The Hindu : 'Birdman' wings his way to Calais

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 01, 2003

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'Birdman' wings his way to Calais

CALAIS (France) JULY 31. An Austrian who specialises in daring-do stunt jumps donned a carbon fibre wing and flew across the English Channel on Thursday after being dropped from a plane.

Felix Baumgartner made the 34-km trip in 14 minutes, according to Sarah Christofi, his spokeswoman.

``It's very cold up there,'' said the 34-year-old Austrian upon landing at Cap Blanc-Nez, near the Channel port of Calais. ``I still can feel nothing.''

Mr. Baumgartner, fitted out with a parachute, was lofted from an airplane some 30,000 feet above Dover.

However, he relied solely on the 5.9-ft wing attached to his back for the trip, opening his parachute west of Calais only to slow down and land. He was dropped above Dover at 6:09 a.m. and landed at 6:23 a.m., at one point travelling at 350 kph, Ms. Christofi said.

Despite the chill, Mr. Baumgartner said he felt `great'.

Cloud cover obscured vision, forcing Mr. Baumgartner to follow two lead planes to find his way. His spaceman-like suit was equipped with cameras and monitoring equipment so that he could be tracked.

The first man to parachute from Malaysia's Petronas Towers — the world's tallest building — Mr. Baumgartner said it wasn't by chance that he chose the English Channel to literally try out his wing.

``The Channel fits perfectly for the performance of the wing .... There's a lot of spirit in this place,'' he said.

The extreme sports fanatic recalled the 1909 flight across the Channel of French aviator Louis Bleriot.

``And it's exactly 100 years ago that the Wright Brothers were doing the first flight with a plane,'' he said. ``And now I'm here, with my little wing.''

Americans Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first powered flight, in a rickety airplane, in December 1903.

``I made it, which is great,'' he told reporters on landing. The self-styled ``God of the Skies'' 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 flight to survive the rarefied air.

His team estimates that he will have attained a top speed of over 200 kph 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.

BASE jumpers must parachute from Buildings, Antennae, Spans (Bridges) and the Earth (cliffs) before they can join the club.

— AP\Reuters

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