Skydiving Claire drops into the record books

6:29am Tuesday 8th July 2008

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By Matt Smith »

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HER friends think she's crazy, but Claire Reynold's hobby of throwing herself out of a plane has landed her in the record books.

The daring Southampton teenager has celebrated her 16th birthday by becoming the country's youngest qualified female skydiver.

Click here to watch Claire taking a skydive

Claire, who was too young to parachute solo in Britain, got the required number of jumps under her belt by going to France where the age restriction is 15.

In preparation she spent six months training in a wind tunnel in Milton Keynes - taking time off from her PE lessons at Hampshire Collegiate School in Romsey.

She then completed 21 jumps in seven days in France, including her first "accelerated free fall jump" - dropping out of the sky at up to 120mph for two minutes before opening her parachute at 5,000 feet.

"It's just an amazing feeling," said Claire, who became hooked on the extreme sport after a tandem jump in Spain three year ago.

Claire's friends aren't all clamouring to have go.

"They think it's amazing - but crazy," she said.

Claire got into the sport through her dad Stephan, a financial adviser who in his spare time is a formation skydiving coach with 1,800 jumps to his name.

"I cannot say how proud I am of her. What's she's done is quite special," he said.

Claire celebrated her birthday with her first solo jump on British soil at the Army Parachute Association's base at Netheravon, the nearest drop zone to Southampton.

She will now start training in formation skydiving and could go on to become an instructor in a few years.