Red Bull Wingsuit Pilots Fly Between the Tallest Towers in Malaysia

I’m sure everyone is familiar with skydiving, but I’m not sure everyone is familiar with a wingsuit. If you have seen the movie Transformers 3, you might remember the soldiers in the flick jumping out of an airplane wearing black suits that allow them to glide rather than simply float to the ground. The atuntmen performing that stunt in the movie were actually from the Red Bull Air Force.

wingsuit

Some of those same daredevils recently took a trip to Malaysia where they jumped out of an airplane and used their wingsuits to fly around some of the most iconic landmarks in the country. The stuntmen flew their wingsuits so close to the KL Tower in Kuala Lumpur that look like they were going to hit it in the video. They also flew by the iconic Petronas Twin Towers.

That particular building has two identical towers standing side-by-side with a sky bridge connecting them. The building has been in several movies so you have likely seen it before. The two men who flew between the towers were traveling at about 120 mph. Check out the video to see the daredevils in action. This isn’t quite as cool as the Red Bull sponsored Felix Baumgartner 120,000+ foot skydive, but the wingsuits are pretty amazing nonetheless.


Red Bull Stratos Launch, Live!

After numerous false starts due to weather and other technical challenges, daredevil Felix Baumgartner successfully launched on his expedition to 120,000 feet this morning. The capsule took off at approximately 9:30am Mountain Daylight Time, and is currently on its way up to its peak altitude of about 23 miles.

felix baumgartner launch

As of this writing, Baumgartner is at about 46,000 feet, and rising rapidly towards his goal. The capsule is heading up at about 900 feet-per-minute, and is expected to reach “float” – where he will level off in about 80 minutes or so – around 11:30am MDT. Once he reaches that level, Felix will carefully exit the capsule, and begin his rapid plunge back to Earth below, breaking the speed of sound on the way down before he opens his chute.

felix baumgartner launch 2

Watch the amazing HD live footage of the launch in progress below:

Or head over to the Red Bull Stratos website for live updates on the mission’s progress.

Good luck on the dive, Felix! We’re rooting for you!


Red Bull Stratos Skydive Rescheduled for Sunday

If you’re paying attention to daredevil Felix Baumgartner and his desire to jump out of a pressurized capsule 23 miles above the surface, you may have noticed that he didn’t make the didn’t make the jump earlier this week. Winds were too high early Monday morning when Baumgartner had planned to make his leap. The skydive has now been rescheduled for Sunday.

red bull stratos1

If you somehow missed all the talk about Baumgartner and his insane desire to jump from an altitude of 120,000 feet, I’ll run it down for you again. Baumgartner plans to take the world’s largest helium-filled balloon attached to pressurized capsule on a two-hour trip straight up. He will then depressurize the capsule, and open the door.

I can only assume there’ll be some significant sphincter puckering and shortly thereafter, he will jump. Plummeting through the thin atmosphere at the insanely high altitude, Baumgartner and his team expect that he’ll be able to break the sound barrier using his body only reaching a speed of roughly 690 mph. Luckily for us, Baumgartner will be wearing a specialized pressure suit that offers five cameras to track his progress.

[via MSNBC]


Record-Breaking Skydive Planned for Today

Today is the big day for daredevil Felix Baumgartner and the Red Bull Stratos team. Assuming the weather holds out, Baumgartner will spend two hours climbing to over 120,000 feet inside his pressurized capsule attached to the world’s largest helium filled balloon. Once Baumgartner reaches his apex at about 23 miles above the Earth’s surface, he will jump.

red bull stratos

The skydive isn’t the only record Baumgartner aims to break. Assuming he succeeds, he will also be making the highest manned balloon flight ever. Baumgartner and his team expect that at the altitude where his descent will begin, he will need to reach 690 mph to break the sound barrier. He will become the first human to travel faster than the speed of sound without an aircraft if all goes according to plan.

Luckily for us, Baumgartner will be wearing multiple cameras on his high-tech pressure suit. Baumgartner has five cameras in various locations on his body that will record footage so we can all watch as he plummets to the ground. Baumgartner’s suit also has a variety of sensors and other technology to allow him to communicate with his ground crew and to verify if he breaks the speed of sound.

You can watch the live broadcast below, or at redbullstratos.com/live.

And while we wait for the weather to clear, you can watch this cool CGI simulation of the dive:


Leap of faith: Felix Baumgartner’s historic jump from the edge of space

Leap of faith Felix Baumgartner's historic jump from the edge of space

BASE jumping might just be about to enter the mainstream. What has typically been considered a fringe activity, reserved for thrill seekers and adrenaline junkies, could soon be firmly cemented in the public view. For the uninitiated, BASE jumping is like skydiving, without the plane. Participants throw themselves off bridges, antennae, buildings, cliffs, and well, whatever high object they can find. It's not illegal, "in theory", but as many of the chosen launch spots are public or private property -- or pose a risk to public safety -- gaining access to, or jumping from them, can mean stepping over the legal line.

This otherwise obstreperous activity has largely kept to itself, occasionally popping up in magazines, or YouTube videos, but -- all going well -- on Monday that changes. Serial boundary pusher (of wing suit across the English Channel fame) Felix Baumgartner is set to leap, in the most literal sense of the word, from relative obscurity into the history books. How? By jumping to earth from the edge of space, likely breaking the sound barrier as he does so. How does one go from humble Austrian beginnings to a capsule 120,000 feet (about 23 miles) above the Earth's surface? Make a comparatively tiny leap past the break to find out.

Continue reading Leap of faith: Felix Baumgartner's historic jump from the edge of space

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Leap of faith: Felix Baumgartner's historic jump from the edge of space originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Oct 2012 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Giant Balloon to Be Used for Record-Setting Skydive is Thinner Than a Sandwich Bag

As we already know, daredevil Felix Baumgartner plans to hop in a pressurized capsule and using a gigantic helium balloon, ascend to 23 miles above the surface of the Earth. On October 8th, Baumgartner hopes to set a world record for the highest altitude skydive ever performed. He even plans to break the sound barrier without using an aircraft on his way down.

rb balloon

Some details have surfaced about the gigantic helium-filled balloon that will be used to take Baumgartner and his pressurized capsule to over 120,000 feet above the surface of the Earth. The balloon has a volume of 30 million cubic feet and will be filled with helium. The process of putting in all that helium will take up to an hour. The balloon in the photograph above is a much smaller 128 foot-tall balloon used to carry Baumgartner to altitude of 13 miles above the Earth back in March.

sandwich bag balloon

The balloon to be used for his record-setting jump next week will be a staggering 334 feet-tall. The balloon is incredibly thin at only 0.0008-inch thick. That is 10 times thinner than the baggy you put your sandwich in. Even at that thickness, it still weighs 3708 pounds, and can hold up to 834,497 cubic meters of helium. To put that in perspective, that’s about 280 times more helium than your average hot air balloon.

red bull stratos balloon

You can keep an eye on Felix’s mission over at the Red Bull Stratos website.

[via Wired]


Daredevil Leaps from over 96,000 Feet in the Air

We’ve been following the antics of Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner for months now. Baumgartner is the daredevil who plans on jumping from over 120,000 feet in the air, setting a world record and becoming the first person to break the speed of sound without an aircraft. Baumgartner has conducted several practice jumps and his latest practice jump came this week.

space jump tb

Baumgartner donned his pressure suit and climbed into a special capsule to take a ride to 96,640 feet above southeastern New Mexico. Once at altitude, the daredevil stepped out of the capsule and plummeted towards the ground reaching a top speed of 536 mph. After freefalling for 3 minutes and 48 seconds, Baumgartner opened his parachute.

Baumgartner was safely back on the ground 10 minutes and 30 seconds after jumping from his capsule. He had encountered a few difficulties on previous practice jumps, but there’s no word of any issues with his latest practice jump at this time. Baumgartner hopes to leap from 125,000 feet in the next month or so.

[via Space.com]