A group of 10 Namibian skydivers set a new national record in a recent free fall at Swakopmund.
The Parachutists Over Phorty Society (POPS), was founded in 1966 in the United States, and refers to any skydiver that has reached the age of 40.
This is similar to other sport codes which for instance specify when a person has reached veteran or masters level.
Once a skydiver is 60 years old, they then join the SOS or Skydivers Over Sixty group.
More than 15 years ago, a group of POPS skydivers set a Namibian formation skydiving record in Swakopmund of seven skydivers linked together in free fall.
During October this year, a number of Namibian POPS skydivers attempted to break this old record at Swakopmund Skydiving Club. On the first attempt, eight jumpers linked up, but they were not satisfied with this and further jumps were planned.
On the third jump, a total of 10 POPS skydivers successfully joined in free fall to establish a new Namibian POPS record – which shows that ‘old birds can still fly.’
There are now quite a large number of POPS skydivers in Namibia and hopefully in the near future, this new record will again be broken.
The Namibian team that broke the record consists of Michael Louw, Gerrit Lambert, Derick Gey van Pittius, Ian Gillmer, Danie Nel, Thys Potgieter, Renier Viviers, Sven Gotz, Andre van Rensburg, Jannie Gouws, Meldin Nolte and Arno Kok. The camera men who accompanied them are Christiaan Oosthuizen and Pepe Ferreira.
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