focus: Record mondiale!

World team skydiving record
400 jumpers fly on Thai sky

Since every time man loves defying his own limits, and often he manages to do it. Like these 400 para who achieved a dream, that of flying linked together in the world’s largest freefall formation. Not only it has been a success, but also a great international and no frontiers show: the skydivers came from 34 different nationalities, pushed by the common flying desire. Putting together cooperation, imagination and symbiosis, they expressed their greater passion and showed the world what man can do if overcoming his fears.

Record
There is no doubt the flyers had no fears to fall. They met in Thailand, and they performed 15 days of team jumps, linked together thousands of feet above Udon Thani area, chosed for the perfect meteo conditions. Starting from five C 130, they flyed on Thai sky forming a 400-way formation design, in the shape of a striking breathless 130 metres wide ring.
And there is even no doubt they have a great flying desire, as they all spent at least half of their life practicing parachuting activity. By the way, we are talking about World Team, a highly skilled international team composed of the best worldwide skydivers, camera flyers, pilots, judges, and support personnel.

This new record was planned by World Team ’06 and the Royal Thai Air Force to honor Royal family during the Royal Sky Celebration in 2006. And the record has been achieved with success, representing a great event for the history of this evocative sport, and at the same time a magic occasion for an astonishing show and even a multi-cultural meeting. Of course to achieve such a result all participants needed of years of practice and exercice jumps, as parachuting has complex skills that can take thousands of jumps to learn in safety.

Skydiving
The history of skydiving began with a descent from a balloon by Andrè-Jacques Garnerin in 1797. Skydiving has been used by the military since the early 1900s, while today it is performed over all as a recreational activity and a competitive sport.
World Team have established multiple world records since its genesis in 1994. In addition to pursuing sporting achievements, World Team strives to enhance global knowledge and interaction between its own culturally – diverse team members, who themselves represent 40 nations – and its host nation.
The news of this event has been published in the Italian magazine “Volare”, and we shall thank Will Pesek and Giovanni Mapelli of Volare for the pictures.