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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."
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!".
Apparently his backpack was running Linux, that's how he stayed up for so long ;-)
The newsitem is being covered by the BBC, SkyNews and CNN.
.haeger
How appropriate.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
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.
"Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it..."
"No, actually, it's Felix Baumgartner."
"Oh."
He must have accelerated slowly.
.23h == 82.8km
14 minutes is ~0.23 hours. 360km/h *
What interests me, is how he managed to accelerate up to the 360 kph mark, and slow back down, without the sharp sudden stop that I associate with skydiving. (C'mon you know you saw him bouncing along a field until he smacked into an old hardwood)
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
"with a large carbon fin strapped to his back"
This is a ricey-car reply waiting to happen
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 |
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
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.
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.
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.
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
I really think what that Austrian skydiver demonstrated may have some real military applications.
Imagine US Special Forces soldiers wearing these suits (which have been coated with radar-absorbing materials to reduce radar cross-section) and being launched from 32,000 feet on a C-17 cargo plane at night. They could glide 30 miles or more, which would allow these forces to be inserted far into enemy territory.
(Come to think of it, the US Special Forces may already HAVE this capability.)
...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.
BBC says:
.
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.