The Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner will attempt to become the first human to break the sound barrier unaided by a vehicle. He is going to jump out of a balloon at more than 120,000ft (36.5km) above Roswell, New Mexico. In the near vacuum at that altitude, he should accelerate beyond about 690mph (1,110km/h) within 40 seconds. If all goes well, he will open a parachute near the ground to land softly in the desert, 10 minutes later. The 43-year-old adventurer - famous for jumping off skyscrapers - is under no illusions about the dangers he faces. Where he is going, the air pressure is less than 2% of what it is at sea level, and it is impossible to breathe without an oxygen supply. Others who have tried to break the existing records for the highest, fastest and longest freefalls have lost their lives in the process. "If something goes wrong, the only thing that might help you is God," says Baumgartner. "Because if you run out of luck, if you run out of skills, there is nothing left and you have to really hope he is not going to let you down." Weather permitting, lift-off from Roswell airport should occur about 0700 local time (1300 GMT; 1400BST). More - http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-19860249 What kind of sick bastard would do this? I wouldn't do a sky dive or even a bungee jump. No siree. Any of you ****s jumped out a plane?
As soon as you land you want to do it straight again. First one I done was 10am on a Sunday mornin and we had only stopped boozin at 7am. The instructor went through the whole policy of no boozin 24 hours beforehand, ha. But I had my sunnies on to disguise my drowsy eyes. A fella that we tried to get up on the plane told us that he had been up 6 times and bottled it each time. Wasn't prepared to lose more money doin it.
We had to wait most of the day to do our jumps because of high wind. When we did jump it was to a setting sun. It was ****in amazing.
The people I did it with never gave you the option to bottle it, once you were in the plane that was it you were jumping, like it or not
I done it out in Florida, crystal clear day, could see for miles it's that flat. Plus it was a fraction of the price. A wee Indian bloke did it at the same time and the colour drained right of him, he was like a corpse.
I don't like flying never mind jumping out of a plane. Mind you, I would happily have sponsored some of the people i've had to sit next to on flights if they'd wanted to have a go - preferably without a parachute mind.
The guys in the wee plane were happily discussing watching out for your rip cord getting tugged while in the plane. Basically if it happens ye get chucked oot cos if the chute starts to open inside the cabin it will get caught by the wind and pull you through the rear of the plane thereby ripping the tail off. The ****s
We had all the people asking questions beforehand about how safe it was, how many people die etc. I'm gonna ask them the next time I'm boarding a flight. I didn't really care, knew it was safe myself and just wanted to do it without listening to someone waffle on for an hour about it.
Until you lost you finger in a freak mid air accident*, went off direction and crashed through your mrs' window, landing on the settee and evacuating the previous nights home made curry all over it. *not quite sure what sort of accident
