Pages

Most Tandem Jumps in 24 hours Record set by Skydivers

Chip Bowlin and Kristine Gould are both lieutenant colonels serving at Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base, but the mission they're on right now at Skydive City in Zephyrhills is a personal one.

They're setting the Guinness record for the most tandem jumps in 24 hours.

"We're going to do at least 150," Lt. Col. Bowlin said, "that's one every ten minutes on average."

But they'll try and make better time than that. To do it, they'll basically freefall down, pulling their canopy in close and spiraling down as fast as they can.

"The fastest we've done it is five and a half minutes," Lt. Col. Bowlin told FOX 13.

That's wheels up, to wheels up again.

"We are so ready to set this record!" Lt. Col. Gould said laughing, "We've been training for about nine months now."

Some people think they're crazy.

"First of all everyone knows we're crazy!" Lt. Col. Gould said.

It's just something they had to do.

"We have talked for a long time about our love of parachuting," she said. "We both really enjoy skydiving, working at SOCOM, in the military, we love being on the parachute team, when you combine all those things, doing a world record was pretty natural."

"We both said, 'I wonder what the record for tandem skydiving is,' " Bowlin said. "Guinness has a record for everything. So we got on the internet and started researching and found there is no record. So we said, 'Let's set one.'"

24 hours will be tough. Weather pushed them back more than a few hours. After that, it's endurance, stamina that will carry them and plenty of adrenaline.

The jump itself? They say it's no big deal, that part they can handle.

"It feels like you're flying," Lt. Col. Bowlin said, "People think, who've never jumped before, that it's going to be this big dip in your stomach like you get when you do a roller coaster ride.Nothing whatsoever like that, it's very loud, you feel the wind in your face. Actually in freefall you feel like you're floating."

And for them it never gets old.

"It's always a great ride down," Lt. Col. Gould said, "Chip and I have a great partnership a great friendship and we just enjoy the heck out of doing this."

Bowlin and Gould are raising money for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.

"It has supported the Special Operations community for the last 20 years," she said. "It's a security blanket that makes our job so much easier it is such a comfort knowing they're there."

Click here for donation information . All contributions go directly to the SOF Warrior Foundation and are tax-deductible. You can follow along with the attempt at the official blog: http://www.mosttandemjumps.com .




LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails