Swiss inventor Yves Rossy took Elton John's Rocket Man just a little to seriously
Remember those cool jet packs you saw in the movies as a kid? Well, they’re for real, folks, as we saw this week, when Swiss inventor/daredevil/rocket man Yves Rossy jumped out of a perfectly good helicopter and treated onlookers in Rio De Janeiro and the Christ the Redeemer statue to a little jet-powered ingenuity before landing on Copocabana Beach.
At present, Rossy is the only man ever to have had the pleasure to live out his wildest Jetsons wet dreams, as his jet pack, which he invented himself, is the only one in existence (darn!), though this wasn’t his debut flight. Rossy became the first man every to fly with a jet pack back in 2009 when he did a fly by over the Swiss Alps.
And I thought the Swiss just made clocks and chocolate…
Anyway, a little video of Rossy’s adventures high over Rio de Janeiro in his jet pack. Let’s see how long before he auctions it off on Ebay…
The on-again-off-again Felix Baumgartner space jump is on again, according to statements from Red Bull and various media outlets including BBC .
Baumgartner is, as you may recall, an Austrian daredevil with a penchant for jumping off stuff that he really shouldn’t, but he does anyway, and it makes for some sick video. That’s why he’s awesome. On his list of de-virginized BASE Jumps, Petronas Towers, Taipei 101 and the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio De Janeiro. God bless you Felix Baumgartner.
But it’s his next jump, planned for several years now, that I blogged about a few years ago, that’s really gonna drop your jaw. This time he’s setting the record for a free fall – he’s jumping from a location up, WAAAYYYY up, 36 kilometres above the Earth, in what’s been dubbed ‘The Space Jump’.
If he’s successful, the jump will eclipse the previous record, set by Joe Kittinger in 1960, in which Kittinger did a 31 kilometer free-fall. Cojones the size of watermelons that man has.
Baumgartner’s Space Jump, assuming it happens, will have him falling so fast he’ll actually break the sound barrier. That will be the first time man has achieved that speed without assistance from a machine.
BBC and National Geographic are working on the documentary. Will keep an eye on this one…
Watch the video, and hear Joe Kittinger as he speaks of his 50 year old record and passing the torch, so to speak. I still think it’s touching everytime this man talks about working up the courage to set such a crazy record, and how he “said a little prayer” before he jumped.
He’s Russian and he’s in a mid-air dogfight resulting in an unplanned eject. We’ve seen that one before. But in the history of aerial dogfights, this one’s a first. And the video has gone viral.
The gist of it: Russian paraglider cruises over the Himalayas. All’s groovy, the video’s awesome. Then it happens – the guy gets unsanctimoniously rammed mid-air by a vulture who’s not too keen on sharing air space. Russian paraglider ejects, but the pissed off raptor gets stuck in the parachute. Fortunately, they’re both OK. But their egos? That’s another story. If only the vulture knew his territorial spat is making the rounds online…man…he’d blush.
Porn star/Sky-diver Alex Torres gets his freak on mid-air with Hope Howell.
This rocks and sucks at the same time. Keep reading though cause there’s a porn video at the end of this post.
Last week, a porn star who moonlights as a sky-diving instructor, Alex Torres, pulled one of the coolest stunts a guy could think of. He and his lovely co-worker, Hope Howell, had sex in a plane and continued said sex while sky-diving. And they taped their escapade.
Coolness. So why is the guy now in hot water? Some admirable teen ager (who, if you ask me, is a little jealous of Torres’ sheer awesomeness) had an issue with the girl in the video, Howell. So he gets a copy of the tape and posts it online. A few days later, the tape goes viral and into the hands of the local cops and the owner of the skydiving school where the couple worked, Skydive Taft, in Bakersfield, California.
Now Torres is fired. The school’s owner, Dave Chrouch, hasn’t decided whether amorous secretary Hope Howell keeps her job. The cops say no charges are pending. But…because the couple got medieval on the seat in the cockpit, next to the pilot, the FAA is now investigating.
Understandably, safety is always a priority, so the FAA is certainly obliged to check out the escapade. And it’s understandable that the business owner, Chrouch, has to make a living and therefore canned Torres, who also goes by the moniker Voodoo.
But to the teenager who posted the video because he basically didn’t like the girl, I’m sorry, but you’re a serious wanker. Torres and his leading lady did something amazing and engaged in an act of celebration of life that precious few people will ever achieve. Having sex while sky-diving? That is just too awesome.
And to the angry parents who called the cops and the sky-diving school’s owner when they saw the video of Torres and Howell and their mid-air rendez vous, ask yourself, is making love while skydiving any worse than the violent video games that your kids play? Is it ok to watch a TV show in which a man threatens to kill another with a gun, yet a couple celebrates the gift of life by making love in a completely original and exhilarating manner and you call the police? If your answer is yes, I believe there is something wrong.
Torres may be fired, but as far as I’m concerned, the guy’s a stud. Ditto for Hope Howell. And notably, the Mile High Club has two new, very deserving members. I hope these two safely land on their feet.
Get ready, there’s a new dare devil on the block. And after seeing this ridiculous video, you’ve got yet another reason to ask Santa for a wing-suit this Christmas.
In the video, Corliss jumps off a helicopter and flies through a narrow crack in Tianmen mountain in China. You gotta see this one to believe it. Something tells me we’re gonna see more of Jeb Corliss in the future.
Where do people think up this stuff? We’ve seen guys jumping out of planes in kayaks, people waterskiing behind great white sharks. And now, in perhaps the best-looking video ever, a skier makes an absolutely sick cliff jump during an avalanche.
Truthfully, I think somebody was sitting at home one night, took acid and thought this one up. But I’m glad they did because this video is absolutely freakin’ gorgeous, shot in glorious HD!! A bit of a corporate plug, I admit, but will blow your mind none the less. Matthias Giraud is this week’s hero.
You just gotta love those Norwegians. Vikings, death metal, and now…their best invention ever…wing-suits. I’m not sure what I like better, the absolutely SICK video of these guys hitting 200 miles an hour, or the screams of the observers as the wing-suit wackos fly past. But the best part? Listen to the blond lady’s only English words in the Norwegian-conducted interview. I’ll give you a hint. What would you say if you saw two guys flying at you at 200 miles an hour?
I thought I’d seen it all. I’ve blogged about wing-suits, kissing sharks, glacier surfing and plenty other neat ways to get your rocks off. But this one takes the cake.
I’ve only seen this attempted once before, in that 1991 classic Point Break, aka the best movie of all time. Evidently Travis Pastrana felt a little boxed in with his life, and felt like taking a plane, quaffing a beer, and jumping out of said plane…without a parachute.
For all us adrenaline monkeys, Travis Pastrana, no matter what he does for the rest of his life, has achieved the level of steel cojones. Brass balls. But the best part? He chugs a beer first. Actually, I think it’s a Red Bull, but I’m pretending it’s a beer.
Dean Potter, slack-lining his way into the record books.
Any video with Dean Potter, high altitudes and no safety harness is gonna be good and this one doesn’t disappoint. Dean Potter is the American daredevil I blogged about a year ago, and he has a curious habit of climbing mountains without safety equipment, and either jumping off it, or slacklining it (tight-rope walking without equipment) and then BASE jumping his way down.
This video includes footage from his world-record BASE Jump in 2009, with a wing-suit.
I am really at a loss here whether Potter, or Felix Baumgartner is the baddest of the bad. I take comfort though in knowing that there are guys like this with more testosterone than any reasonable guy should have. Guess I’m not the only one who took Point Break way too seriously. Bodhi would be proud.
Get ready for some air time! This video has some seriously amazing, if not demented jumping, from planes, ramps and things that make you go Boom! when you land. You might recognize some of these jumps from some of my earlier blog posts. There’s a bit of corporate plugging going on in a few stunts (drink Red Bull!), but you have to give it to them, they know how to put on a good stunt. Jumps five and two are my favourite. But number one is definitely justified as being the bravest, most hardcore jump of all time. And for that, I tip my hat to Joe Kittinger.
