May 21

French Daredevil Rides Rocket Bicycle at 163 MPH

Posted in: Today's Chili

Yes, you read that right. A maniacal Frenchman piloted a home-made rocket-powered bicycle to what he claims was a speed of 163 mph. On a bicycle. Holy crap!

rocket powered bicycle francois gissyFrançois Gissy developed the rocket bicycle with the help of the Swiss company Exotic Thermo Engineering, which created the hydrogen peroxide powered propulsion unit. A GPS placed on the bike was used to measure the speed. The video is quite short, as François holds on to the rocket bicycle as it rushes past a car.

He made the run on a disused air force runway this past Sunday and the speed record is as yet unverified. Other sources state that the bicycle went much slower, but we’ll soon find out if this really was the fastest bicycle on Earth.

rocket powered bicycle francois gissy ready

[via Bikeradar]

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Oct 09

Record-Breaking Skydive Planned for Today

Posted in: Today's Chili

Today is the big day for daredevil Felix Baumgartner and the Red Bull Stratos team. Assuming the weather holds out, Baumgartner will spend two hours climbing to over 120,000 feet inside his pressurized capsule attached to the world’s largest helium filled balloon. Once Baumgartner reaches his apex at about 23 miles above the Earth’s surface, he will jump.

red bull stratos

The skydive isn’t the only record Baumgartner aims to break. Assuming he succeeds, he will also be making the highest manned balloon flight ever. Baumgartner and his team expect that at the altitude where his descent will begin, he will need to reach 690 mph to break the sound barrier. He will become the first human to travel faster than the speed of sound without an aircraft if all goes according to plan.

Luckily for us, Baumgartner will be wearing multiple cameras on his high-tech pressure suit. Baumgartner has five cameras in various locations on his body that will record footage so we can all watch as he plummets to the ground. Baumgartner’s suit also has a variety of sensors and other technology to allow him to communicate with his ground crew and to verify if he breaks the speed of sound.

You can watch the live broadcast below, or at redbullstratos.com/live.

And while we wait for the weather to clear, you can watch this cool CGI simulation of the dive:


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Aug 07

Marvel and Fox Haggle over Rights to Daredevil and Silver Surfer

Posted in: Today's Chili

I think we can be honest in that one of the worst superhero flicks to be based on a comic book hero ever was Daredevil. As cool as the movie could’ve been, the finished product we saw in the 2003 film was rather cheesy. With so many superhero franchises being rebooted recently, you may be wondering if someone’s going to try their hand again at Daredevil and the answer is “yes.”

daredevil

Apparently, Fox has had the rights to make another Daredevil film for while. The holdup was that the chosen director, David Slade (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Hard Candy), dropped out of the project and Fox had to find a new director. Fox has now lined up director Joe Carnahan (Narc, The Grey). However, if Fox doesn’t start filming by October 10 rights to the character will revert to Marvel.

That would mean Marvel could sell the rights to another film company or do what it wanted with Daredevil. According to reports, Marvel is willing to let Fox hold onto the rights to Daredevil for a bit longer with one condition. Marvel, and its owner Disney, wants access to characters that Fox had previously licensed including Silver Surfer and Galactus. Legal discussions aside, we can only hope that with Carnahan’s dark and brooding style that his Daredevil actually gets made.

[via Vulture]


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Jul 27

Daredevil Leaps from over 96,000 Feet in the Air

Posted in: Today's Chili

We’ve been following the antics of Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner for months now. Baumgartner is the daredevil who plans on jumping from over 120,000 feet in the air, setting a world record and becoming the first person to break the speed of sound without an aircraft. Baumgartner has conducted several practice jumps and his latest practice jump came this week.

space jump tb

Baumgartner donned his pressure suit and climbed into a special capsule to take a ride to 96,640 feet above southeastern New Mexico. Once at altitude, the daredevil stepped out of the capsule and plummeted towards the ground reaching a top speed of 536 mph. After freefalling for 3 minutes and 48 seconds, Baumgartner opened his parachute.

Baumgartner was safely back on the ground 10 minutes and 30 seconds after jumping from his capsule. He had encountered a few difficulties on previous practice jumps, but there’s no word of any issues with his latest practice jump at this time. Baumgartner hopes to leap from 125,000 feet in the next month or so.

[via Space.com]


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