Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner comes into land on the French coast at Calais after his freefall across the English Channel between Dover and Calais, July 31, 2003. Baumgartner jumped out of a plane at 9000 metres above Dover in southern England on Thursday, wearing only an aerodynamic jumpsuit with a 1.8m carbon fin strapped to his back, oxygen to breathe, and a parachute to land, and landed safely in Calais after an eight-minute flight, becoming the first person to skydive across the English Channel. PHOTO - REUTERS
LONDON - An Austrian stuntman last Thursday became the first person to skydive across the English Channel, free falling at 200 km per hour (124 mph) in the process. Felix Baumgartner jumped out of a plane at 9,000 metres (29,500ft) above Dover, England, wearing a specially constructed carbon wing and flew towards France before parachuting into hills above the port of Calais.
„I made it which is great,“ he told reporters on landing. „It‘s pretty cold up there. I still can feel nothing,“ said the self-styled „God of the Skies“, who started parachuting as a teenager before taking up the extreme sport of BASE jumping. Setting off early in the morning to avoid commercial flights, Baumgartner used oxygen supplies during the 35 km (22 mile) flight to survive the rarefied air.
His team estimates that he will have attained a top speed of over 200 kmh during the fall, which took only around 10 minutes.
In contrast, Louis Bleriot took 37 minutes to make his ground breaking flight across the channel in 1909 and Matthew Webb took 22 hours to swim it for the first time in 1875. The special wing with a wingspan of 1.8 metres is made of the same special lightweight carbon composite used in Formula One racing cars. Baumgartner, 34, set world records for the highest and lowest parachute dives in 1999 with daredevil jumps from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur and the statue of Christ in Rio de Janeiro. BASE jumpers must parachute from Buildings, Antenna, Spans (Bridges) and the Earth (cliffs) before they can join the club. Reuters
