It’s official: skydiver Richard “Rich” Greenwood has flown into the record books, becoming the oldest man to fly in a wingsuit. The Guinness Book of World Records team announced on November 4, 2026, that Greenwood surpassed the previous record holder with his incredible stunt at 74 and 136 days old.
Wingsuit Record Holder Richard Greenwood Has Been Enamored With Sky Diving Since He Was a Boy
Born in 1952, Greenwood spends almost every weekend at the drop zone near Belen Regional Airport in New Mexico, according to Guinness World Records, where he hops on an airplane to soar above the sandy flatlands below.
With 50 years of skydiving under his belt, Greenwood zips up his wingsuit and jumps out of the plane, keeping his “arms and legs outstretched, balancing on the breeze until he can pull his parachute and safely float back to the ground,” the publication wrote in its announcement.
According to the Chicagoland Skydiving Center, a wingsuit “is comprised of two arm wings of varying sizes and a single leg wing that has inflatable pressurized nylon cells, which … basically turns your whole body into a wing.”
Although Richard started skydiving in 1970, when he turned 18 and it became legal for him to jump out of planes, wingsuits didn’t come along until the 1990s.
In the caption of a new video of Greenland jumping, he said, “When wingsuits started to become commercially available in the mid 90’s I was drawn to them. Double or triple your freefall time? Fly long distances over the ground like superman? What’s not to like? So, I bought my first wingsuit in about 1997 and went on from there.”
Jumping out of planes has been a lifelong passion for Greenwood, he told the Albuquerque Journal. He said, “I remember being 5 years old at the kitchen table, sitting there, taking tissue paper and Scotch tape and little strings and making little guys under parachutes and climbing up on the garage roof and throwing them off. And so, something in me was always interested in parachutes and parachuting. As soon as I turned 18 and could legally take the course, I went out to a local drop zone.”
Wingsuit Record Holder Richard Greenwood Also Beat Cancer
Greenwood achieved his world record on June 5, according to the Albuquerque Journal. He beat the previous record, achieved in 2025 by Wisconsin resident Robert Felt, who flew at the age of 72 years and 64 days old in May of this year, per Guinness World Records.
That’s not the only thing Greenwood has beaten; he’s also a cancer survivor. In 2016, he took a break from wing-diving to get a double knee replacement. Soon after, he was diagnosed with cancer and gained a significant amount of weight, which kept him from diving for several years.
“I always missed jumping, so I set a goal of losing enough weight to jump safely again,” he told Guinness World Records. “I lost 80 pounds and, thanks to the Mayo Clinic, beat the cancer and started jumping again in 2023.”
For those interested in spreading their wings like Greenwood, he told Guinness World Records, “If it ignites the passion, take the class to jump by yourself… after about 200 jumps you can start wingsuit training. I like to say it just costs three or four thousand dollars to get started, and then half your income for the rest of your life!”
The 2027 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records was released on September 10, and it’s possible Greenwood will keep adding his name to future editions of the tome. He told the Albuquerque Journal that his next goal is to make 4,000 jumps before retiring from jumping.
“I need another 150 or so to make that,” he said. “That’s kind of the big goal I have in the sport right now: to get that 4,000th jump point and go from there.”
74-Year-Old Skydiver Beats Cancer & Sets New Wingsuit Record