Team Ripcord Skydiving pulled a World Record out of the bag , reward for their 16 months of planning, and making their participants very happy and proud.
##The Beginning
The 40-way base met at Skydive Perris, California, and practised their exit, build and break-off for 2 days, while other POPS jumpers were doing warm-up and preparation dives with local Perris RW Organiser Mark Brown and guest captain Guy Wright. Then the whole 132-person group met at Skydive Perris, California, on Thursday October, going straight to the planned 132way formation we had all received by email. 40 minutes later we climbed to 16,500 feet of our first record attempt – not bad going!!
##Preparation
For more than a year before the event, Kimbo Godwin and his team of captains had been working tirelessly on detail, recruitment and logistics, to have everything in place to make this event a success. This was to be the third event for Team Ripcord, who hold the current POPS Sequential World Record, set at their previous event. The aim was to beat the existing 120-way single point record, set in Deland Florida, with Roger Ponce organizing a group headed up by Carey Peck.
##The Players
The participant list included many famous names such as Kate and Carsten Cooper-Jensen, Bob and Mary Stumm, Jeff Jones, Yukari Hashimoto, plus a large number of lesser-known skydivers, just as willing if not quite as capable. Participants started at Phorty and included jumpers in their fifties, sixties, seventies and even eighties! I found it most interesting to meet a large number of big-way jumpers who were unknown to me, it’s always refreshing to see new faces. After the first couple of days we had bonded unto a team, most especially in each aircraft.
##The Captains
To be brutally honest, the jumps sucked on the first day and a half, mainly as the formation design led to a hideously slow fall rate that caught many people out. I have never seen so many people low on so many jumps in a row. The captains worked hard to direct their groups into polished performance, improving areas and moving people around. Captains included Dan BC, who ran the base group with Kimbo, plus Larry Henderson, Tom Webber, Guy Wright, Hal Spence, Jim McCormick and Tim Weible. I was expecting to see some FAI judges on the team, as we had the previous week for the Sequential202 but it was explained that, as POPS is not a recognised category for FAI Records, it was sufficient to self-judge.
The aircraft used in the fleet were mostly from Skydive Perris, with two Skyvans and five Twin Otters, flying in close formation by their super-practised pilots. By Saturday morning the performance of the group had improved sufficiently to raise the exit altitude to 18,500 feet. We spent an hour on creepers, dialling in the approach, docking sequence and grip detail.
##Beauty
We made a most beautiful jump first thing, almost complete, flying way nicer than anything so far. Suddenly, the group believed! We made 5 jumps on that day, with every skydive seeming to improve on the last. As Kate reminded us, now we were in the ‘completion zone’, where every skydiver on the formation had docked at one time, all sectors had completed, and now we needed for us all to do it at the same time. The fourth jump was a dream, no tension, flying level, but with just one person out. Thank goodness for the early start, time for one more attempt before the big party. This time…
##World Record
I had that feeling in the aeroplane, that this was going to be it. The feeling you want to have sometimes but just don’t, you can’t fake it. The jump was lovely, the build the nicest yet, I felt the least tension of any of the jumps. We tracked off, was it a record? Under canopy I risked a little whoop and holler. Whether or not a POPS record, it was simply a splendid skydive. I could hear others cheering under canopy, and we arrived back at the DZ to much back-slapping, hi-fiving and kisses, everyone anxious for the debrief to see if we had an achievement to celebrate that night. On reviewing the video, it was declared a successful new world record, a 125-way under POPS rules.
##Congratulations and Thanks
Congratulations are due to Kimbo Godwin and the Team Ripcord organizing team for their hard work and attention to detail on this event. The party on Saturday night featured food, beer and a mega raffle, with fantastic prizes including a Phantom helmet, coaching with Dan BC and – the big one – a Firebolt canopy donated by the Jump Shack. The raffle and participant list were coordinated most efficiently by Kimbo’s lovely wife and family, huge thanks go to them for their hard work and constant attention. Kimbo gave thanks to the companies that donated prizes for the raffle, to his captains and most of all to Skydive Perris, saying this was the perfect venue for large formation records.
##What’s Next?
In his final summation speech, Kimbo said that next time they would follow the format of the Australian Record and run a big-way camp just before the record attempts. About a dozen jumpers were cut from the load, almost all of these had good skills but were not performing the job for the team. A big-way camp prior to the event would help these guys deal with what was thrown at them, and make it onto the record jumps. See you then!
Event videos and photos can be found on Skydivingphotography.com
