Suited to her hobby

One thing East County’s Michelle Statdfield knows about wearing a wingsuit ... it can get a bit stuffy.

That is why one of Statdfield’s biggest joys in wingsuiting is coming up on a cloud toward the end of a jump.

Clouds, apparently, are nature’s very own air conditioner.

“The best time to jump in Florida is when we have those really tall clouds in the summer,” Statdfield said. “We aren’t allowed to fly through the clouds because you can’t see anything, but it’s a lot cooler around them.”

After jumping from an airplane and free falling, usually in the Zephyrhills area, it wouldn’t seem like temperature would matter much, but Statdfeld’s senses are acute when she dives.

She notices things around her, like birds.

“I’ve come up on a vulture in the sky before,” said Statdfield, who works in accounting. “After I pulled my parachute, I looked down and he was right beneath me. It was like he felt something following him, and he looked up, saw me and did a big dive to get away. It was pretty cool.”

On March 12, Statdfield participated in her second state-record jump, this one setting a Florida record for largest formation for a women’s wingsuit group. Eight women participated in the formation, where the participants “fly” an equal distance from each other to cover a horizontal area, in this case an octagon.

In 2016, she participated with a group that set the Illinois record for a mixed group, as 28 men and women participated. The world record for wingsuiting is 61 participants, set in 2015.

Statdfield, 36, and her husband, Todd, began skydiving before they married. Their first jump was in 2000, and it was only supposed to be a “one-time thing,” Michelle Statdfield said.

“We thought it was just one of those things you do when you start dating, and we wanted to just go once to say that we had done it,” Statdfield said. “Then we both got hooked.”

Todd Statdfield was surprised to find his first skydiving experience was similar to the feeling he had scuba diving.

He said when experiencing something unique, like skydiving, humans try to relate it to something they already know.

“The wind in free fall puts you into sensory overload,” Todd Statdfield said. “And then, all of a sudden, you are in the quiet calm of the parachute ride to the ground. It’s the closest to natural flying we can get as humans.”

The pair now has 270 skydive jumps and 300 wingsuit jumps to their credit. Michelle Statdfield said wingsuit jumps give her the sensation of flying compared with regular jumps, for they have   more of a longer flight time of two-and-a half-minutes. During that time, she will cover two miles.

“Regular skydiving, also called freeflying or belly flying, is when you are coming straight down at approximately 120 to 180 mph, and you are not necessarily trying to cover a horizontal distance,” Statdfield said. “When you put that wingsuit on, you fly forward at about 120 mph and you are only descending at about 50 mph, so you are your own fighter jet pilot.”