There is no telling where we may go next. Felix Baumgartner: First person to break sound barrier in freefall An unprecedented eight million people went onto YouTube on 14 October to witness the game-changing moment Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner completed a parachute jump from a height of 38, Back to Hall of Fame.
Born to fly Felix was born in , but his journey truly began at the age of 16, when he completed his first ever skydive. He later left the army and for a short while supported himself by repairing motorbikes.
The helium-filled balloon took Felix on his two-hour journey into the stratosphere. Highest altitude untethered outside a vehicle After depressurising the capsule — the point of no return — Felix perched on its ledge for a few final moments before making his death-defying, multiple record-breaking leap to Earth. First human to break the sound barrier in freefall Once he had landed back on solid ground, Felix said: "First we got off with a beautiful launch and then we had a bit of drama with a power supply issue to my visor.
The exit was perfect but then I started spinning slowly. I thought I'd just spin a few times and that would be that, but then I started to speed up. It was really brutal at times. I thought for a few seconds that I'd lose consciousness. View Profile. Felix Baumgartner - Red Bull Stratos test flight.
On Sunday afternoon, in Roswell, New Mexico, Red Bull Stratos, the mission to the edge of space, made history, with Felix Baumgartner breaking the sound barrier during his , feet jump back to earth In front of a global audience of millions who watched the mission live, Felix took off, ascending to a total of While standing outside his capsule preparing to jump from the edge of space, Felix said:.
After accelerating to a top speed of 1, In total, Felix's freefall saw him drop , feet before deploying his parachute. As Felix dropped to his knees, raising his fists in triumph, it was a case of mission accomplished as the team celebrated the unique achievement which includes the breaking of three world records and which will also provide future aerospace projects with a wealth of research and data.
Felix Baumgartner after Red Bull Stratos landing. Felix's jump took place exactly 65 years after Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier flying in an experimental rocket powered airplane. Beau's chute consists of three units: a conventional, spring-type chute to catch the wind and provide the pull to open the next unit; a 6-foot-wide stabilization canopy to prevent flat spin during free fall; and finally a conventional foot [8.
In October, , we made the first jumps with the Beaupre parachute, leaping from a C Lockheed Hercules at 28, feet [8, meters]. George A. Post the second, and Capt. Harry Collins the third. The chute worked beautifully, and we felt ready for higher altitudes.
But something went wrong on my first bail-out from a balloon, on November 16, Before I jumped from the gondola at 76, feet, the timer lanyard of the stabilization unit was pulled prematurely and the 6-foot [centimeter] canopy and shrouds popped out after only two seconds of free fall, instead of 16, promptly fouling around me. At first I thought I might retard the free spin that began to envelop me, but despite my efforts I whirled faster and faster.
Soon I knew there was nothing I could do. I thought this was the end. I began to pray, and then I lost consciousness. I owe my life to my emergency parachute, set to open automatically at 10, feet [3, meters]. When I came to, I was floating lazily down beneath the beautiful canopy of the emergency chute.
I want to tell you I had a long thank-you session with the good Lord right then and there. I knew that Beaupre's ideas were sound, despite the results of the first jump, and by December 11 we were ready to prove it. This time I jumped from the gondola at 74, feet [23, meters], and everything worked perfectly. Next came the big test, Excelsior III, from above , feet [30, meters].
The date was August 16, Vivid in my mind as I swung there were the events of the past few hours. Our project really begins to gain speed on the eve of the jump. Alerts go out to the launch crew, ground control station, Holloman base weathermen, and all support units. Clearance for use of the White Sands Missile Range , the approximately bymile [bykilometer] test basin, is obtained from the Army. We brief our own crew and the pilots of the support aircraft.
First Lt. Don Fordham and civilian Don Griggs check the electronics control systems. Another veteran jumper, Capt. Billy Mills, our cigar-chewing assistant project officer, oversees prelaunch check lists of more than 1, entries. Plastic water bottles and aluminum foil shield the cameras and other equipment against the cold. As launch-day-minus-one progresses, I come under the close scrutiny of our two project physicians.
For a week I have been on a high-protein, low-residue diet, and I avoid gas-producing foods. Gas expands with increasing altitude, so that air trapped in my stomach or intestines could cause pain so severe that I could be forced to jump prematurely. The diet is mainly meat and potatoes. The doctors also take a final look at ears, nose, and throat. Any air pocketed in the body could force me down too soon. By afternoon, work halts for most of our team, but our weathermen, Duke Gildenberg and Ralph Reynolds, are facing their most intricate task.
They must bring me to earth in an mile-square [kilometer-square] target area about 25 miles [40 kilometers] northwest of Holloman.
They must predict weather conditions for the following morning high aloft as well as on the ground, and decide if surface winds will permit a safe take-off. Checking with Holloman base weathermen, they reach a favorable decision and choose an abandoned dirt airstrip 18 miles [29 kilometers] from the base as the launching site. Forty-five minutes before midnight a convoy of some 20 vehicles heads northeast through Alamogordo.
Frightening jack rabbits as they turn onto the old airstrip, vehicles wheel into position amid mesquite and greasewood. Mobile generators start, communications antennas are mounted, and the first of the hourly pilot balloons, called pibals for short, wavers aloft to provide a wind reading.
The gondola, on a flat-bed truck, becomes the center of activity as it gets a final grooming. Melvin D. Johnson directs the balloon launching crew. At Holloman the men who operate the ground control station begin reporting for duty at midnight. They will monitor my progress over radio and radar networks, plot my position, advise me when to valve and when to ballast, and, finally, give the word on when to jump.
Ten minutes after I bail out, ground control will beam the signal that will cut the gondola from the balloon, returning it and its valuable instruments to earth by parachute. At first this method was risky because chance radio signals could also act as a trigger.
In a balloon gondola—luckily with no human passengers—was cut down when a commercial station blared "Tiger Rag. Dave Willard, electronics chief of the Holloman Balloon Branch, solved the problem. He developed a transistorized device that serves, in effect, as a skyborne lock which only a special electronic key transmitted from the ground station will open.
I can go up now with full assurance that no burst of jazz or rock 'n' roll will end the flight prematurely. I am the only man who gets a chance to sleep late before a launch. About on the afternoon preceding the flight, Mary Feldstein hands me two sleeping pills and a medical journal, his sure prescription for sleep. About 7 p. I awake for a steak supper. Still sleepy, I rest four hours longer. Then Beau Beaupre announces: "Captain Joe, time to wake up. It has become a tradition that Beau and Ken Arnold drive me to the launch site.
It is also traditional that we stop for breakfast, which this time consisted of orange juice and strawberry shortcake. As I finish my meal, I tell Beau:. Of course, Beau hasn't yet offered to pay, but he does, because this also is traditional. I always like to be in debt when I jump. We reach the launch site at 2 a.
Clouds moving up from Texas complicate weather prediction. George Post tells me the flight clothing is ready. The Air Force's most experienced test parachutist, he has been jumping since and wears the Distinguished Flying Cross. It is good to know that he will be watching every piece of my gear. He, better than anyone else, knows the stress to which I and my equipment will be exposed. One item of business remains. The previous week, my five-year-old son Mark was eating breakfast at our Dayton, Ohio, home when he noticed a car license plate printed on his box of cereal.
He decided that his father's gondola should be properly licensed, so he clipped the tag from the box and had his mother mail it to me. As I watch, it is carefully taped to the gondola. The license tag is that of the State of Oregon. Our Project Excelsior group is stationed in Ohio, we are launching in New Mexico, our team members hail from several States.
Truly we have a national effort. At 3 o'clock I enter the trailer that we use as a dressing room. Here I start breathing oxygen, and I will not take a breath of natural air until I reach lower altitudes on my descent, some four hours later. This gets most of the nitrogen out of my body.
With increasing altitude, nitrogen forms bubbles that expand, cause severe pain, and can be fatal—an ailment known as the bends, which also threatens divers. As I begin breathing oxygen, I relax on a cot before beginning to dress.
I am profoundly aware of the activity around me, and I feel strengthened at the thought of our team's thoroughness and enthusiasm. Some people may wonder how I could enjoy any degree of equanimity in view of the job ahead, and I think that the answer lies in a four-point philosophy that I have developed:.
Secure on these four points, a man can face almost anything. In fact, I had been able to doze off for a few minutes at the launch site before my jump in November of Eugene Fritz start to dress me.
The chilled air keeps me from sweating as I put on layer after layer of clothing. Perspiration would cause trouble in the cold realm where I am going. As Johnny and his crew begin to inflate the balloon, the prospect of cancellation arises. The cloud build-up is continuing, and Duke Gildenberg advises a brief wait. The decision is up to Maj. Irving Levin, Holloman Balloon Branch chief.
At this point the air conditioner sputters and seems about to die. With two possible causes for cancellation, our spirits fall. By , however, weather prospects have brightened, and take-off time is reset from 5 o'clock to And the air conditioner is coaxed back to life. Everyone cheers up.
The inflation of a large balloon is a dramatic sight. The big bag seems so lifeless as it lies formless on the ground. But now it begins to mount skyward like some giant plant, its crown blooming like a flower. When I see its silhouette in the pale dawn, I know the mission is nearing reality. Just before 5 o'clock I leave the dressing trailer, a bent and shuffling figure under pounds [70 kilograms] of gear—just three pounds [one and a half kilograms] less than my own weight.
Beau and Daniels lift me to the truck bearing the gondola, then up that "highest step in the world. I am still breathing oxygen. The air-conditioner hose, with an eight-inch [centimeter] diameter, is shifted from the trailer, and its flow is directed over me.
Team members make final checks: electrical circuits, safety plugs, radios, parachutes, cameras, partial pressure suit, oxygen.
The helmet is lowered over my head, and suddenly I feel a man apart. A red flare arcs across the desert, announcing to all that take-off is just 10 minutes away. The truck trundles me and the gondola to a spot directly beneath the balloon—now towering feet [ meters], tall as a story building.
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