Usually, you would skydive from between 3,000 to 13,000 feet, but Felix Baumgartner is planning on doing it a little higher than that.
You’d think that jumping out of an airplane at 13,000 feet would quench the thirst of any adrenaline junkie. Not Felix Baumgartner. He’s preparing to jump out of a balloon and free fall from a height of… wait for it… 120,000 feet. He’s literally jumping from the edge of space.
At around 35 seconds into his free fall, Felix will have broken the speed of sound. At around 5,000 feet he will deploy his parachute and (hopefully) land to safety.
The whole free fall is expected to last the guts of 10 minutes, during which the Austrian, sponsored by Red Bull, will break four world records, which are: the highest altitude free fall, the highest manned balloon flight, the longest distance travelled in free fall and the speed record for the fastest free fall.
Felix isn’t doing this in his Sunday best either. He has to wear a special suit that can withstand traveling at 1110 kph (690mph in old money) and temperatures that are as low as -60C.
It will take around three hours for Felix’s balloon to reach the drop zone at 120,000 feet, so at least he’ll have a bit of time to think if it was really a good idea.
Pity there’s only one way down though.
