it down. So the first order of business was to keep the speed manageable, which came from a speed controller in the base.
I literally had people laugh in my face when I suggested that we were going to try for something over a 40-way. One person even called me an idiot to my face
##Docking
Then we had to figure out at which level we wanted people to dock. We took the stance that both FS and Head down flyers dock the same as if it is a 4 way or a 100 way, so we also decided to dock like you would on a VFS jump, with your grip at or below shoulder height so you can see over the grip.
##Approaches
Approaches were generally the same as a head-down jump as we had people floating or diving in head-down to get to the formation. We just needed people to stop before transitioning to head up, rather than approaching and transitioning at the same time, as during the transition, you don’t have the control needed to perform any emergency avoidance manoeuvres or stops that may be required.
For the approach to the slot itself once in head up, we ended up adopting more of an FS ‘Stadium-style’ approach were you would slowly come down onto your dock from a shallow stadium-like visual. It made sense to adopt that style as both are technically head-up. When the formation was complete it would take on the appearance of a shallow stadium with the people on the outside of the formation higher referencing down into the center of the base and across to their cross partner. To give you an idea of the levels we had the pod closers of the first pods with their chest at the base head level.
##Break-offs
Lastly we had to deal with break offs. There was much back and forth on a 2-stage versus a 3-stage break off. The 3-stage would give us more vertical separation as you would have 3 different deployment heights based on which wave you were part of. A 2-stage break off would give more time between waves to track further and end up with more horizontal separation. In the end we went with the 3-stage break off at 7000ft, 5500ft and 4500ft, but we feel either would have probably worked just as well as the other.
Confidence out the window!
##Record attempts
So after 2 warm up days we went for the first of 3 Record attempt days. Those 2 days of warm up really gave us the opportunity to experiment and decide exactly how we would do things. Going into that first attempt on day 1 we had a lot of confidence. Cut to… less than a second after the exit of the first record attempt and the base exploded and was not able to get back together until right towards the end of the skydive. Confidence out the window! Although no one actually got to take any grips it was still a good warm up for the approaches using 2 planes. We also decided right there and then all future bases will warm up in the record attempt configuration the days prior!
Jump 2 was like night and day compared to the previous attempt. The 6 way base exited on heading, the 2 additional people broke in with no problems to establish our 8 way base, and the rest of the formation got pretty close to building! It was ON!!!
##Official Record – 44
From there the jumps just got better and better. Most of the issues we encountered were the standard issue bigway mistakes; people being off level or not referencing the base. Most of the problems could all be traced back to one of these 2 issues. Day 2 brought us our first 44 way Official Head Up World Record, after which we brought in most of what was left of the Bench team to make it up to a 52 on the last day.
##52-way # 1
After landing from our 4th attempt at a 52 way we noticed that one of the outside stingers had taken the wrong slot, a mistake we thought, that might cost us that attempt. From the base I could see the issue but was unable to communicate to anyone in anyway except to start shouting and shaking my head. While I was doing my best impression of an angry elf, the person who was originally supposed to be in that slot first tried to make the other first stinger realise his mistake. After that was unsuccessful went back and docked onto the original second stinger, who was now in the first stinger slot that the other first stinger should have been in.
So we got down, and checked the rules and as long as the formation was as we drew it, it still counted! The Judge confirmed that it didn’t matter who was in which slot.
##52-way # 2
But due to the confusion the eventual last grip of the formation was fairly short and it would take up to 2 hours to get a confirmation from the judges, by which time we would have lost people from the formation who needed to return home as it was now later Sunday afternoon. So we made a group decision to go straight back up while we still had everyone and really stick the formation, which is exactly what we did!
As it turned out the original 52 way was good enough for a record but knowing we went straight back up and held it for over 4 seconds made it that little bit sweeter!
Massive thanks to our AWESOME Organiser crew; Amy Chmelecki, Sara Curtis and Ryan Risburg; our record consultants Andy Malchiodi and Steve Curtis; our Bench Team Organiser Ty Losey; our EPIC camera crew Jason Peters, Greg Gasson, Mark ‘Trunk’ Kirschenbaum, Justin Price and Sam Baker; and the whole Skydive Arizona staff.
See Jason Peters image gallery
Whats up? Heads up… Upright World Records 2014, the 44-way and 52-way from the Zach-cam
