Conquering the Upper Strata:The Remarkable Story of Romanian Skydiver Smaranda Braescu’s Record Jump near Sacramento, May 19, 1932. A Talk Given by Gary F. Kurutz at Aerospace Museum of California on May 20, 2013 . Presented by Horia Ion Groza

Abstract

As Gary F. Kurutz, principal librarian emeritus at California State Library, found by digging in the archives, the noted East Bay Flyer Harry Bosshardt and Smaranda Braescu took off from the Curtis-Wright Field of Alameda on May 19, 1932, at 11 o’clock in the morning, on a Cessna monoplane. That day she was going to set an absolute world skydiving record for men and women with a jump of 7200 m, done near Sacramento, California. The record remained longtime unbroken. This is how Gary Kurutz describes the event based on the local newspapers of that time.