Chip Bowlin and Kristine Gould are both lieutenant colonels serving at Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base, but the mission they're on right now at Skydive City in Zephyrhills is a personal one.
They're setting the Guinness record for the most tandem jumps in 24 hours."We're going to do at least 150," Lt. Col. Bowlin said, "that's one every ten minutes on average."
But they'll try and make better time than that. To do it, they'll basically freefall down, pulling their canopy in close and spiraling down as fast as they can.
"The fastest we've done it is five and a half minutes," Lt. Col. Bowlin told FOX 13.
That's wheels up, to wheels up again.
"We are so ready to set this record!" Lt. Col. Gould said laughing, "We've been training for about nine months now."
Some people think they're crazy.
"First of all everyone knows we're crazy!" Lt. Col. Gould said.
It's just something they had to do.
"We have talked for a long time about our love of parachuting," she said. "We both really enjoy skydiving, working at SOCOM, in the military, we love being on the parachute team, when you combine all those things, doing a world record was pretty natural."
"We both said, 'I wonder what the record for tandem skydiving is,' " Bowlin said. "Guinness has a record for everything. So we got on the internet and started researching and found there is no record. So we said, 'Let's set one.'"
24 hours will be tough. Weather pushed them back more than a few hours. After that, it's endurance, stamina that will carry them and plenty of adrenaline.
The jump itself? They say it's no big deal, that part they can handle.
"It feels like you're flying," Lt. Col. Bowlin said, "People think, who've never jumped before, that it's going to be this big dip in your stomach like you get when you do a roller coaster ride.Nothing whatsoever like that, it's very loud, you feel the wind in your face. Actually in freefall you feel like you're floating."
And for them it never gets old.
"It's always a great ride down," Lt. Col. Gould said, "Chip and I have a great partnership a great friendship and we just enjoy the heck out of doing this."
Bowlin and Gould are raising money for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.
"It has supported the Special Operations community for the last 20 years," she said. "It's a security blanket that makes our job so much easier it is such a comfort knowing they're there."
Since I have been moaning about the pool for months now, I am glad to report that the first deep diving is coming up in eight days’ time. This year, I am starting the depth season not in the warm, blue waters of Egypt, but in Hemmoor. Hemmoor is a lake in the very north of Germany. Now “lake” and “north” do not normally describe my natural habitat, but I have been talked into going there by Martin, who is organising a small competition with only one choice: constant weight no fins. Those who have dived with me will now that no fins is not my best discipline. I am hoping that when I turn at 30+ meters, all the swimming I have done in the pool over the last few weeks will turn out to have had a positive effect and I will not fall back down between strokes anymore. I am also hoping (good luck, says a diving friend of mine) that the weather will be sunny and hot, as I have a tendency to freeze in places that are called “lake” and “northern”. Granted that we will have a few days of early summer, I am actually looking forward to the weekend. It will be great to get in the water with other freedivers and see if my body can remember such things as a bloodshift. Hemmoor is an especially beautiful lake, with good visibility and lots of things to look at, such as a sunken forest, which is quite magical, with pike and carp hanging out between the trees as the sun filters in. There is a competitive element to the whole endeavour, too – Aida Germany still separates records set in the lake and in the sea, so although I have the record in constant weight no fins with 40m, in the sea, the record in the lake with 33m remains to be broken and will provide me with some motivation to do something other than sunbathe and swim around in mystical sunken forests. To make things more exciting, I have yet another TV crew in tow, who are doing a story for the science program “Planetopia”. As TV crews do, they are likely to expect me to break a record, and bingo! I have provided myself with pressure again. It will all be fun…pictures and videos to follow