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Skydiving Across the English Channel

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the 101st-airborne-becoming-jealous dept.

loonix_gangsta writes "Felix Baumgartner, an Austrian, has become the first person to skydive 35 km (22 miles) across the English Channel. Wearing a jumpsuit with a large carbon fin strapped to his back he reached speeds of up to 360 km/h. The whole flight took approximately 14 minutes. The newsitem is being covered by the BBC, SkyNews and CNN."

17 of 323 comments (clear)

  1. Moneypenny by mao+che+minh · · Score: 4, Funny
    Man, that's something that you would expect to see in a Bond movie.

    You know, the plane is blowing up, Bond puts two in the bad guy and grabs a boogie board then straps it to his back. The music kicks in ("DAA DAA DOOOM DAA-DAA, DAA-DAA-DAA"), Bond grabs the gal, and whoosh, out the door.

    From the CNN article: "He said cloud cover meant he could not see where he was going and had to follow his two planes across the Channel.". I bet nobody believed the pilot of the 747 at first. "No really, was a guy, with a rocket pack or something, honest!".

    1. Re:Moneypenny by matt-fu · · Score: 4, Funny
      by Anonymous Coward on 09:52 AM July 31st, 2003 (#6580004)

      I am a skydiver with 900 jumps, and I have 60 jumps on the Birdman wingsuit, which is used in the movie.

      Incidently, no one can verify that Jolie has ever made a jump, despite her claims.


      Incidentally, the same could be said about you.

  2. Nice one my son! by BigAlexK · · Score: 5, Funny

    Apparently his backpack was running Linux, that's how he stayed up for so long ;-)

  3. Skydiving. by haeger · · Score: 4, Funny

    The newsitem is being covered by the BBC, SkyNews and CNN.

    How appropriate.

    .haeger

    --
    You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
  4. Brings a whole new meaning to... by lewiz · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it..."
    "No, actually, it's Felix Baumgartner."
    "Oh."

    1. Re:Brings a whole new meaning to... by stu_coates · · Score: 5, Funny

      I saw this guy on TV and he looked more like Buzz Lightyear!

      To Calais... and beyond.... ;-)

  5. Oh my by Cirrius · · Score: 4, Funny

    "with a large carbon fin strapped to his back"

    This is a ricey-car reply waiting to happen

    1. Re:Oh my by goldspider · · Score: 4, Funny

      I bet he was wearing a yellow suit, and you KNOW there was a "Type-R" sticker somewhere!

      --
      "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
    2. Re:Oh my by valkraider · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Powered by Gravity"

  6. Next Logical Step: by superdan2k · · Score: 5, Funny

    1. Add a heat sheild.
    2. Add pressure suit.
    3. Increase altitude to 62 miles.
    4. Find X-Prize team loony enough to let someone jump out the door.
    ...
    6. Profit.

    (Seriously, as an occasional skydiver/former paratrooper, this sounds like a f--king blast.)

    --
    blog |
  7. What Officer ? by MosesJones · · Score: 5, Funny

    Mr Baumgartner had prepared for three years for this flight, with rigorous training including strapping himself on to the top of a speeding Porsche.

    Did the driver know ?

    "What Officer, a man strapped to the roof of the car as we went down the AutoBahn ?"
    "Yes sir"
    "I don't belive you, why isn't he there now"
    "He dropped off over the bridge and glided over the river"
    "Have you been drinking officer ?"

    Blow into the bag son, blow into the bag.

    --
    An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
  8. Where was this guy in 1944? by HBI · · Score: 4, Funny

    We could have saved a lot of money and time with this methodology.

    --
    HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
  9. Fin? by worst_name_ever · · Score: 5, Funny
    From the photos accompanying the article, it looks as if the thing strapped to his back was less of a "fin" and more of a small set of wings. If so, the message here is basically "Man puts on tiny hang glider and, after being air-dropped from high altitude, glides for a few miles."

    I forsee a day when humans will attach themselves to ever-larger winged contraptions and travel further and further with each passing year. Perhaps, some day in the far future, these "aero-planes" might be equipped with powerful "jet-engines" which would enable the intrepid pioneers of the sky to travel across the very oceans themselves. Perhaps pretzels could also be served on these voyages.

    --

    In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
    1. Re:Fin? by McWilde · · Score: 5, Funny

      Pending the arrival of your ridiculous "aero-planes", me and a few friends of mine are working on building a trebuchet to sling people across the Channel. People will probably need to strap on one of these fins, or the initial velocity has to be above the speed of sound.

      --
      Maybe
  10. That wasn't the best scene in Tomb Raider by siskbc · · Score: 4, Funny
    Interestingly enough, something similar to this was in the latest Lara Croft flik. I haven't seen it, but this part was interesting. During one part of the movie Angelina Jolie and someone else were trying to escape and they went to the top of some building in Hong Kong. They had a special jumpsuit on with webbing between the arms & body and between the legs. Being chased, they simply lept off the edge and flew themselves to a boat waiting in Hong Kong's harbor - about 3 miles away.

    That was OK. I liked the scene where she was running better. "That's right....bounce for Daddy...ooooh"

    --

    -Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat

  11. I'll tell you what's remarkable about this... by Bertie · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...Some Austrian guy threw himself headlong into France, caught them all by surprise with the audacity and speed of it... ...And there wasn't a white flag of surrender in sight.

  12. Re:Hmm.. by EReidJ · · Score: 4, Funny
    Normal behavior for a skydiver is to fall out of a plane, accellerate up to terminal velocity, maintain that speed for a while, then open your parachute, which slows you down to a lower terminal velocity, then hit the ground and (hopefully) stop.

    Um, no, there's no hopefully about it. When you hit the ground, you WILL stop, parachute or no parachute.

    The state of your body when you stop is open for debate...

    --
    modern choral music...