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♪ ♪ DAN: There's still nothing like climbing out of an airplane and letting go of it.

♪ ♪ BETTY: The sensation of flying in the air is exhilarating.

♪ ♪ NORM: For a period of time, we forget we're falling, and we feel like we're flying.

MICHAEL: Every jump is like a little vacation.

DAN: You can't put a finger on what type of person jumps.

The type of person that jumps is the person who has dreamt about flying and had the courage to go out there and try it.

♪ ♪ MAN: Whoo!

MAN: Yeah, nice skydive!

Nice.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (cheering) ♪ ♪ DAN: My name is Dan Brodsky-Chenfeld.

I am the manager of Skydive Perris in California.

I've competed around the world and won several national and international championships.

♪ ♪ I've been jumping for 42 years.

(softly): Wow.

♪ ♪ Skydive Perris is one of the largest skydiving centers in the world.

We have people that travel from all over the country to enjoy the sport.

Skiers go on vacation to Colorado.

Skydivers come on vacation to Perris, California.

♪ ♪ My name is Kate Cooper-Jensen.

Some years ago, Dan BC and I started to coach and educate skydivers.

Our specialty is large-formation skydiving.

We take jumpers from around the world, and we help them build beautiful formations in the sky.

DAN: We do camps to teach people how to do it, and we organize large-formation records.

♪ ♪ (people talking in background) ♪ ♪ (people talking in background) MELANIE: It's always exciting to host a record, you know, a world record at that.

But this group in particular, uh, it, it does pull on my heartstrings, because I'm proud of them.

These people have been doing it for many years now, and they're healthy and they're happy and they're vibrant and they love life, I think a little bit larger than most.

KATE: It's the first time I've ever seen people want to do an S.O.S.

dive, 'cause usually, it's, like, "Oh, those are the old people."

And all these young guys-- you know, young being 59, but into the 40s-- are going, like, "We want to go, too.

This is so cool."

DAN: We've got men and women from all around the world who are coming to be a part of it.

South America, Europe, Canada, Asia.

BEN: Australia.

I think there's seven of us Aussies here at the moment.

We all sort of know each other.

(speaking German): I have jumped, like, in 30 countries around the world.

I think I will quit on my last breath.

DAN: Good morning.

ALL: Morning!

I'm just gonna sit here and, uh, glow for a second, looking up at the whole group.

Sometime in the middle of last year, somebody said, "Hey, your birthday is coming up.

You're gonna be 60 soon."

I was, like... "I guess I am."

(others laughing) You know?

And we said, "Hey, anybody want to do the S.O.S.

record next year?"

And everybody basically said they were in, because, just like me, most of you guys woke up sometime in the last few years and discovered you had turned 60.

(others laughing) All right, so here's, here's the plan.

(voiceover): The goal is to build the world-record largest free fall formation that a group of jumpers over 60 have ever done.

Try to explain this to, to people who don't jump.

"What are you guys trying to do?"

"Well, we're gonna try to all "touch each other in free fall at the same time for a second."

"And you're traveling from around the world "and across the country and paying thousands of dollars to do that?"

"Yeah.

"Yeah, yeah.

(others laughing) And we do it all the time and we really dig it."

(laughing) (voiceover): We're gonna try to put together 110 jumpers.

The formation looks like a snowflake, and in the air, lasts about as long as one.

It's a terribly difficult thing with any group, with any group at all.

♪ ♪ Imagine seeing five different airplanes flying in formation at 17,000 feet.

100-plus people all exit individually, bodies everywhere, And you have to find your place in this formation.

Every person on the jump has a very specific slot that they need to go to, and they can't be in different spots.

So one at a time, people start docking out there, and they're gripping somebody's arm or gripping somebody's leg.

They've gotta be in the right spot and on the right limb.

If one person is in the wrong position, we don't get it.

And you've got roughly, you know, 50 seconds for everybody to exit the airplanes completely separate, figure out where they're supposed to be, fly together, build this predetermined formation, and fly away from each other to go save their lives.

Every time I see it, I think, "I can't believe we can do this.

It looks impossible."

We do it, but it looks impossible to me every time.

(in meeting): Those few seconds, that's worth everything.

It's worth all the jumps you've done before.

It's worth the trip here.

It's worth living till you're 60.

(others laughing) All right?

(voiceover): Everybody that's on the jump had to apply for a spot and be selected from the whole group.

We have over 700,000 jumps between us.

I think for most of the participants, it's a big deal.

We're attempting to break the current record, which is 75.

I was fortunate to be on that one, also.

DAN: It's something they really, really want to be a part of.

Being able to make a statement of, of, "Look at what we can do at 60 years old-plus," means a lot.

They don't want to go home without it.

(chuckling): They, they don't want to leave without it, for sure.

BETTY: Well, there's a special camaraderie in world records.

People from all walks of life that choose to do something that they find, dare I say, childlike.

Still fun, I mean, why should you give up the fun of childhood just because you're an adult?

DAN: I remember just watching Superman fly or watching birds fly through the sky, and just thinking, how incredible would that be?

And I remember as young as, whether it was five or six years old, thinking to myself, "I'm gonna fly like that.

I'm gonna fly like that as soon as I can."

♪ ♪ MIMI BRODSKY-CHENFELD: Look at these pictures, Dan.

(Dan laughs) They are just-- wait till you see the kids.

DAN (voiceover): I was born in Albany, New York.

My mother, and father, as well, really encouraged us to follow our passions, follow our interests.

Unfortunately for her, that turned out to be skydiving for me.

(chuckles) When I first found out about the skydiving, he said, "Mom, I got a job for the summer.

"I'm gonna be living in a tent and I'm learning to pack parachutes."

I'm, like, "What the hell is this about?"

He had already been skydiving, like, about 20 or 30 times, but we didn't know it.

He says, "Now, Mom, don't do anything to embarrass me."

I went, "Hell, no, I'm gonna embarrass you."

I said, "Where is he eating?

What kind of food is he going to have?"

I did this whole Jewish mother shtick.

He said, "Mom, please."

And there were all these skydive people going, like...

"Ooh."

What do you do?

He was so happy; he lived in his tent.

I say he lives in the sky.

That's what he does for a living.

What I usually say is, he's reached great heights in his business.

(laughing) ♪ ♪ This is scarier than skydiving.

(voiceover): You tell me that someone is 70, I picture someone with a cane.

But I'm not 70.

Maybe that in years, but I don't consider myself that age.

My first jump, I was pretty well hooked.

I mean, it was exhilarating.

It's a bit terrifying at first, too, I have to admit.

But it just grew on me.

♪ ♪ I'm a retired physical education teacher.

My mother swam a quarter of a mile until she was 90, at least.

She was absolutely adamant that her girls would have sports when there were all kinds of things for boys.

I did springboard diving.

I had four world records in backstroke.

♪ ♪ Exercise is the spice of life.

I mean, it's health.

That's my philosophy.

You can't just get up off the couch and expect to skydive.

You need to be physically fit enough to be able to withstand 120 miles an hour falling.

I'm one of the oldest people in the group, so I bike 3,000 miles a year.

It's just a drive to be better.

I mean, doesn't everyone want to do that?

DAN: Not bad yesterday at all.

BETTY: Thank you.

It's my goal.

Why do people my age jump?

We're not ready to give it up.

My parents were missionaries in Thailand.

My first jump was in 1975.

Military surplus canopies, very little control.

You were just at the mercy of the wind.

After my wife and I got married, we moved to Bangkok and I worked there as a Christian missionary for 25 years.

I'll be one of the five plane captains.

There are inherent risks in skydiving.

There are losses, there are disappointments.

I try to view those losses and those disappointments through the eye of faith.

It helps me to value the time that I have with other people.

I'm very grateful for those opportunities.

And if I can use my faith and my values to impact my skydiving, I think that would be good, as well.

KATE: We're gonna try and go again, guys.

(voiceover): I skydive for a living.

Most people do not guess skydiving as a profession, but it's sort of where my life has taken me.

I'm originally from Virginia.

I was always the kid who jumped off the hay mow in the barns, and when everybody else was dressing their Barbies, I was out, you know, wrestling with the horses.

I was in university, first year, and a bunch of people were gonna go out and make a parachute jump.

One little problem: I was 17.

Well, I faked my mother's signature on the waiver and made my first jump.

It was in 1978, and it was the most incredible thing I'd ever done.

And I got to the ground and went, "I want to do it again!

I want to do it again!"

And everybody else is going, like, "Let's get a beer."

(laughs) And I did it again, and again, and again.

(people laughing in background) Hi!

MICHAEL: I have seven grandkids.

(talking indistinctly) MICHAEL: I don't know if they'll ever grow up to become skydivers, because I think they're a little terrified, but... (laughs) I don't know if I can ever do that.

That's so... (groans) GIRL: Yeah, that sounds hard, yeah.

MICHAEL: Once you learn how to do it, it's a lot of fun.

I was a middle school guidance director.

Going over to Auburn High School, the stadium, it was full of people.

And I was wondering, what in the world is going on?

♪ ♪ And the first member of the faculty I ran into was one of the Army ROTC instructors.

And he had a big smile on his face, said, "We're here to see an exhibition by the Golden Knights."

That's the U.S. Army parachute team.

♪ ♪ And as I was watching it, I start thinking, "Man, I wish I could do that."

The rest is history.

I turned 70 in December.

I can't believe I'm still jumping this long and enjoying every minute.

♪ ♪ NORM: I am a skydiving cinematographer and director of photography, and I just love what I do.

(wind whipping) It's how we get to share our beautiful sport with the world.

Without everything pipelined through the cameraman, you don't get to see it.

It was in Mexico when I started jumping.

I was raised in Mexico.

Right away, I started making my own helmet and, and putting a camera on there.

♪ ♪ And that feeling is still what drives me today.

This is a Red camera, which is a high-quality video camera.

I also have a still camera with a trigger that I push with my tongue.

(shutter clicking) I've worked on films like "Terminal Velocity" and "Navy SEALs," with Charlie Sheen.

I jumped into the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Korea.

We built the Olympic rings.

When you jump, it's all a great example for life.

There are so many things that fears stop us from doing, even relationships and jobs and moving and trying new things.

And that's one of the things that I think the sport gives you, is, you're in the door and you're going, "Man, I don't know what's gonna happen."

And then you just let go.

And on the other end, you're just going, like, "Yeah, that was worth it."

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ DAN: The S.O.S.

community, we get a lot of crap from the younger skydivers.

But this sport really isn't much older than we are, and we've been around for a lot of it.

Skydiving really started becoming a sport in the '50s, and it was referred to as sport parachuting at that time.

It mostly was guys coming home from Korea, World War II, who were paratroopers, thought to themselves, "You know, if nobody was shooting at us, this could be fun."

♪ ♪ And at that point, you know, the sport was just "fall straight down."

Then they learned to actually hook up.

So I really got to start right during that whole transition when sport parachuting was becoming skydiving.

And there's a, a big part of the sport now is just piloting your parachute.

♪ ♪ The things you can do.

Aerobatics with a parachute.

The canopy piloting is commonly called swooping, because that's how it sounds.

There's also free flying now, where they're either vertical head down or, or head up.

There's angle flying, there's large-canopy formations.

♪ ♪ Now we have people in wingsuits.

In all, there are 15 skydiving disciplines.

None of them existed when I started.

The first discipline that really pulled me in was the four-way formation skydiving, which is just incredible.

You have 35 seconds from the time you exit the airplane to go through five or six formations for each jump.

There's also eight-way formation skydiving, 16-way formation skydiving.

And then there is large formations, or big-way skydiving.

The records for this are really the pinnacle of skydiving, where you really see what's the whole community capable of right now.

And that's the challenge we've taken on for this over-60 community, and in this very short window that we have to hold this event.

♪ ♪ We've got about... Four jumps a day is the most that we can realistically do.

We've got a minute per jump.

KATE: Come up here, no reason for... DAN (voiceover): We have four days total, and then four minutes a day to get this right.

And that's if we're lucky.

Well, the things that can go wrong are legion.

Weather, of course, is probably the single largest thing that we deal with.

Mechanical issues-- we have aircraft.

Personnel-- we have 110 people, so we need people to make their mistakes early or not make 'em at all.

♪ ♪ MAN (over loudspeaker): S.O.S., full gear.

Full gear to your dirt dive.

Full gear to your dirt dive, guys, You're on 25-minute call.

DAN: The first day, before you jump, it takes quite a bit of, of preparation so everybody really understands the plan.

We're gonna be doing a lot of what we call dirt diving, which is just practicing the skydive on the ground.

Visualization in skydiving is, is key.

If you're gonna spend the day practicing golf, you'd probably hit 1,000 golf balls.

You spend the day skydiving, you're gonna skydive for four minutes.

(at airfield): We're just gonna do a couple of walkthroughs.

Super-calm, focused, me talking as little as possible.

Put your head right where you know it needs to be.

Back it off to the exit frame.

We create the skydive basically in our brain.

And the exit frame is where we're going to be, say, three to five seconds after exit.

DAN: Remember this exit frame picture so we can go right back to it every time.

Come on in.

LARRY: We practice on the ground so that we know what the traffic flow is, because we don't want any collisions.

BETTY: You need to know exactly at what angle you approach the center.

You need to know exactly what the people in front of you look like, or you won't know how to find them in the air.

And that should be fairly easy, because skydivers over 60 tend to wear very colorful jumpsuits.

LARRY: You want to go through in your mind exiting the aircraft, presenting your body to the wind out of the airplane, diving down.

I try to close my eyes and picture myself making a good approach to my slot in the formation.

Stopping where I'm supposed to, to stop.

(wind rushing) DAN: Be in the spot you want to be in.

Take that breath.

Grips.

Practice it perfect, every time.

♪ ♪ KATE: With the dirt dive, we also practice the break-off sequence.

Arguably the most important part of the skydive.

DAN: You're leaving on the kicks.

Okay?

BETTY: The break-off comes from a kick from the people in the middle.

That means that you better start leaving right now.

DAN: Break off.

KATE: And then, if I am the tracking group leader, I will lead them out.

It's kind of like a mother duck.

Then all the little baby ducks will come in and follow me.

And this will give us space to safely deploy our parachutes.

That was awesome.

(laughs): One, two, three, love it.

One, two, three... ALL: Love it!

DAN: All right, let's take it to the planes.

MAN: To the gate!

DAN: To the gate!

You guys, to the gate.

KATE: Something completely different.

♪ ♪ (wind gusting) DAN: By the time we were done with the plan, the winds had gotten up higher than it is safe to skydive, and we have to have certain safety limits.

There's a certain number, and if it's over that number, it's just too dangerous.

We'd get blown all over the sky.

(talking in background) DAN: The, uh, winds just went again, and, uh, we're about to run out of usable time.

We lost some jumps today.

But while you guys are here, somebody brought me this book, and I'm just gonna read to you guys for a little while.

(laughing) DAN: It ups the ante here-- it ups the odds a bit.

We've got four days that the event was scheduled for, and we lost day one.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ You guys ever hurt?

I do, like, the safety briefing.

(murmuring) MAN: Don't die.

(others laughing) DAN (voiceover): Most of the time, it's a big sky and there's plenty of space for everybody.

But with 100 people, the sky is a lot smaller.

I really want you to think about expecting everything that can go wrong to go wrong every jump.

(voiceover): It is not inherently a safe sport, but it is a sport that can be done safely.

All right, today we're gonna be using oxygen in the aircraft, 'cause we're going to a high altitude.

You're all gonna be assigned a nasal cannula.

It goes into the nose, over the ears, and then out.

Leave it on as long as possible.

The higher we go, the more prone we are to hypoxia, which is the lack of oxygen in the blood.

It's not a good thing.

I've seen hypoxic people.

They've stood up and literally fallen over as they were going to the door.

So keep on the oxygen as long as possible.

We're a team, we're a family.

We need to stay safe together.

♪ ♪ MAN (on loudspeaker): S.O.S., this will be your ten-minute call.

S.O.S., ten minutes.

DAN: The first jumps, we're not even gonna try to do the formation, we're just gonna try to get all the information.

Human beings do not naturally fall at the same speed.

BETTY: The heavier guys have to be able to fall with the lightweights like me.

If you don't fall at the same rate, you're never gonna get together.

And that's very discouraging.

And so, many of them wear floppier suits to slow them down.

I wear a lead weight belt to speed me up.

MAN: Hey, come on out, guys.

(talking in background) MAN (on speaker): All right, Shark Air five, let's have you geared up and in the loading area, Shark five.

♪ ♪ (engine starts) (on radio): Good afternoon, Shark.

MAN (on radio): Afternoon.

MAN (on radio): Copy, one, five to nine, southeast, good to go.

MAN (on radio): Are you guys all ready?

MAN (on radio): Papa Victor ready.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (exclaim) DAN: There's different parts of the formation that require different types of flying skills.

You know, if we're gonna be playing football, well, the fast, light person is gonna be a better wide receiver.

We have the same thing in skydive.

♪ ♪ I've got the role of being the super floater, which, my job is to go a little bit early.

KATE: And as soon as the super floater leaves off the lead aircraft, the other four aircraft will start their exits.

♪ ♪ DAN: Right after the super floater goes, the eight-way chunk-- eight connected people-- come off the plane.

They anchor the base group.

There has to be a strong core so people can approach it with confidence.

And we need to have people who can get to that quickly.

MICHAEL: I'm part of the, uh, 40-person base group, which is what the formation is gonna build around.

I'm very happy to be last out.

I love to dive.

I launch myself and then I angle down toward the formation, put my hands by my side, and go as fast as I can.

The assembly, assembling everybody into the stadium, is one of the biggest tricks of this.

'Cause if you can't get everybody into the stadium, you're not gonna get the formation.

If you imagine an arena, when you come out of your dive, you're in the cheap seats.

And what you want to do is work your way down to the V.I.P.

seats.

You stop, pick up grips, and then you have become part of the base, whether you're 41st or 110th.

♪ ♪ DAN: And then the break-off will start, usually about 6,500 feet.

We all have little things in our ears that go, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

(device beeping) But we're also waiting for a key from the center.

'Cause you don't want to be that guy who leaves when you hear beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, as the 110th person is picking up the grips.

(device beeping) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ MAN: How'd it go?

How'd it go?

DAN: That was a good first jump.

Yeah, figuring out the fall rate.

You know, biggest thing is getting 110 people all falling at the same speed.

Then people can make some equipment adjustments and ready to go.

♪ ♪ (faintly): Have a great skydive, have fun, and be safe.

(calling faintly): Everybody ready?

(others respond) DAN: Take your time, take your time.

No rush.

Have a great jump, guys.

♪ ♪ Ready!

Set!

(with others): Go!

LARRY (faintly): All right, have a good jump.

Deep breath.

(all breathe deeply) Then a deep breath.

♪ ♪ MAN (on radio): Green light in three, two, one, green light.

MAN (on radio): Green light, exit, exit, exit.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (device beeping) ♪ ♪ Hell, yeah!

Whoo!

Whoo!

Yes!

MAN: Yeah!

We got it, I know we did!

KATE: Feel like a world record holder.

We have to see the video, but I think so.

Uh, looked great, looked great.

At least everybody thinks they were in the right spot.

I've got four other captains who have a ton of experience doing large formations like this.

We'll be looking at four different videos to debrief the scout-outs, what actually happened?

How did it go?

It was a great jump, guys-- wow, wow.

That was the first attempt.

KATE: Yeah-- one and done, baby?

(Dan and Kate laugh) DAN: That was great.

That was great, man.

The, the eight-way chunk was, was right on, right on.

Uh, the fall rate was comfortably just that bit faster.

Everybody docked.

MAN: Yes!

DAN: Not all at the same time.

(others laughing) All right?

LARRY: As it turns out, we needed another one or two seconds, which we didn't have.

Close it, close it, close it.

Close it, he's on, close it.

Close it, close it, close it.

He's still on, close it, close it, close it.

He's off, now it's closed.

(others murmur) LARRY: That was not a record, but boy, that was really close.

The first thing we did when we came down is went and hugged the guy that, that wasn't in the formation.

He's not being blamed.

(laughs) KATE: The social element of skydiving is one of the things that I think keeps people in the sport year after year, decade after decade, because you find your people.

MICHAEL: When I go skydiving, I'm on the ground with people more than I'm with them in the air.

You know, for a long time, I would be just about the only person of color on the drop zone, but, uh, I always fit in with the, with the community, and that made the difference.

DAN: Skydivers are an amazingly diverse group.

We've got doctors, lawyers, mechanics, landscapers, janitors, teachers, nurses.

There's people who are billionaires.

There's people who live in their vans in the parking lot.

You walk onto the drop zone, nobody cares.

Big cool points.

JOHNNY: It's more than a friendship.

It's like a brotherhood.

So we come and we kiss each other and we have a lot of love for everybody.

KATE: I'll come back to Cuautla, you come to Perris, okay?

JOHNNY: I will.

Once we complete it, this will be my 15th world record.

There's a lot of talent on this group, so for sure, we're gonna get it.

♪ ♪ WENDY BURCH: So I am here in the beautiful Perris of Riverside County, and take a look around-- ladies and gentlemen, I am in the midst of a world record.

That's right, it's gonna happen, right, guys and ladies?

OTHERS: Yeah!

BURCH: Is there a 78-year-old person in the house?

Oh, Betty.

WOMAN: Betty!

(Burch laughs) BURCH: Betty, how long have you been skydiving?

BETTY: 24 years.

BURCH: Okay, why in the world-- you took up skydiving... BETTY: It's the most exciting thing I've ever done.

BURCH: And you didn't start this until you were in your 60s, girlfriend.

BETTY: No, no, no, I was in my 50s.

BURCH: Oh, well, excuse me!

BETTY: I'm not, I'm not 85.

Yesterday was such a good feeling in that formation, that was so calm.

What can I say?

I mean, you just know you're gonna have success.

MAN (on speaker): Okay, S.O.S., you are on a now call.

Go to your aircraft.

S.O.S., you're on a now call.

KATE: Calmness.

It's a good, good trait to have.

MAN (on radio): Are we inside two minutes yet?

MAN: Yeah, let's go two.

MAN: Two minutes.

You have to teach yourself to be calm while you're hurtling towards the Earth.

(heart beating steadily) DAN: And in that kind of a sense, it's a very therapeutic activity, as well.

To just be able to clear your mind like that.

MAN (on radio): Formation two minutes.

(steady heartbeat continues) (breathes deeply) MAN (on radio): All right, let's start a real gradual turn.

MAN: Copy.

MAN (on radio): Coming to the back just a bit.

Go ahead and get the door open.

(door creaking) (breathing deeply) DAN: It almost makes me laugh when I hear people say skydivers had a death wish.

If we had a death wish, we'd be dead, right?

It's really easy to kill yourself jumping out of an airplane.

(heartbeat accelerates) (heartbeat galloping) It's not about a death wish.

It's about a life wish and living life to its fullest.

(galloping heartbeat continues) Sometimes meaning taking those risks, if the risks can be calculated and what there is to gain is so far more than what there is to risk.

MAN (on radio): And we're gonna green light in three, two, one, green light.

(heartbeat continues) BIRGIT: I just love that feeling of stepping off the door and getting that lift.

(heartbeat racing) DAN: From the moment I exit an airplane until my parachute is open, there is nothing else on my mind.

For that moment, for that minute, I am completely free, completely present in just what I'm doing.

MICHAEL: The visuals are breathtaking.

Your heart's pumping a million miles an hour, but you're telling yourself, "Slow down, take it easy.

"Get level with the formation.

Pick up the grips and fly your slack."

NORM: And I get to be showing that, showing how beautiful you are.

(people exclaiming) They already jumped!

WOMAN: Oh, there it is.

(people cheer) (murmuring) (cheering and exclaiming) WOMAN: Oh, my gosh!

That is awesome, babe.

(woman cheers) Wow.

(people talking in background) MAN: Michael, how'd it go, man?

MICHAEL: Not this time.

DAN: Everybody's there, right?

KATE: Ooh, boy-- Pat attacked it, but... PATRICK: Oh, what a shame.

What, so, do you think about switching this guy who is, um, Kent from Cools?

I think that's a good call, actually.

DAN: Well, if we have to talk about it this much... KATE: Yeah... DAN: ...it's probably the better idea.

KATE: My role as a captain throughout the dive is to see what we can improve.

Do we need to move people around?

Maybe they'll be better if they're swapped in different slots.

DAN: If we have Kent go here and right behind Perry.

And that all works-- yeah, yeah, yeah, yep, yep, yep.

KATE: This is technically how the learning curve goes, is, you get little, silly mistakes at the beginning, but people learn, and the trick is to learn from other people's mistakes.

I'd rather you take an extra second to really lock in.

It's always quicker to do it right the first time.

Mary is going to move over to take Tom's slot.

We're only gonna have two here.

Just make sure your primary picture is who's straight across from you.

MAN: Right.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (wind rushing) ♪ ♪ DAN: She's miles above stopping.

KATE: Her body position's telling me she's scared of fall rate.

DAN: Uh-huh.

Now, we only invite people who we know can do it, but there's times that somebody has a bad day.

He needs to get up in the stadium, man.

He's crawling in there, but he's... (clears throat) KATE: I'm sorry, we've got potentially three empty slots and issues here.

I didn't know why you didn't dock.

I came down and built it and stayed right there.

MAN: Yeah, you did.

KATE: Climb out-- climb out of that hole you dug.

BETTY: You get down to the nitty-gritty on the third day, and there were more people that didn't quite match the fall rate.

♪ ♪ KATE: You only have one day more, which may or may not be good.

Uh, this is your damned if you do, damned if you don't.

We, it's not a spring chicken group.

DAN: There's times that they're just not up to what they need to do, and at times, we have to cut them.

Uh, but we hate to do it.

It really just ruins the morale of the whole group, and that's not what we're aiming for at all.

We try to avoid that at all costs.

KATE: We chose the slot for them, and if they didn't perform, I feel that I've done something wrong.

DAN: I know there's no one out here I'm saying needs to be taken off.

But if we think they're totally on the edge...

This needs to be the next step.

DAN: ...it needs to be considered.

LARRY: Well, if we were to walk down that road, the three weakest people were those three.

KATE: Should we start a short list?

Of weak people?

DAN: I mean, we have it, right?

Tomorrow is the fourth day in a row for all of us.

The first jump of the last day.

We're gonna do the record and move on.

All good?

(others cheering and applauding) DAN (voiceover): I've been to a lot of competitions and world championships and national championships, and I far prefer winning.

Winning's better than losing-- I've tried them both a lot, and all things being even, I'd rather win.

MAN: We're not waiting till next year.

We got, we gotta do it today.

We got to do it today.

BETTY: It's going to be today.

MAN: There you go-- beautiful, look, a beautiful sky.

It'll be good to go home with something.

BETTY: Oh, my, it'll be fabulous to go home... You can't go home without anything.

MICHAEL: I'm gonna celebrate tonight at Texas Roadhouse with a big porterhouse.

MAN (laughs): Yeah.

BETTY: Sounds good to me.

MICHAEL: That's what I'm looking forward to.

(voiceover): This is our last day, it's crunch time.

When I got in the car to come out here, I put on my '70s R&B channel, 'cause I'm old-school like that.

And the first song that came up was "Ain't No Stopping Us Now."

("Ain't No Stopping Us Now" by McFadden and Whitehead playing) ♪ Ain't no stopping us now ♪ ♪ We've got the groove ♪ ♪ ♪ I know we can do this.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ LARRY: That wasn't our best jump.

We landed on the other side of the runway, on the other side of the highway, and, uh, we had people low on the formation.

We had some collisions.

It was kind of discouraging, 'cause we were, I thought we were ready for this morning.

KATE: Hey, guys.

We've already had an amazing event, but we're not in the record books yet.

Who wants to be in the record books?

(all cheer) KATE: This is where we need to dig deep for the perfect skydive.

Then, all of a sudden, the impossible becomes the achievable and becomes fact.

We've got one more jump.

One jump to make history.

♪ ♪ Are you guys good with that?

OTHERS: Yeah!

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (wind rushing) ♪ ♪ (sirens wailing) KATE: Uh, there's an injury in the south field.

I don't know the status, but he is alive, conscious, and talking, so... MAN: Okay, that's a good... KATE: Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah.

DAN: He, just as they were, the last couple of minutes, he was starting to become more alert.

He, he took way longer to come back from someone who was just hypoxic.

KATE: Interesting.

DAN: Right?

And he, there doesn't seem to be any major injuries at all.

KATE: Mm-hmm.

WOMAN: ...is a good friend of mine.

DAN: Yeah, yeah, he seems to be, like he's doing okay.

We think, um, maybe the O2 came disconnected, 'cause he may have been having a problem with that.

WOMAN: Right.

DAN: But he said he exited and saw the airplane, and then never saw the formation and just fell away.

WOMAN: Then he deployed.

DAN: But then he pulled for himself and he landed his parachute, not particularly gracefully.

KATE: In the right place... WOMAN: I heard that, yeah.

DAN: Not particularly gracefully.

WOMAN: Right, yeah.

DAN: So, he doesn't appear to be injured.

Um, anyway, I think, I think, I think we're okay.

WOMAN: Okay, thank you.

♪ ♪ Just questioning again if we want to mess with it at all, you know?

I mean, when we landed from that one, I thought we can get the same group, go right back up again.

The chances of going up and having a good jump were really high, 'cause we've had one after another.

KATE: Yeah, yeah, I was all over that when you said that.

DAN: If, with everything we talk about, that it's not all about that, is, it's not all about that.

LARRY: If it's more about our family, well, then, we're all concerned with Rick and we're gonna step back.

KATE: Agreed.

DAN: All right.

KATE: Okay.

(sighs) DAN: Great job, guys.

This is what happens sometimes, you know?

First, looks like Rick's all good.

Um, we, uh... (others cheering and applauding) The best assessment that we have at the moment is that we think, uh, unintentionally, came off oxygen too soon.

We'd love to get the completions and we'd love to get the records, but everything's so much more about this group, and especially this group.

You know, you don't, when you're 30, it's the records, man, you know?

It's not as much about the group, but when you're looking at people you've known since you were in your 20s and you're doing this when you're 60, it's about the group.

And, uh... (others laugh, applaud) The record was 75, we could have done 76.

You know?

Or 80 or 90 or 100.

But you know what?

We didn't, because we knew we could do this.

You never know that you will absolutely do it, 'cause there's all these things that can happen.

But we knew we had a team, 60-plus, who could absolutely do that.

And every jump that we've seen shows that we were right.

Honestly, from the bottom of my heart, love you guys, thank you.

(others cheer and applaud) (voiceover): You don't take on big challenges like this with any guarantee that you're gonna succeed.

At the same time, we take on challenges that we really feel we can do.

Maybe everything has to work out just right, but we know we know we can do it.

KATE: To have everybody come together for a single goal and do such an incredible job, it's a success whether we got the piece of paper or not.

We had a formation that had 109 people.

And the technicality that it wasn't 110, it doesn't mean that we didn't really accomplish something huge.

You don't see a lot of 60-year-olds jumping out of airplanes, doing something that no one in the world has ever done before.

People coming from all over the world to do it.

Is an unforgettable experience.

There have been times that we don't make the record, and then we just come back another year.

Dan BC is going to get this record one way or another.

If it's not this year, it'll be another year.

DAN: But I think it's just so valuable.

It's so important to have something that you love in your life, that you're as passionate about as we are skydiving.

That you, you go to bed dreaming about, you wake up in the morning thinking about.

Something that motivates you and inspires you and makes you challenge yourself and reach for further than you knew you could.

And I think the most important part is to celebrate people over 60 living life fully and not letting age stop them.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (all cheering and applauding) ♪ ♪ Told you we'd get it!

♪ ♪ Here's what I say.

Let's hear it for S.O.S.

and the record.

♪ ♪ (toasting) (man talking, laughing in background) Wow.

It felt extraordinary.

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