Women’s World Record 2024

Perris Valley Skydiving, the venue for the last four Women’s World Records, again played host to an amazing group of women.

The event was the brainchild of Helaine Rumaner, a multiple world record holder, whose goals were to run a safe event, set a new world record, include many newer jumpers, and inspire the wider public with positive PR for our sport.

✅ A good job well done, all goals achieved, and this is how it happened… 

Helaine recruited the legendary Kate Cooper-Jensen to lead the base aircraft and the formation. Initially the plan was a 60-way out of three airplanes. However, there were so many highly qualified ladies applied the number grew to 72, taking over four aircraft – two Skyvans and two Twin Otters. The much-loved veteran skydivers Christy Frikken and Cathy Coon were recruited as plane captains, and me, Lesley Gale, as an external coach as I’m not jump-fit right now. I welcomed the chance to help this group make history.

The one and only Kevin Kierce ran a ‘Top Flite’ event, alongside the record, jumping with a group of 50-55 skydivers on a 3-aircraft load. They were mostly his regular group of stellar jumpers but he also took some ‘spare’ ladies who didn’t quite qualify for the women’s world record but were definitely there in the hope of lurking a slot! It was perfect that they joined Kevin’s group as that gave them multi aircraft and big-way experience.

The cameraflyers for the load seemed to be jinxed. It was intended to be Karen Lewis and Craig O’Brien – but Karen’s Mum and O’B both fell sick. Bruno Brokken tried to come to the rescue – but arrived at Barcelona airport with his wife Gaby’s passport! Thus missing his flight, though he arrived partway through and filmed the record jumps. Trunk (Mark Kirschenbaum of Hypoxic fame) came to the rescue, arriving on the first day to help out before going to Chicks Rock at Elsinore, with Carl Schwenk, Daniel Angulo and Kristian Caulder also doing a great job as cameraflyers throughout the event.

The plan, expertly crafted by Helaine, was a Full Break Sequential Record, where participants build multiple points, with everyone on the load dropping grips between each point (hence ‘full break’). To qualify for a sequential record, the formation must be at least one quarter of the single point record – the same rules apply whether the goal is a world, national or state record. The current single point Women’s World Record is a 181-way, also built at Skydive Perris, in 2009. So, the sequential record would have to be 46 or larger – but 72 seemed like a lot more fun!

We met in glorious sunshine with a forecast of the same blue skies till the end of the event – happy days! Our only problem was going to be the heat, and while temperatures in 3 digits were challenging, we were not inclined to moan, anything as long as we were airborne.

We made four jumps the first day, all from 16,500 feet, gradually improving the exit, the stadium, shuffling a few people and working out the jigsaw puzzle to get people in slots suited to their fall rate and ability. We achieved the goals of the day, which were:

• To work out a good fall rate for the group
• Get familiar with the exit signals and refine the timing from multiple aircraft
• Every person adjusting their tools to be in the middle of their fall rate range
• Positive safety culture with high awareness
• Teamwork – getting to know the load in the aircraft, the sector of the formation, the tracking groups and feeling that we were one big team working towards a common goal.

Having done such thorough prep the day before, the team was ready to skydive with just a short briefing. The group met at 7:30 am and took off at 8am. Because of a thin layer of cloud at about 15,000 feet, they circled for 45 minutes at 16,500 feet to try to find a clear skies. In the end they ran in at 14,500 feet. I was watching from the ground, quite anticipating a clusterfeck after so long at altitude, with the added mental challenge of cloudy wesather. The skydive was just beautiful. Stunning. Way the calmest skydive so far. Everyone coming smoothly in on their radials, with near perfect docks. 

The second jump wasn’t so great. ‘Let’s move on’, we said…

The third jump was oh so close to a record… or maybe even could have been a record, as all the grips were taken but the first person to track off left at virtually the same time as the last dock. 

It wasn’t convincing enough to be confident and it would take the judges a good while to watch the video and give us a decision. So, we went straight back up with a repeat jump. Close but no cigar. An unintentional rodeo took two people a looooong way down. We landed to the news from onsite judges Judy Celaya and Mary Traub that, although the previous jump had all the grips complete and in frame for a fraction of a microsecond, it was not sufficiently in control with hands stationary on the grips. I was secretly relieved; it feels far better to file a record with a great jump than with one which was questionable. Still, this skydive demonstrated we had the potential, as we were a ‘gnat’s cock’ away from success.

The fifth and final jump of the day had 69 ladies on and was again not far off. The group went to the Perris Bombshelter Bar for tacos, wine and a presentation by Jim McCormick from the Skydiving Museum and Hall of Fame. The Museum had specially-made commemorative coins for those ladies who had been on previous women’s world records as part of the Jump for the Cause organization, which was honored with the Path of Excellence award. Some ladies had just come from the Hall of Fame awards at Skydive Chicago, but those who couldn’t make it were recognized at Perris, which was a lovely touch. 

Jump for the Cause had set women’s world records at four separate events, in 1999, 2002, 2005 and 2009 – and raised over a million dollars for cancer charities. I found it astonishing that 14 years later so many ladies were still at the top of their game they were invited on the current record, making up roughly a third of the load. 

Could we repeat this success? While the presentation was going on, the organizing team, including Dan BC and Kevin Kierce, met and made a plan for the next day. We made the hard decision to downsize to aim to get a record, with the ultimate goal of then adding back those who had been removed and extra ladies from Kevin’s group.

This was a day of frustration, where every jump was just a whisker away from a world record. The first jump in the morning usually brings a sense of calm, with a feeling of a new start. The 66-way attempt was looking beautiful until a hard dock took someone out. The group still built the second point with those present, especially impressive as the 8-way base was incomplete but the whole formation still built around an open 7-way base. 

A quick swap of personnel from one position to another and the group went up for jump 2… almost perfect but an individual mistake robbed us of success. We took that person off the attempts and went up again. It was ‘showtime’ and there was no room for error. At a certain point a group has to commit and only go smaller.

Jump 3, a 2-point 65-way attempt was way the best skydive yet – but still with one person out on the first point. The second point built beautifully with 64 in formation, and was held for 6 seconds. By now the sequential move was dialled in. We had the time, we had the talent. Everyone had docked multiple times and built the second point – we all just needed to do it together, as Helaine reminded everyone. 

Every jump I felt that this was going to be The One. Very focussed dirtdives, electricity in the air walking out to the planes, goosebumps… but it seemed each jump had a teensy-weensy problem that snatched the record from us.

Jump 4 – now down to 64 … the jump was smooth, calm, a very quiet build. The first point was held for almost 3 seconds – just to be sure. Kate, running the centre, was well aware of the altitude, we had no third point planned, so she took an extra beat. It’s virtually impossible to check every grip from the centre, you just have to check what you can see and go with a feeling that any movement has stopped. The transition to the second point was smooth, clean, and they held the formation for 5 seconds. Everyone felt the magic. The screaming started in freefall, continued in the tracking teams, and went crazy under canopy. Everyone felt the vibe. While we knew the reality was that the judges have to check every grip on both points, and clear separation, it was a fantastic skydive. It had that magical, slow motion feeling of perfect calm, flying beautifully flat with no tension. 

The two on site judges Judy and Mary were checking the skydive and had sufficient confidence to forward the videos to the remote judge, Rina Gallo. While we were debriefing this gorgeous jump, Judy and Mary came into the room … the high-pitched chattering of these excited women instantly hushed to an expectant quiet… was it or wasn’t it a new World Record ?…

There are many ways of breaking such news… This time Judy simply said “Y’all owe beer!” The room exploded, erupting with screaming, cheering, hugging, huge smiles, incredible excitement and relief. 64 women hugged each other, the judges, cameraflyers and anyone else in the vicinity. When we finally left the team room, we found the Top Flite group had a surprise for us… they were waiting with a victory ‘tunnel’ for us all to walk through, getting hi-fives, kisses and congratulations all the way through. I liked it so much I made a second pass! 😉

The facilities at Skydive Perris include a lovely pool area, which was suddenly very full of elated ladies jumping in the water, throwing the organizers in, dancing, clapping and general happy shenanigans. Queen’s ”We are the Champions” was played on the speakers, with everyone singing along at the top of our voices. The release of so much tension after many days of concentrating in temperatures of 100+, plus the high of the world record gave a huge boost of adrenalin and excitement. For almost half the load this was their first World Record, always the best feeling of jubilation. 

Celebration Video

Video by Casey Pruett

Helaine had wisely decided to call it a day after this jump and let everyone celebrate… and celebrate we did! The record had been a long time coming, especially with so many jumps that were Oh-so-close. It’s always the same, the harder it is to set a record, the better the feeling is when it’s finally achieved. This group had given everything, persevered through the heat, the frustration, the exhaustion, the high altitude… they kept the focus and the record was very well deserved. 

If you don’t invest very much then defeat doesn’t hurt very much.. but wining is not very exciting

Dick Vermeil

Extra people were added to the load and four more attempts to set a larger record were made. Sadly, it was not to be. Although every jump was beautiful, small individual errors prevented another record. It was a reminder of how difficult this task was. 

Safety was excellent throughout the event, with just two non-eventful cutaways. There was one injury, a neck whiplash, due to a hard opening, but the lady affected should make a full recovery. And at least this occurred in the record-breaking jump, so she was still a World Record holder. 

Céline Pelletier quickly drafted and distributed a press release with photos and video. The record caught the attention of the media, resulting in numerous news and TV stories, featuring an excellent interview with organizer Kate Cooper-Jensen and participant Céline. This was fabulous publicity for our sport, and promoting women in skydiving. 

I found it incredible that out of the 64-way record there were 21 countries represented… we had ladies from USA, Switzerland, Mexico, Denmark, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Slovakia, Spain, Norway, Chile, Australia, Netherlands, Great Britain, Paraguay, Finland and Brazil. 

The skydiver with the lowest number of jumps was British Laura Maray with 439, and the highest Mary Bauer from USA, with over 24,000. The youngest person was 27 and the oldest 70. Lisa Walker noticed the record was her 6,464^th jump, a 64 way and she is 64 years old. Gotta be some kind of alignment there!

Kate Cooper-Jensen had previously shared that on every single women’s record she had organized there was always an extra body, as someone on the load was pregnant!  This once again proved to be true! Not only that, Marcie Anne had a newborn baby, she still jumped on every load while grandma June looked after the little one on the ground. 

The last women’s world formation skydiving record was set a decade ago, in October 2014, also at Skydive Perris, with Kate Cooper-Jensen heading up the organizing team. This new one – assuming it is ratified by the FAI – is the first women’s world record set in the Full Break category. When will we see a new one? Will the same organizing team try to break their own record in time? “Never again” said Kate Cooper-Jensen. But that’s exactly what she said last time! 😂

Video by Xiancam (Kristian Caulder)

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You’re Amazing!

The organizers would like to thank Robert Compton, the Women’s Skydiving Network, Alti-2 and Doug Pinkham for their generous support. We are also very grateful to the talented cameraflyers, super-helpful judges, cheerleading Top Flite, tireless Scott Latinis for legwork and uber-supportive Skydive Perris for giving so much to this record. 

I would personally like to thank the incredible team of organizers, such a pleasure, an honor and an inspiration to work with you – Kate, Helaine, Christy, Cathy, Kevin and Dan BC, you ROCK! And each and every participant, you worked so hard for this record, I admire and salute you!

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Example of TV News coverage

Featuring an interview with Kate Cooper-Jensen and Céline Pelletier…