John Shiels

690 mph 120,000 feet breaking the sound barrier. Think he will make it? On CNN live this morning.

Rob31

120,000 & 1/2 ?
hope it works out for him .

el es tu

I hope this works out safely - with the heat that will be generated, how is he not going to boil his brain?

John Shiels

on Discovery channel GF said his mother was screaming and crying. She said he didn't look to happy either.

waddisme

The guy who holds the current record, is helping him with this jump. I think the old record was set in like 1962.

Short-Throw

He's going through the safety check list right now, getting ready to jump from capsule.

Short-Throw

Looks like he did it!

John Shiels

Very cool glad he didn't take the record for free-fall because Kitinger SP? who holds the records was helping him. His record was set in 1961

Everett Ogilvie

Pretty amazing, and quite terrifying when he was tumbling, and then a very welcome sight when he gained control and stopped the tumble. Perfect landing!

RaleighSS

Yea that was pretty sweet to watch .... saw that free fall spin and thought the worst .. Great job and one heck of a show glad the covered it real time.

John Shiels

CNN cut away after the jump until after he landed in case something happen But they can show people in pieces blown apart in the Mid East.

He didn't have ***** of steel he had "***** of Diamonds" Good they got the capsule back.

L98Terror

http://gizmodo.com/5951621/watch-the...pace-jump-here

el es tu

so what was the official speed? I though I heard something like 720 mph...

drivinhard

Man does it first in a plane, 65 yrs later to the day...does it with a suit

waddisme

The view from the camera above him when he jump was awesome. Incridible how fast he disappeared. I did the jump from the Stratosphere in Vegas a couple of years ago - can't even come close to what he was probably feeling.

VetteDrmr

Official numbers will be published by the FAI when the records are certified. Unofficial numbers are around 820 mph, Mach 1.24.

Shame mission control (Kittinger) didn't give him some kind of countdown to pulling the main chute, he pulled it about a minute earlier than planned, probably due to his faceplate fogging.

OTOH, Kittinger had a drogue chute deployed during his free-fall (they even refer to it as "drogue-fall"), so if one wanted to split hairs they could say Baumgartner got that one as well.

A great kit of marketing by RB, they're REALLY good at that!

Have a good one,
Mike

clubracer6

i watched the live event and it was truly one of the most amazing and tense event to watch... Just amazing what we can do when we put our minds to it. That tumbling looked frightening...

John Shiels

imagine how it felt

John Shiels

They are doing a whole special on the event in the future. Wonder the cost of it? Balloon was 550 feet long!

John Shiels

831 mph fastest man ever?