After an awesome 40 way head down record success in 2007, the Babylon freefly crew are putting together another record attempt of 60+ skilled flyers from all over Europe at the Empuriabrava dropzone on the cost brava in Spain. The UK has the following participants registered to try out for the record attempts with many of the flyers having been on previous Euro* and World** records.
Matthew O’RIORDAN U.K.*
James DAVIES U.K. *
Martin REYNOLDS U.K.*
Will BLACKIE U.K.
Jim HARRIS U.K.*/**
Mark JOYNER UK
Claudio LETTIERI UK
Andy FORD U.K.*
Mike CARPENTER U.K.*/**
Andrew LOVEMORE U.K.
David JOYNER U.K.
Piers ROBERTS U.K
Richard FRAME U.K.
Laura KENYON U.K.** (female w/r)
Frazer SMITH UK
Daniel PARKER U.K.*/**
Andrew NEWELL U.K.*
Paul GOODMAN U.K.
The record attempts take place from the 6th – 10th June 2009 and we will be updating the blog with images and news as often as possible so check back for current information on how the event is proceeding.

image by Babylon freefly
Thursday 4th June. Arrived at Empuriabrava DZ after a wonderful flight with ryan air, it sais it all when the captain bounces the plane down the runway along with screams from nervous passengers.. sure woke me up! 3 freefly jumps from the otter with 17 other head down maniacs.. fast pace with the first swoop to the base touching 199 mph, closely followed by a 205 mph and a 210 mph, that sets me up as last stinger for about 8 seconds to dock and start the break off at 6000ft. So, looks like the aircraft will be 2 x twin Otter, 1 x Skyvan, 1 x twin beech and possible Pilatus Porter.. Thats an amazing capacity of 90 and 2 maybe 3 camera flyers!! Here are todays fun skydives OK! that should have been thursday 4th June on the video, it’s been a long day ha ha Come back tomorrow to see what’s going on in European record head down craziness… mean while here are some images of the day.
Ciao Fordy
- ready to dock
- On the way to 15,000ft
- Waiting for the briefing
- Checking the camera equipment prior to boarding
- Thoughtful
- “Blue steel”
Friday 5th June
Cloudy start with a little thunder and lightning to get us in the mood! ;-( now 9.25 and the first loads just gone up, french 4 way girls are training but not much else happening… what else did you expect from freeflyers!!! it’s 9.25 after all. The Brits are rocking up with Andy lovemore (S.A but token Brit) arriving late last night and Andy Newell arriving this morning, Claudio (Italian but token brit) Mark and David Joiner (S.A but token Brit) Piers Roberts (Canadian but token Brit) Frazer Smith, Fordy, Richard Frame, Laura Kenyon already here… It seems we treat our freeflying like our tennis and boxing with any nationality representing the uk as long as their from somewhere else, now where did Greg Rusedski go?? Will get back to you with some jumping soon before the rain comes…

22 way briefed and on a 20 minute call, weather seems to be playing along with the groups timings with cloud building between our loads and dispersing to glorious sunshine for take off, guess that’s what you get with the prevailing wind coming from the coast. Using a 4 way base with two 5 way pods we are looking to mimic the 4 way base from the 2007 euro record with 4 sets of 2 way wackers between the two 5 way pods, not enough flyers to link the wackers into a line yet but good practice for levels and group speed as this is only the 2nd jump of the day and the biggest so far. The break off has been split with 14 leaving at 6,500ft and the base 8 leaving at 5,000ft, with staggered pull heights that should give clear airspace for everyone.. it’s only ever going to get more crowded from here on in, now where is my velo 79!
Ciao for now.. Fordy
Weather issues I.E. crap weather have made the day fairly long and freefly free… the 22 way was?? hmmmm, to say the least quite a scary place to be! basic level issues and hard docking made the break off beeps a beautiful sound much as the bell at the end of round 1 with Iron Mike Tyson would have sounded..
Having done a 16 way since the scary 22 way we have now canned the final lift due to a 10,000 ft cloud base we have retired to the bar to ponder on just how hard the euro record could be to beat! let alone double in size. Here are the final 2 dives of the day, a 22 way and a 16 way both from 12,800ft with the first wave breaking at 6oooft and base + stingers at 5000ft.. Thats approximately 34 seconds from exit to complete the 22 way formation before 1st wave goes..
Latest arrival, Martin Reynolds from the Bad lieutenants freefly team.. Still a lot of “faces” to arrive yet. Also a huge “big up yourself’ for Kirsten McAndrew who with only 204 jumps was part of the base for all of the jumps today, Kirsten is a tunnel prodigy and it’s awesome to look across at someone with that amount of skydives mixing it up in the sky, nice one Kirsten!. That’s us for the day, the jumps start in earnest tomorrow with the babylon team looking to put together some nice skydives to check out all the flyers skill levels, let’s hope the axe is freshly sharpened and my next post isn’t from the bench! ha ha
ciao Fordy
Saturday 6th June 09:37 Official start to the practice jumps. A low cloud base along with a freefly style of communication to the masses sits upon us, in other words I have no idea what is going on yet.. lots of flyers arrived last night so a long round of high five greetings takes place over grande cafe americano, Mikey Carpenter, James Davies and Matt O’Riordan made a late arrival last night making the Brit pack a formidable sized group here at the euro record, did I mention Matt is South African.

Waiting for the briefing
Received a comment from someone on the youtube clips asking if the freeflyers track on their back because it’s more efficient? For those that don’t freefly in formations that’s a perfectly fair question. The break off is one of the most dangerous parts of the skydive, with a large proportion of the flyers leaving at the same time and looking to leave safely and get in to clear airspace to deploy as far from the centre of the formation as possible.
The break off starts with a 180° turn with out committing to any forward drive, once a clear path has been established visually, the flyers accelerates forward and change the angle/pitch of the body to convert the vertical speed of 170 mph into horizontal speed, momentarily back tracking before rolling over into a more efficient belly to earth tracking profile, this takes place in about a second and can create huge distances between the flyers. Problems occur when flyers turn and change the angle of flight before checking that the exit path from the formation is clear, collisions are dangerous with the speeds involved between static and tracking flyers.
Briefing has taken place and the base 6 to be used in the actual record attempts are off to burn up the atmosphere in their 15 way with Vince, the rest of the 70+ flyers have also split into 15 ways with various babylon team members. Danny parker has arrived minus rig thanks to low cost budget airlines and managed to lock what little he did have with him in the boot of his hire car along with the keys, so at least their is no change in the quality of freefly admin.
Aircraft
We have a great fleet of aircraft for the record attempts, Beech 99, twin otter, Skyvan, Porter… I will update images as I get the chance.

The 15 way groups are all either jumping or waiting for the call, all the basic skills being checked with tight fast exits, approach and docking, levels and grips, break off and track being all of equal importance.. This really isn’t the place to be practicing for a bigway, this is the place to be ready and waiting for the slot on the record.. i am sure their will be some decisions made throughout the day as the jumps get done.



















































































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