Formation Skydiving
Team skydivers link up in prescribed belly-to-earth formations during a 35-second freefall — most formations per jump wins.
👥4 per team🌤outdoor
What is Formation Skydiving?
Formation skydiving (formerly "relative work") is a team air sport in which skydivers exit an aircraft and link up into as many pre-set formations as possible during a 35-second freefall window. Standard events are 4-way, 8-way and 16-way; Big Ways build enormous multi-hundred-person formations for FAI world records.
Quick facts
Category
Air Sports
Type
Team sport
Players
4 per team
Where played
outdoor
Country of origin
🇺🇸 United States
Estimated origin
1960s USA (belly-to-earth relative work)
Olympic
No
Popularity
major
Sources & provenance
Last verified 2026-08-24.verified