High altitude, low opening skydive record set at festival
A skydive record for New Zealand has been set at the opening of the inaugural Lift Off Abel Tasman Festival.
Tasman resident, Wendy Smith, isn’t afraid of heights, open spaces or the cold – she thrives in them.
On the first afternoon of the two day aviation festival, Smith opened the occasion achieving New Zealand’s first HALO (high altitude, low opening) sky dive from 25,000 feet.
To put that in perspective, commercial flights traditionally reach 35,000ft and the highest tandem skydive altitude for Skydive Abel Tasman is 16,500ft.
Smith said a normal sky dive allowed
50 seconds of free falling before opening the parachute, but the increased height allowed her to fall for one minute and 50 seconds before drifting slowly down to earth under the chute.
She said the views from above were ‘‘absolutely amazing’’ as she jumped from the plane over the Tasman.
‘‘I can see coast to coast and I can see the North Island.’’
At 3,000ft off the ground, Smith opened her parachute, leaving a leisurely 3mins,
30secs to take in the last of the birds eye view before landing at Motueka Airport.
‘‘Twenty six minutes to climb, 1min,
50secs in free fall and 3.5mins to the ground.’’
A jump from such a height was no mean feat.
Smith had special oxygen equipment attached to her body, from Nepal, specially designed for HALO skydiving.
She said she breathes oxygen from the supplementary system from the moment the plane takes off until she lands.
Up that high, it’s also extremely cold. Smith said exiting the plane was -38 degrees Celsius, a temperature which required her hardcore thermals she used in the Himalayas.
No stranger to getting high, she holds 10 world records, two Guiness records and an EMMY Award for Best Remote Locations Cameraman.
‘‘A lot of my life I’ve been an aerial cinematographer all over the world.’’
She said her recovery after setting the record today consisted of a sit down and a cup of tea.
After doing more than 21,000 skydives, she said her next mission was ‘‘probably to see how high we can go’’.