Wendy Smith has always been a high-flier - literally.
Skydive Wanaka's new operations manager has almost 20,000
parachute jumps under her wings. Mark Price reports.
Wendy Smith is one of those names pub-quiz fanatics might
like to quietly file away in the backs of their minds - if
they have not already - because it is the answer to the
obscure New Zealand history question: Who was the third
person to skydive from above Mt Everest?
One of New Zealand's most experienced skydivers - with 19,875
jumps under her chute - Ms Smith has just taken over as
operations manager at Skydive Lake Wanaka.
Brought up on a back blocks farm in the Kaimanawa Ranges in
the central North Island (she really did ride a horse to
school), Ms Smith was flying from a very early age aboard the
helicopters and ag-planes her father employed.
''So I wasn't afraid of aircraft, and ... jumping out was
just the next natural step really.''
Her first jump, at Waipukurau in 1985, was with a round, army
surplus parachute of World War 2 design.
She had seen many technological changes since then as
aerospace engineers designed equipment as good as anything
used by astronauts, she said.
''Our technology is wonderful. We have computers in our
parachutes that will open the parachute at pre-set altitudes
if we do not.
''We have very accurate canopies these days.
''We've learnt a lot more about the way you can fly the
canopy.
''So it's very exciting.''
As well as her new Wanaka job, Ms Smith is engaged in a
string of other high-altitude pursuits.
She is not far off gaining her commercial helicopter licence,
she is learning to climb mountains with a view to conquering
a Himalayan peak, she has ongoing work as a skydiving
photographer and Emmy award-winning film-maker and, each
October, Ms Smith heads back to Everest to repeat that 2008
jump.
The difference now is she takes paying clients (from $25,000
to $35,000 per head) on foot to base camp and then to 9000m
on board a Pilatus PC-6 aircraft.
Ms Smith said being the jump master on the very first trip
over Everest ''opened the door'' for her. She was approached
by Nepalese operators who wanted to turn a ''one-off'' event
into a business.
Now she is in charge of logistics where getting anything
wrong can have serious consequences.
Bigger-than-normal parachutes are needed, as are on-board and
individual oxygen systems.
''We leave the aircraft with our full bail-out halo systems
on - bottles, face masks, reservoirs etc.''
Above about 5000m sky divers are at risk of hypoxia or
altitude sickness.
''This can set in within 30 seconds.
''It's not like you want to put down your [on-board] oxygen
mask and waltz to the door and spend a minute getting out
because you will be hypoxic.''
Waiting below are helicopters and Sherpa guides with a yak
and yak man, ready to pick up anyone who lands too far from
the drop zone.
Ms Smith recalls her first jump over Everest as a ''very,
very emotional jump'' over ''awesome terrain'' - landing on
an airstrip at 3800m that Sir Edmund Hillary was instrumental
in creating.
''The Himalaya is just absolutely amazing ... to be at the
top of the world seeing that - it was very, very exciting.''
Ms Smith said her highest jump was from 9204m, also in the
Himalayas, but she did not envy Austrian Felix Baumgartner
who last year became the first skydiver to go faster than the
speed of sound, jumping out of a balloon at 39km above New
Mexico.
''I don't think I really want to go through the sound barrier
and [wonder] if I am going to burn up or not.''
But, on her horizon is one target that might make Wendy Smith
the answer to another New Zealand pub quiz history question:
Name a New Zealand skydiver who has completed 20,000 jumps.
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