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 www.TheDesertSun.com
Jump for the Cause, is a skydiving event for women that raises money for breast cancer research
Jump for the Cause
Participants: 165
Support crew: 50
Aerial photographers: 2
Countries represented: 15
States represented: 24
California jumpers: 31
Aircraft: 8
Skydives during event: 50
Altitude of jump: 17,000 feet
Require oxygen: 15,000 feet
Time in free-fall: About 60 seconds
Youngest participant: 21
Oldest participant: 62
Average age: 37
Cumulative jumps: 1 million
Money raised for breast cancer research: $500,000
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Maggie Downs
The Desert Sun
September 28, 2005
"It's like the hand of God comes down and creates electricity," said Mary SantAngelo. "You feel it in your veins." That's the moment you have a world record, she said.SantAngelo should know. After this week, she will have three skydiving records under her belt.
That's the moment you have a world record, she said.
SantAngelo should know. After this week, she will have three skydiving records under her belt.
"When you get it, it's magic," she said.
She's part of Jump for the Cause, a skydiving event for women that raises money for breast cancer research - and is a record-breaking good time.
It all happens this week at Skydive Perris Valley, a drop zone about an hour away from the Coachella Valley, during which 165 experienced skydiving women from all over the world will jump together.
This gathering, organized by world champion skydiver Kate Cooper, will shatter the 2002 record of 131 women.
The modified pinwheel formation they will build during free fall is a paradigm of organization and precision. To bring it together requires eight aircraft, flying in a gooselike formation. At a precise moment, the women will leap from the planes and fly into predetermined slots, taking wrist or leg grips on the people around them.
Because people fall at different rates, the jumpers are constantly shaping their bodies to the wind - arching their backs to fall faster, rounding their bodies to float higher, using their legs, arms and hands to move around each other.
The result - a vibrant pattern of pink, yellow and blue jumpsuits - looks almost like a living, breathing starfish in the sky.
But that's the point of all of this work - vibrance and life.
The event began in 1999, the brainchild of skydiver Mallory Lewis - daughter of puppeteer Shari Lewis, who died of a breast cancer-related disease.
"We're astronauts, lawyers, doctors, mommies," Lewis said. "It's a full spectrum, coming together to do something friggin' amazing."
This year the group will raise $500,000 for the City of Hope breast cancer research institute.
"We are women and we take responsibility for our bodies and our health," Lewis said. "And we are powerful women, so we're making some changes in the world."
Skydiving world records
Largest free-fall formation by females: This formation of 131 women set the current record at Perris Valley during the 2002 Jump for the Cause event.
Largest free-fall formation: 357 people joined together in the air over Thailand in 2004.
Largest head-down free-fall formation: 53 skydivers simultaneously flew upside-down over Perris Valley earlier this year.
Most jumps by a male: Don Kellner has made more than 36,000 skydives since his first jump in 1961.
Most jumps by a female: Cheryl Stearns of North Carolina has more than 16,000 skydives. She has a total of 30 world records, including most parachute jumps by a woman in 24 hours — 352.
Oldest solo skydiver: Herb Tanner of Mayfield Heights, Ohio, made a solo jump at age 92. (Milburn Hart, 96, of Seattle was injured earlier this year in his bid to break the record, but the honor hasn’t yet been awarded.)
Busiest skydiving dog: Brutus, a miniature dachshund, has made 71 skydives with owner Ron Sirull. His highest jump was made at 15,000 feet.
Formation skydiving terms
Big-way: A formation consisting of more than 100 skydivers.
Relative work: Discipline of skydiving in which the jumpers free fall together to form a pattern or formation.
Base: The center of the formation to which the others fly.
Zippers: The skydivers who take grips on the jumpers within the base.
Loop: A line of skydivers that take grips to close the formation on both ends.
Anchors: The jumpers who take grips to connect people within the formation.
Whackers: Skydivers who join together in a formation and make a curved line that is only connected on one end.
Important altitudes for this record attempt:
17,000 feet: Skydivers jump from the plane.
16,000 feet: The center people are joined in the formation by all the zippers and some loops.
12,000 feet: Ideally, the formation will be complete with all 165 skydivers joined together.
6,000 feet: A skydiver in the center of the formation will deploy her parachute, the signal for people on the outside to begin separation.
1,000 feet: Begin landing pattern, which starts with the skydivers heading downwind.
600 feet: The skydivers turn left and move across the direction of the wind.
300 feet: Skydivers make the final leg of the landing pattern, turning left into the wind.
An average jump, from leap to landing, takes three to five minutes (it varies depending on the weight of the woman and the size of the parachute).
A woman is diagnosed with breast cancer every three minutes.
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