High jump

WHITEVILLE, Tenn. — Hoosier Hill, which is 11 miles north of Richmond, boasts the highest altitude in Indiana at 1,257 feet above sea level.

The Ohio River is the lowest point in the state at 320 feet above sea level in Posey County.

This means that there is only a 937 foot difference in altitude throughout Indiana, making it the seventh flattest state in the country.

A Portland native has been able to get a slightly different perspective of the world.

Aaron Smith, who lived in Portland until he was around 10 years old, set the world record for the highest wingsuit jump at 43,253.6 feet above Whiteville, Tennessee, on July 1.

“It's unlike any other experience I've had,” Smith said. “The feeling of getting to the ground safely, is like accomplishing something that was hard. … There's so many ways it can go wrong. But you nailed it. You got it right. And it feels amazing.”

Before Smith could attempt a world record, he had to get started in the sport. It wasn’t that long ago, the first time Smith put on a parachute and hopped into a plane.

In 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, Smith found himself bored and looking for something to do to pass the time. He is an adjunct instructor at the University of Central Florida, and during that time, sports were considered essential by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, opening the door for him.

After trying wingsuit jumping for the first time, Smith was hooked.

“When we got to the ground safely, and we stopped, I instantly knew I wanted to do this for the rest of my life,” Smith said.

He started skydiving frequently during that time, to the point where he wanted to make it more interesting. Once Smith skydived 200 times, he was eligible to put on a wingsuit which helps with horizontal flight while falling.

As it currently stands, Smith has been skydiving 816 times and used a wingsuit 600 times. Somewhere along the lines, he got good enough that he was looking for a way to make things more interesting. Smith described it like learning to ride a bicycle.

“What do you do when you're a little boy learning to ride your bicycle?” Smith said. “You ride your bike, then you want to go fast. You start getting faster and faster. Then you start doing obstacle courses and you start doing wheelies and stuff like that. 

“It's very much like the same thing. I started in the beginner suit, then I got to an intermediate suit, then an advanced suit. And then I’m starting to hit diminishing returns on my skill progression.”

Smith started doing night jumps, but even that started to get dull. To quench his skydiving thirst, he decided to try a high altitude, low oxygen (HALO) jump. HALO jumps include dives of 18,000 feet or higher and often require an oxygen tank during the ascension.

When Smith called Mike Mullins of West Tennessee Skydiving, setting a world record wasn’t even on his mind. Smith didn’t realize that a world record would even be obtainable, but rather assumed someone had already gone out of their way to set the record at an exorbitantly high altitude for the sake of not having it beat.

“‘If you just get out the door and survive the jump, you will set the world record,’” Smith recalled Mullins saying.

“I want that. I want that a lot,” Smith responded.

Along with Smith were three other individuals who were setting records for other countries. The group had to sit on the plane for an hour just breathing warm oxygen before the plane could begin to ascend.

After the long wait, the plane rose up to where the air was a biting minus-55 degrees. Smith was forced to layer up with long johns, heated socks, heated gloves and a heated vest that made him almost uncomfortably hot.

When the door opened, the moisture inside the plane started to freeze, creating a crystalized surface. While Smith was mostly protected from the cold, the skin on his face around the oxygen mask started to develop frostbite.

Smith had to wait for the other three jumpers to go before he got his chance to get out of the plane. When it was his turn, just walking to the door was an ordeal.

Previously, Tom Newton died from his heart giving out while trying to make the trip from his seat to the door at that altitude when attempting the world’s highest tandem jump.

“Just getting to the door was an exertion,” Smith said. “I’ve got all this equipment on, at that point I had a hose connected to the oxygen system in the plane so just moving forward it took some work.”

Once he finally got to the door and his oxygen switched over, he sat down to take a controlled exit out of the plane.

Yet still, things didn’t go quite right.

Rather than a smooth exit, Smith ended up with his back to the ground looking up at the plane. Not the best start.

He was able to quickly roll over and regain control.

Normally, a wingsuit flight lasts about two minutes before the parachute is deployed. At the elevated altitude, Smith was flying for nearly four minutes before he had to think about it. During that time, he was attempting to navigate to the drop zone, but was simply too high up to find it.

Realizing that he wasn’t going to be able to find the drop zone, he just tried to steer clear of any corn fields because his heated equipment could be a fire risk.

Once it was time for Smith to deploy his parachute, rather than controlling his body, he just let it hang.

“I've done the Dopey challenge at Disney where you do a 5k, 10k, half marathon and then marathon in four days,” Smith said. “And that is less tiring than my wingsuit flight.

“(After pulling the parachute), I’m just sitting there. I should be unzipping, I should be checking my gear. I should be looking for a place to land, but I just sat there.”

Once he regained some strength, he pulled his mask off to breath fresh air and started looking for a place to land. Without many options, he decided to land in someone’s backyard and hoped they wouldn't have a dog or come out to him hostile.

With no one coming out to confront him, he began his journey to the intended landing site, which included hitchhiking for a distance before he had cell service in order to call to be picked up.

Upon arrival, he was greeted with cheers for a safe landing.

Also at the drop zone were other skydivers who had more conventional experiences that day that wanted to talk to him about what he had accomplished, which he described as a unique experience for a sport that typically doesn’t have recognition outside the internal feeling of satisfaction.

While Smith realizes that not everyone would be interested in what he attempted that day he would encourage everyone to try skydiving at least once.

“I feel like everybody should skydive,” Smith said. “With tandem skydiving, it is very accessible. … If you can't, if you can't throw a ball, that's fine. If you’ve got terrible balance, that's fine. You can get into this sport.”