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Skydiving Across the English Channel
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."
Can it still be called skydiving in this case? Looks more like he was just the external payload for a small glider! Still, looks like fun.
I don't see how hard this could be with wings and 5+ miles of altitude to work with. However, it is pretty cool.
Which is odd given that the guy flew from Dover to France, i.e.\ was comming from west by north-west.
He probably reached that speed towards the beginning of his flight/glide/dive, up in the much thinner (= less drag) air.
As for slowing down, there are these devices called "parachutes" that skydivers, the succesful ones anyways, tend to favor.
TODO: Something witty here...
It's funny how both Sky News and BBC say the speed reached is 220 mph and how CNN says it's 200 km/h. Hmm... someone's obviously got it wrong. ;-)
;-) It'd require READING ALL THREE ARTICLES.
But then again, who (here) is to notice this discrepancy.
In skydiving you acclerate pretty fast but there is a target speed that you can hardly pass, it depends on your position, if you go belly down you go slower than if you have your head down (or up).
Slowdown is pretty sharp too, but it is still not an instant stop, so the shock is there but it normally doesn't tears the limbs.
"With the aid of a specially engineered carbon composite wing. Baumgartner will leap out of a transport plane from flight leve 270 (9000 meter - the height of Mount Everest) and then soar towards another world record at over 360km/h. If he succeeds, he will be the first person to have crossed the channel unaided, in free fall."
He's not really in free fall, it's in a glide with a wing that provides some lift and direction. Hardly seems "unaided" and in fact, his own statement above states that he's "aided" by the wing.
Still, it looks very very cool.
from the same page: However, by diving or "standing up" in free fall, any experienced skydiver can learn to reach speeds of over 160-180MPH. Speeds of over 200MPH require significant practice to achieve. The record free fall speed, done without any special equipment, is 321MPH. Obviously, it is desirable to slow back down to 110MPH before parachute opening."
also note that air pressure is lower, which causes less friction. his position is very close to a dive or 'stand-up' free-fall. I'm guessing CNN got it wrong, especially since I've seen some more sources reporting this, and all reported speeds way in excess of 200 km/h
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Not a special effect?
I am a skydiver with 900 jumps, and I have 60
jumps on the Birdman wingsuit, which is used in the movie.
1. There is no building on this planet tall enough
to leap from and glide 3 miles with a wingsuit.
2. In the movie you see them running across roof
and then jumping, while wearing conventional
suits. Then their suits "magically" sprout
wings a moment after the jump. You CANNOT run
wearing a wingsuit; You can only waddle.
3. It is apparent from your post that you got your
information from that USA Today article which
has been the subject of much ridicule among
skydivers on www.dropzone.com forums.
Incidently, no one can verify that Jolie has
ever made a jump, despite her claims.
from CNN:
...jumping from an aircraft above the English port of Dover and landing near Calais six minutes and 22 seconds later with crowds...
from BBC:
...leapt from a plane above Dover at 0509 BST, landing 22 miles (35 kilometres) away in Cap Blanc-Nez near Calais just 14 minutes later...
Incidentally, just because she didn't tell one segment of a subculture, doesn't mean she hasn't jumped. Not everyone hangs out, or even cares about, the boards you frequent.
That's a little thing called editing, my friend. Just because they didn't film the entire jump in one continuous segment, and no doubt highly exaggerated the length of the flight, that doesn't mean it was a special effect!
I believe the parent poster just wanted to let everyone know there really are such things as wingsuits and that was real footage of two people flying in them. If you're already an expert on the subject, that's fine, you really didn't need to reply... of course, it's always a good idea to let everyone know how smart you are.
Nothing to see here.
Fire control radar is notoriously bad at locking onto small, meaty targets traveling relatively slowly. Small arms fire is a much bigger threat, which is a really good reason to insert at night.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!