back to article Skydiver sets date for 'supersonic' edge-of-space PLUNGE

Balls-of-steel skydiver Felix Baumgartner has set a date for his "supersonic" attempt to break the world's highest space jump record. The 43-year-old Austrian will fall out of a 22.7-mile-high capsule on the 8 October. His attempt to shatter the record was delayed after the capsule - a custom-made pressurised vehicle that …

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  1. K
    Coat

    Sponsors should be made to prove proof of concept..

    Hence his parachute should be be replaced with a can of Redbull, after all it does give you wings..

  2. frank ly
    Happy

    Oh wow!

    I'm very happy that someone is doing this, and very happy that it's not me.

    1. Psyx

      Re: Oh wow!

      I have mixed feelings about the attempt in many ways. The prior record holder is an amazing chap, and it is saddening to see his record broken to help sell some fizzy drinks.

      1. Callam McMillan

        Re: Oh wow!

        To be fair to Red Bull though, they do sponsor a lot of awesome stuff that many corporate sponsors wouldn't go near, and seem to do so for the long term rather than for quick results.

        1. Psyx
          Thumb Up

          Re: Oh wow!

          "To be fair to Red Bull though, they do sponsor a lot of awesome stuff that many corporate sponsors wouldn't go near, and seem to do so for the long term rather than for quick results."

          Indeed. And the air-races and F1 team are great to watch. It's just that they're dethroning an idol of mine :)

          1. Callam McMillan

            Re: Oh wow!

            I understand what you mean, Kittenger was and is awesome. Look at it this way though, If NASA decided to go back to the moon tomorrow, in half the time and a tenth of the cost, they wouldn't be doing it using a flight computer with the power of my pocket scientific calculator. So the achievements of those that did remain undiminshed.

      2. tonyoung
        Happy

        Re: Oh wow!

        And 'kiss your ass goodbye'? Hope not!

        There seems to be some confusion about which Blackbird was actually involved in the M3/Weaver claims:

        http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/losses.php

        http://www.thexhunters.com/xpeditions/sr-71a_952_aircraft.html

        http://www.thexhunters.com/xpeditions/sr-71a_952_accident.html

        No doubt another conspiracy!

  3. Dom 3

    Mach 3

    Story here: http://www.916-starfighter.de/SR-71_Waever.htm

    1. Silverburn

      Re: Mach 3

      oh man. Brown trouser moment there.

      Though I understand a flight in the SR71 was typically just a series of brown trouser moments.

  4. Graham Marsden
    Coat

    Impressive...

    ... but where's he going to find room to put the full orchestra?

  5. Steve Button Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Is this for real?

    Frickin' awesome!

    'nuff said.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Synergy?

    If you can talk him into carrying Lohan along, you could save a lot of effort

  7. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Boffin

    Wondering when the first passenger for Virgin Galactic asks for this.

    Being above the *sensible* atmosphere there is *no* drag on the parachutist, so they pick up speed, a *lot*.

    Estimates put this at M3, but with a 7g decelleration once you hit some kind of serious atmosphere.

    Note the SR71 M3 is *horizontal* speed. while an ejection in level flight you will be moving *forward* at M3 but falling at the standard g. So likely to accelerate until drag matches g under Stoke law. Likely to be about 120mph as per usual freefall.

    1. SkippyBing

      moving *forward* at M3

      Yeah, that's still going to sting like a bitch mind.

      1. laird cummings

        ...sting like a bitch...

        Kinda like ejecting straight into a brick wall.

    2. laird cummings

      Doesn't matter

      "Note the SR71 M3 is *horizontal* speed. while an ejection in level flight you will be moving *forward* at M3 but falling at the standard g. So likely to accelerate until drag matches g under Stoke law. Likely to be about 120mph as per usual freefall."

      Doesn't matter - He was in free-fall the instant he departed the aircraft, no matter what might have been his vector with respect to the surface of the earth. Certainly his vertical component was less than his horizontal component, but he was still free-fallling much as a bullet free-falls once it leaves the muzzle.

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Boffin

        Re: Doesn't matter

        "Certainly his vertical component was less than his horizontal component, but he was still free-fallling much as a bullet free-falls once it leaves the muzzle."

        Correct

        And like that bullet he would accelerate *downward* from 0 mph until drag force (due to atmosphere) = mass * force of gravity on Earth. At which point it would reach *terminal* velocity.. Look up Stokes law for details.

        Normal terminal velocity for *humans* is roughly 120mph. There is still *enough* atmosphere at 70 Kft to lift a large sized plane so he's likely the pilot would start to decelerates as soon as he starts falling (limited by the footprint of his ejector seat).

        It's a balance of forces problem.

        *above* the bulk of the atmosphere IE Virgin Galactic the force of gravity would *not* be balanced by drag and you'd accelerate until you reached a higher air density.

        BTW SR71 crew were full face, full airtight pressure suits like the one this guy is going to be wearing. The force is roughly f=ma. At 70 000 ft that's roughly 0.3kg (air pressure and hence density *roughly* halves every 5600m) at (3 * 340) ms^-1 IE 306Pa.

    3. Psyx

      Re: Wondering when the first passenger for Virgin Galactic asks for this.

      "Likely to be about 120mph as per usual freefall."

      Except that SR-71 didn't fly in 'sensible' atmosphere (78,000 feet is cited as the ejection altitude), so the TV would have been a lot higher than 120mph.

  8. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
    Boffin

    'Presumably' is 'not necessarily'...

    "...he won't be fastest man to plunge through the air: in 1966, an SR-71 "Blackbird" spy plane cracked up at Mach 3, and its pilot, who survived the accident, is presumably the fastest free-faller ever..."

    Bill Weaver might be the fastest man traveling through air, or he might not. His aircraft, traveling at Mach 3.18, went out of control and slewed sideways. That will have lost a bit of speed. The aircraft then started to disintegrate under the aerodynamic forces, and broke in half. That will have lost some more speed. At some point the occupants were flung out of the tumbling nose cone and descended on automatic parachutes - one dead, one half conscious. They were not in a state to record the speed at which this took place, and had no working instruments at that point anyway. So they were probably traveling at less than Mach 3, but how much less will never be known...

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And let''s not forget test pilot Alexander Konovalov, Mach 2.6 and 59,055 ft. August 1981, MiG-25R Foxbat-B.

    Engine at one side failed, flat spin, then aircraft starts breaking up, managed to pull ejection handle on seat type that had only recently been rated for over Mach 1.8.

    He went back to work within a month ....!

    The pilot and his boss wanted to put it in the Guinness book of records at the time but because of the Cold War, they couldn't.

    http://www.flightgear.dk/mach26eject.htm

    http://www.ejection-history.org.uk/Country-By-Country/Russia_USSR.htm

    I had a copy of the original English article in Air Forces monthly March 2000 but not sure if I have it now.

    I think it had some interviews with him too. I think people met him flying at air shows in the West in 2000 hence the article.

  10. miknik
    Thumb Up

    The dimensions of his suit don't look right

    How does he fit his balls inside?

  11. Dr. Mouse

    Let's hope

    "If successful, it will beat the previous world record for the highest jump"

    If not... well, let's hope it doesn't come to that.

  12. druck Silver badge
    Go

    Next stop...

    ...re-entry from orbit. Some type of personal aero-shell heat-shield, then pretty much as they are doing here but higher and a lot faster.

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Coat

      Re: Next stop...

      Otherwise known as project MOOS.

      http://www.astronautix.com/craft/moose.htm

      Sadly they were unable to find a test pilot prepared to test it.

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