Jump, and jump, and jump again: Bend man shoots for single-day Oregon skydiving record
(Update: adding video, new info, comments from Horne and pilot)
Event set for June 15 at Madras Airport; current record of 40 jumps was set in 1986 in Southern Oregon
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- Most people are not willing to go skydiving once in their entire lives, but a Bend man plans on completing more than 40 dives in a single day, to set a new Oregon state record.
"I kind of knew before I even did it once that I wanted to do it forever,” Dan Horne told NewsChannel 21 Wednesday.
While you're talking to Horne on the ground, you really wouldn't be able to guess he's an extreme adventure-seeker.
The 39-year-old spends most of his time as a delivery driver for Franz Bakery.
When setting up the interview, Horne joked with NewsChannel 21, saying, "This makes me more nervous than skydiving."
When he’s in the air, everything changes.
“It's like being in a completely different world,” he said.
Horne went on his first skydive when he was around 18 years old.
“I had a large group of people that were going to go with me,” he said. “It turned out I was the only one that jumped. I loved it so much that I just had to keep doing it."
Fast-forward about 20 years. He's now jumped out of a plane more than 400 times.
Even with all that experience, Horne admits he gets nervous before every dive. In a few weeks, he’ll have that feeling fairly often, because on June 15, Horne will attempt to break the Oregon state record for most skydives in a 24-hour window.
The current record of 40 was set back in 1986 in southern Oregon by a man named Rodney Holberton.
Horne told NewsChannel 21 he hopes to set a new record by completing 45 dives in a single day.
"Oh man, I can't wait,” Horne said, with a smile on his face. “This is going to be amazing."
The typical height for a basic skydive is 10,000 feet. For the record, though, Horne will be jumping at 2,500 feet at the Madras Airport. The plan is to use one plane and one pilot, and rotate through three different parachutes.
Scott Allen, a pilot at Skydive Awesome in Madras, will be Horne’s right-hand man for the event.
“It will be cool to log 45 takeoffs and landings in one entry, and it will be great to be a part of history,” Allen told NewsChannel 21.
It’ll all happen very fast.
“I'm going to try to get in the plane, in the sky, back on the ground and in the plane again in under 10 minutes,” Horne said.
That's five to six jumps an hour. Horne's never done more than that in a single day.
He said it's worth it, though, to reach his goal of growing the sport.
"If I can do 45 skydives, you can do one,” Horne said.
Just a little motivation for more people to jump at this opportunity.
Horne plans on diving from 5:30 a.m. to noon on Tuesday, June 15. The public is invited to observe the event at their leisure, although state-required social distancing guidelines will be followed.
