6 ms·

He failed breaking the record for longest free fall duration. If he will get a second chance to do that?

milesokeefe 14y ago
It sounds like it wouldn't be too difficult for him to break on a second try, given he was only 4-7 seconds away from breaking it.
- mittermayr 14y ago
  i doubt he's gonna do it anytime soon. it took them ages to prepare for this and in local interviews (saw them in Austria) he mentioned a couple of times that he finally wants this to be over and move on to something else. but technically, there's definitely more room to go crazy.
- Jarihd 14y ago
  Current Free Fall Record - 4:36 - and still holding Felix's Free Fall time - 4:22 Short by 14 seconds. Guess he pulled the parachute, when his helmet wiser started fogging up. Would have been great to have him break the existing record after having jumped off from a higher altitude than the earlier record jump. Good luck next time - to whoever makes the next jump.
  - erre 14y ago
    I have huge respect for people who make this sort of call - deploy the parachute when it needs to be deployed, not when it would land him another record. Like mountaineers who turn back before reaching the summit, because they know that getting there is only part of the effort. Well done, Felix. On all accounts!
    - Dylan16807 14y ago
      How exactly does helmet fog tie into safe parachute decisions? Couldn't see altitude and didn't trust himself to count?
      - lloyddobbler 14y ago
        As skydivers, we don't count. That's just the stuff from movies. We have altimeters that we trust to tell us our height. But more than those, we trust our best altimeter - our eyes. Visor fogging prevents you from knowing how high you are - either by looking at your altimeter, or looking at the ground. And that's a very dangerous place to be - particularly on an unprecedented freefall like this one. My guess is that Felix spent a while trying to get a glimpse at his altimeter. He finally saw enough to tell him he was getting somewhere close to deployment altitude, and decided to make the safe choice.
        Dylan16807 14y ago
        Okay, if he thought he was close to the deployment altitude then of course it's perfectly sensible to use the parachute. It's only if he was nowhere near it that I would question using the chute right away in response to vision impairment. And I haven't watched any movies with skydiving, I just figured that if you were watching an altimeter drop you would be able to extrapolate for a limited time.
        lloyddobbler 14y ago
        It's definitely an interesting question to consider. Our rule of thumb in skydiving is, "When in doubt, whip it out." You'd rather deploy too high than too low. There's a big hunk of granite coming up pretty fast that you don't want to interface with. :) In Felix's case, deploying too high could be a huge problem as well. So I'd be very interested to hear why/how he chose to deploy where he did. And yeah, under normal circumstances you could possibly extrapolate your altitude...but the problem is that once you can no longer see, you can't go back and get a good idea of where you were at prior to it happening. Visor fogging creeps up fast (even from 12,500'), and once it does, it's very difficult to even find a baseline from which to extrapolate.
46Bit 14y ago
They've mentioned that even something like acquiring a replacement balloon would take weeks, let alone the men and materials involved in such an effort. I doubt the funding or will is there to go for it, at least without another level up of altitude.
- spullara 14y ago
  At the peak they released helium to slow his ascent. At around 126k ft he accelerated and was ascending at 2000ft/min (twice as fast as he was going for most of the trip). It would have been interesting to see where it would have naturally stopped.
  - 46Bit 14y ago
    This did seem quite surprising to me as well - I think they might have let it go if it wasn't quite such a high rate of ascent. 2000ft/min could easily give them a final altitude way above what they'd expected.
    - tisme 14y ago
      Consider the risk of having the balloon go pop while he was still in the capsule. Mission shot to hell with no chance of recovery all for going beyond the design parameters of the balloon. They did well by playing it safe and not letting the ascent get out of control or too much above the target. Better to have 3 records set than an uncontrolled ascent with a small possibility of higher records (but not more of them) and a significant chance of disaster.
benlm 14y ago
He took the record for fastest freefall (supersonic), highest skydive and highest manned balloon flight. Pretty sure he'll be happy with that, and to let Kittinger keep longest freefall.
- tzs 14y ago
  I'm not sure about the fastest free fall part--how is free fall defined for purposes of this record? In particular, how does the record not belong to Bill Weaver, the test pilot whose SR-71 disintegrated at Mach 3.18? Here's his account of the incident: http://www.barthworks.com/aviation/sr71breakup.htm http://www.barthworks.com/aviation/sr71breakup.htm
  - calibwam 14y ago
    He didn't survive, which is a requisite to get a record.
    - carbocation 14y ago
      Then how did he write a firsthand account?
      - georgemcbay 14y ago
        ghostblogging. It is the hottest new trend in the Valley.
        carbocation 14y ago
        I must say, I do subscribe to Tupac's ghost-podcast.
  - lloyddobbler 14y ago
    Now that's a freakin' cool article! Freefall is generally defined in terms of vertical speed. If you exit a DeHavilland Twin Otter that's doing 90 knots forward speed, yes, you get "forward throw" from the plane...but you still have to accelerate vertically before reaching terminal velocity. As a skydiver flying on your belly in an arched position, you usually fall at ~5 seconds per 1000 feet...excepting the first 1000 feet, which takes ~10 seconds to fall as you move from 0 vertical speed to 120mph. (It's that age-old physics problem of whether the forward speed of a projectile has an effect on its downward velocity.)
spullara 14y ago
The fastest freefall and the longest freefall are at odds with one another. Additionally, the record holder used a drogue parachute to slow his descent.
- scoot 14y ago
  Doesn't that contradict the definition of free-fall? How big can the drogue be before it's considered a parachute?
  - spullara 14y ago
    Don't know if there are standards for this, but here is what Wikipedia says about the previous jump: "On August 16, 1960, he made the final jump, from the Excelsior I999II, at 102,800 feet (31,300 m).[2] Towing a small drogue parachute for initial stabilization, he fell for 4 minutes and 36 seconds, reaching a maximum speed of 614 miles per hour (988 km/h)[4][5] before opening his parachute at 18,000 feet (5,500 m)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kittinger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kittinger
  - lloyddobbler 14y ago
    IMO (skydiving instructor, world record holder with ~800 jumps), it doesn't necessarily contradict the definition of freefall...and was in keeping with Kittinger's mission (which was to test whether a Mercury astronaut with no skydiving experience could exit their spacecraft safely in the event of an emergency during the ascent). The jump on which the 1960 record was set was Joe Kittinger's 34th jump. Regardless, tandem skydiving rigs traditionally use drogues to stabilize and slow the freefall. So while they do provide drag, and semantically one could say that it's not "terminal velocity", ask anyone who's made a tandem jump: 120mph is freefall. I'd say if a drogue is landable, you could call it a parachute. Most drogues are ~2 feet in diameter and only slow you down by, say, 20mph...not exactly landable. Definitely an interesting question, though.
    - genwin 14y ago
      Maybe the skydiving community has its own definition of free fall? My books say there can't be any force on you except gravity, which seem to rule out any apparatus intended to slow the fall.
jws 14y ago
Did this guy just jump from the edge of space at maybe more than the speed of sound and you're grousing at him for not falling the longest time? You sir, have high expectations.
- sylvinus 14y ago
  He did not pass the speed of sound :(
  - MrFoof 14y ago
    Indeed, he didn't break the speed of sound. When he hit around an estimated 729mph, he was spinning a fair bit. It looked as if he made the decision to attempt to stabilize (I think he mentioned during descent that he thought he was going to pass out) himself at the cost of not breaking the sound barrier.
    - monochromatic 14y ago
      Surely the speed of sound is much lower at that altitude, since it's so cold. Are people talking about the sea-level speed of sound?
    - arrrg 14y ago
      On their website they say that the speed of sound would be about 690mph at the height that he was expected to reach it, not 768mph – that speed just applies at standard temperature and pressure. I would very much like confirmation on that point, but it seems to me that pointing to the 729mph you saw is no such confirmation.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
  - k-mcgrady 14y ago
    I don't think it has been confirmed yet, he was pretty close.
  - thomasilk 14y ago
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
gmaslov 14y ago
Not likely. I believe the record holder for longest free fall duration is Valeri Polyakov, at 14 months aboard MIR ;-)
- anonymouz 14y ago
  I have not seen this noted anywhere so far (comparisons are always with Kittinger's jump duration), but it's actually a great point. Only the longest free fall would have to be counted inbetween station boosts, so it would presumably be a lot shorter (but maybe a lot longer than 4minutes?).
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    Way longer than 4 minutes. Station-keeping boosts on Mir were done only a few times a year (and were usually done by attached resupply crafts). Edit: Here's a cool altitude graph for Mir: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:MirOrbitalManoeuvres.svg&page=1 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:MirOrbitalMan...
- drcube 14y ago
  I've been in free fall around the sun for about 30 years now, doing around 60,000 mph the whole time. Where's my prize?
  - dennisgorelik 14y ago
    I took it by doing it longer than you.
thomasilk 14y ago
No, he probably did this to leave Joe Kittinger one of his world records, because Joe was the essential team member who made this mission possible for Felix.
- mittermayr 14y ago
  that, or the fogged up visor and inability to read altitude meters
  - lloyddobbler 14y ago
    ^^ This. Your eyes are your best altimeter, and flying blind isn't ever a good idea...but particularly on a high-stress operation like this one.
- trafficlight 14y ago
  I highly doubt that.
jcollins1991 14y ago
He's already said this will be his last jump [1] [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/oct/14/felix-baumgartner-lands-safely-record http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/oct/14/felix-baumgartne...

It sounds like it wouldn't be too difficult for him to break on a second try, given he was only 4-7 seconds away from breaking it.

mittermayr 14y ago
i doubt he's gonna do it anytime soon. it took them ages to prepare for this and in local interviews (saw them in Austria) he mentioned a couple of times that he finally wants this to be over and move on to something else. but technically, there's definitely more room to go crazy.
Jarihd 14y ago
Current Free Fall Record - 4:36 - and still holding Felix's Free Fall time - 4:22 Short by 14 seconds. Guess he pulled the parachute, when his helmet wiser started fogging up. Would have been great to have him break the existing record after having jumped off from a higher altitude than the earlier record jump. Good luck next time - to whoever makes the next jump.
- erre 14y ago
  I have huge respect for people who make this sort of call - deploy the parachute when it needs to be deployed, not when it would land him another record. Like mountaineers who turn back before reaching the summit, because they know that getting there is only part of the effort. Well done, Felix. On all accounts!
  - Dylan16807 14y ago
    How exactly does helmet fog tie into safe parachute decisions? Couldn't see altitude and didn't trust himself to count?
    - lloyddobbler 14y ago
      As skydivers, we don't count. That's just the stuff from movies. We have altimeters that we trust to tell us our height. But more than those, we trust our best altimeter - our eyes. Visor fogging prevents you from knowing how high you are - either by looking at your altimeter, or looking at the ground. And that's a very dangerous place to be - particularly on an unprecedented freefall like this one. My guess is that Felix spent a while trying to get a glimpse at his altimeter. He finally saw enough to tell him he was getting somewhere close to deployment altitude, and decided to make the safe choice.
      - Dylan16807 14y ago
        Okay, if he thought he was close to the deployment altitude then of course it's perfectly sensible to use the parachute. It's only if he was nowhere near it that I would question using the chute right away in response to vision impairment. And I haven't watched any movies with skydiving, I just figured that if you were watching an altimeter drop you would be able to extrapolate for a limited time.
        lloyddobbler 14y ago
        It's definitely an interesting question to consider. Our rule of thumb in skydiving is, "When in doubt, whip it out." You'd rather deploy too high than too low. There's a big hunk of granite coming up pretty fast that you don't want to interface with. :) In Felix's case, deploying too high could be a huge problem as well. So I'd be very interested to hear why/how he chose to deploy where he did. And yeah, under normal circumstances you could possibly extrapolate your altitude...but the problem is that once you can no longer see, you can't go back and get a good idea of where you were at prior to it happening. Visor fogging creeps up fast (even from 12,500'), and once it does, it's very difficult to even find a baseline from which to extrapolate.

46Bit 14y ago

They've mentioned that even something like acquiring a replacement balloon would take weeks, let alone the men and materials involved in such an effort. I doubt the funding or will is there to go for it, at least without another level up of altitude.

spullara 14y ago
At the peak they released helium to slow his ascent. At around 126k ft he accelerated and was ascending at 2000ft/min (twice as fast as he was going for most of the trip). It would have been interesting to see where it would have naturally stopped.
- 46Bit 14y ago
  This did seem quite surprising to me as well - I think they might have let it go if it wasn't quite such a high rate of ascent. 2000ft/min could easily give them a final altitude way above what they'd expected.
  - tisme 14y ago
    Consider the risk of having the balloon go pop while he was still in the capsule. Mission shot to hell with no chance of recovery all for going beyond the design parameters of the balloon. They did well by playing it safe and not letting the ascent get out of control or too much above the target. Better to have 3 records set than an uncontrolled ascent with a small possibility of higher records (but not more of them) and a significant chance of disaster.

benlm 14y ago

He took the record for fastest freefall (supersonic), highest skydive and highest manned balloon flight. Pretty sure he'll be happy with that, and to let Kittinger keep longest freefall.

tzs 14y ago
I'm not sure about the fastest free fall part--how is free fall defined for purposes of this record? In particular, how does the record not belong to Bill Weaver, the test pilot whose SR-71 disintegrated at Mach 3.18? Here's his account of the incident: http://www.barthworks.com/aviation/sr71breakup.htm http://www.barthworks.com/aviation/sr71breakup.htm
- calibwam 14y ago
  He didn't survive, which is a requisite to get a record.
  - carbocation 14y ago
    Then how did he write a firsthand account?
    - georgemcbay 14y ago
      ghostblogging. It is the hottest new trend in the Valley.
      - carbocation 14y ago
        I must say, I do subscribe to Tupac's ghost-podcast.
- lloyddobbler 14y ago
  Now that's a freakin' cool article! Freefall is generally defined in terms of vertical speed. If you exit a DeHavilland Twin Otter that's doing 90 knots forward speed, yes, you get "forward throw" from the plane...but you still have to accelerate vertically before reaching terminal velocity. As a skydiver flying on your belly in an arched position, you usually fall at ~5 seconds per 1000 feet...excepting the first 1000 feet, which takes ~10 seconds to fall as you move from 0 vertical speed to 120mph. (It's that age-old physics problem of whether the forward speed of a projectile has an effect on its downward velocity.)

spullara 14y ago

The fastest freefall and the longest freefall are at odds with one another. Additionally, the record holder used a drogue parachute to slow his descent.

scoot 14y ago
Doesn't that contradict the definition of free-fall? How big can the drogue be before it's considered a parachute?
- spullara 14y ago
  Don't know if there are standards for this, but here is what Wikipedia says about the previous jump: "On August 16, 1960, he made the final jump, from the Excelsior I999II, at 102,800 feet (31,300 m).[2] Towing a small drogue parachute for initial stabilization, he fell for 4 minutes and 36 seconds, reaching a maximum speed of 614 miles per hour (988 km/h)[4][5] before opening his parachute at 18,000 feet (5,500 m)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kittinger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kittinger
- lloyddobbler 14y ago
  IMO (skydiving instructor, world record holder with ~800 jumps), it doesn't necessarily contradict the definition of freefall...and was in keeping with Kittinger's mission (which was to test whether a Mercury astronaut with no skydiving experience could exit their spacecraft safely in the event of an emergency during the ascent). The jump on which the 1960 record was set was Joe Kittinger's 34th jump. Regardless, tandem skydiving rigs traditionally use drogues to stabilize and slow the freefall. So while they do provide drag, and semantically one could say that it's not "terminal velocity", ask anyone who's made a tandem jump: 120mph is freefall. I'd say if a drogue is landable, you could call it a parachute. Most drogues are ~2 feet in diameter and only slow you down by, say, 20mph...not exactly landable. Definitely an interesting question, though.
  - genwin 14y ago
    Maybe the skydiving community has its own definition of free fall? My books say there can't be any force on you except gravity, which seem to rule out any apparatus intended to slow the fall.

jws 14y ago

Did this guy just jump from the edge of space at maybe more than the speed of sound and you're grousing at him for not falling the longest time? You sir, have high expectations.

sylvinus 14y ago
He did not pass the speed of sound :(
- MrFoof 14y ago
  Indeed, he didn't break the speed of sound. When he hit around an estimated 729mph, he was spinning a fair bit. It looked as if he made the decision to attempt to stabilize (I think he mentioned during descent that he thought he was going to pass out) himself at the cost of not breaking the sound barrier.
  - monochromatic 14y ago
    Surely the speed of sound is much lower at that altitude, since it's so cold. Are people talking about the sea-level speed of sound?
  - arrrg 14y ago
    On their website they say that the speed of sound would be about 690mph at the height that he was expected to reach it, not 768mph – that speed just applies at standard temperature and pressure. I would very much like confirmation on that point, but it seems to me that pointing to the 729mph you saw is no such confirmation.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- k-mcgrady 14y ago
  I don't think it has been confirmed yet, he was pretty close.
- thomasilk 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

gmaslov 14y ago

Not likely. I believe the record holder for longest free fall duration is Valeri Polyakov, at 14 months aboard MIR ;-)

anonymouz 14y ago
I have not seen this noted anywhere so far (comparisons are always with Kittinger's jump duration), but it's actually a great point. Only the longest free fall would have to be counted inbetween station boosts, so it would presumably be a lot shorter (but maybe a lot longer than 4minutes?).
- jlgreco 14y ago
  Way longer than 4 minutes. Station-keeping boosts on Mir were done only a few times a year (and were usually done by attached resupply crafts). Edit: Here's a cool altitude graph for Mir: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:MirOrbitalManoeuvres.svg&page=1 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:MirOrbitalMan...
drcube 14y ago
I've been in free fall around the sun for about 30 years now, doing around 60,000 mph the whole time. Where's my prize?
- dennisgorelik 14y ago
  I took it by doing it longer than you.

thomasilk 14y ago

No, he probably did this to leave Joe Kittinger one of his world records, because Joe was the essential team member who made this mission possible for Felix.

mittermayr 14y ago
that, or the fogged up visor and inability to read altitude meters
- lloyddobbler 14y ago
  ^^ This. Your eyes are your best altimeter, and flying blind isn't ever a good idea...but particularly on a high-stress operation like this one.
trafficlight 14y ago
I highly doubt that.

jcollins1991 14y ago

He's already said this will be his last jump [1] [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/oct/14/felix-baumgartner-lands-safely-record http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/oct/14/felix-baumgartne...