SUSSEX -- On the day he became the world's oldest skydiver, Kenny Meyer started his morning the way he always does: with two eggs, sunny side up.

The 102-year-old Union Township resident woke up Thursday at 6 a.m., did his leg and back exercises, took his usual pills and left the house with his wife at 8:15 a.m. to jump out of an airplane for the first time.

Ten hours and roughly $285 later, Meyer had set a world record, beating a 101-year-old British man who claimed the honor in May.

A spokeswoman for Guinness World Records on Friday said the company was reviewing Meyer's application to beat the record.

A low cloud ceiling and sporadic rain cast doubt throughout the day on whether Meyer, who had brought about 25 family members and friends to Skydive Sussex, would be able to jump.

But from the minute he sat down in a blue armchair inside the skydiving center shortly after 9:30 a.m., Meyer said he was ready.

"This is overwhelming, I'll tell ya," he told reporters. "But I have two great families, and they're all behind me."

Meyer had been thinking and talking about skydiving for years. He wanted to do it, he repeatedly told his family, and he wished he already had.

So when Bryson William Verdun Hayes, of Devon, England, broke the record for the world's oldest skydiver, Meyer set his foot down.

"I'm doing this for USA," he said Thursday.

Wearing a blue athletic jacket over a yellow polo, Meyer joked with reporters before he jumped that he doubted he would skydive again.

"But maybe when I'm 105," he said with a laugh.

Relatives walked up to Meyer one by one to hug him and offer him well wishes. They had brought treats: a banner with his face on it, signs spelling out his name and a bag of Keebler crackers for after the jump.

"I'm glad for him," said Meyer's wife, Eleanor Meyer. "But my stomach is crazy."

Richard Winstock, the skydiving center's owner, said Meyer had to get clearance from his doctor before he jumped and the instructor who planned to jump with him took special care in training. Meyer's bones could be frail, and he wouldn't be as agile as a younger skydiver, Winstock said.

Serving as home to the jump was both an honor and a responsibility, he said.

"That's monumental," Winstock said. "We're not taking the oldest tandem jumper in New Jersey. We're taking the oldest living male jumper in the world."

At noon, Meyer was napping as the group waited for the weather to improve. His relatives sat on lawn chairs and at picnic tables outside. Some played cornhole. A few popped open a bottle of Barefoot Bubbly pink moscato champagne.

When the clouds started to break a few hours later, Meyer watched a safety video that warned him he could be injured or die. Several skydiving instructors did a practice jump to test the weather.

After Winstock decided conditions were safe, relatives cheered as skydiving instructors helped Meyer into a golf cart and drove him up to a blue and silver plane on the tarmac.

While two people lifted him backwards into the plane, Meyer waved a small American flag.

"USA, let's go!" he said.

A reporter asked Meyer if he had any last words before the plane would ascend to roughly 14,500 feet for his record-setting jump.

"Let's party!" he yelled.

Born in Fanwood, Meyer bounced around between municipalities in Union County before he settled down in Union Township with his third wife, Eleanor Meyer.

He began his career as a pencil salesman, owned a bar in Union City for a few months and then became a top salesman at a now-closed Chevrolet dealer in Westfield, his daughter Joan Williams said. He tried to retire three times, but his bosses kept convincing him to come back, she said.

Relatives stood in the grass, taking cell phone videos and pointing at the plane as it circled the airfield.

"There he is! Right there!" Meyer's granddaughter-in-law called out.

"Oh, he's a speck!" someone yelled back.

Minutes later, Meyer had landed in the grass and his relatives were running out to meet him.

"USA! We got the record!" he said as his family approached. "I can't believe it, to tell you the truth. It was awesome."

Tatiana Meyer, 9, walked over to her great-great-grandfather and looked him in the eye.

"You teach me that I can't be scared of anything," she said.

As the skydivers moved their new world-record holder into a golf cart to drive him back to the building, Tatiana draped a lanyard with an American flag around his neck.

Marisa Iati may be reached at miati@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @Marisa_Iati or on Facebook here. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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