In late November, 100 women dove out of five planes at 19,000 feet above Eloy, Ariz., hurtling head-first toward the ground at 180 mph. Icy air whipped their faces and limbs. They were high above the Earth’s curve, sapphire blue sky fading into aqua at the horizon. In a minute and a half, they’d be on the ground. But first, they had to zoom together, lock arms and form a giant snowflake in the sky.
One of those skydivers was 44-year-old Vancouver resident Alethia Austin. She was among the 80 women who broke the world’s record for the largest-ever women’s vertical formation skydive. The endeavor, dubbed Project 19 after the 19th Amendment, had been delayed for two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I had this as a goal for the last three years,” Austin said. “This was an absolute dream for me.”
Project 19 was aiming for a 100-woman formation in honor of the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage. (The 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, was ratified in 1920.) Each attempt involved 115 women in total: 20 primary jumpers in each airplane, plus 15 stand-by jumpers.
Judging started on the ground, where jumpers arranged themselves in formation and judges took careful note of each person’s placement. Then the skydivers tried — over several days and many jumps — to recreate that exact formation in the sky within 60 seconds. Each jump was filmed from every angle for the judges to review. Although Project 19 didn’t quite achieve its lofty goal, the intrepid skydivers did break a world record twice, first with 72 women and then, on Nov. 25, with 80.
In addition to honoring the women who campaigned and marched for the right to vote over a century ago, especially those who were imprisoned and beaten for their views, Austin dedicated her jumps in Eloy to Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old woman was killed in September by Iran’s morality police, igniting protests across that country.
“Women need to connect,” Austin said. “This was an opportunity for me to join with women around the world and do something with a deep message.”
This was a big jump even for a professional skydiver like Austin, who made her first skydive north of Los Angeles in 2001 and has jumped over 4,000 times since then. She’s earned the highest level of skydiving certification and has trained in places as far-flung as Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Mostly she flies in groups of six or seven, she said, swooping and diving and swirling like a dancer freed from the confines of a stage. She considers herself an artist, with the atmosphere as her canvas.
“The majority of my flying — creating really big lines and shapes in the sky and movements on my back and my feet and my head and my belly — that’s the creative, artistic expression of windflying,” Austin said. “We call it bodyflight. There’s a myriad of ways to express ourselves in the sky. It’s absolute freedom.”
Austin is something of a maverick in a sport in which only 14 percent of participants are women, according to the United States Parachute Association. She hopes to change that. Women may have certain advantages in the sky, she said, like flexibility and gracefulness, though everyone must overcome the natural fear of falling. That’s precisely what makes it so exhilarating, she said. In the beginning, skydiving may have been an edgy stunt for daredevils and risk-takers, but now it’s a sport that demands mindfulness, Austin said.
“You push past these fears and you get to the door, and you think, ‘What am I doing?’ As you take this leap, everything is alive for you, and you have no choice but to be totally present in that moment,” she said. “My world feels bigger because I’m not doing all my living on the ground. My playground is the sky.”
