Because most of us will never take the literal leap of jumping off a damn plane, here’s POV footage from the Leap Frogs aka the Navy’s parachute team. For the San Diego Padre’s home opener, the jumpers took off in a plane and landed right smack inside Petco Park. You can hear the roar of the crowd grow louder as they get closer.
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Terrifying. Skydiving is already brown your pants scary when you’re conscious. Imagine being unconscious while you’re falling from 12,500 feet in the air. Think about all the horrible things that could happen. That’s what happened to skydiver James Lee. Luckily, miraculously, thankfully, impossibly, he survived the fall.
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The slow motion clips in this video by Simmon Hammond look like computer generated scenes from a superhero movie—the exquisite photography, the dramatic color, and the camera moves are just too perfect to be real. But it is real. And it feels magical.
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Two planes carrying skydivers had a midair collision last night over northwest Wisconsin near Lake Superior. But everyone survived because they were planning to skydive out anyway. Additionally, one pilot was able to eject and the other landed his plane safely, even though it was severely damaged.
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Mary Poppins flew with a magical umbrella, but can you actually soar with one real life? Pretty much—provided you have the right umbrella, which pro skiier Eric Roner did. He captured the crazy feat with a GoPro (Hero 3). More »
Dubai is full of unbelievable things like the tallest building in the world and a mall with a ski slope. It’s pretty awesome, but you know what makes it even better? Skydiving over it. More »
Recon Instruments has decided to take its wares off the slopes and into the air, provided enough people bite. The Flight HUD is built around the same core as its ski goggles, but has been tweaked to offer information more relevant to skydivers, base jumpers and wingsuit pilots. The tiny LCD just below the field of vision displays speed, altitude and glide ratio in real time. Rather than simply guess how fast they’re going, adrenaline junkies will be able to see accurate data in the moment and make the appropriate adjustments. Obviously, this is a rather niche market, so Recon Instruments has set a goal: 250 pre-orders to trigger a production run. The early birds can pick up a Flight HUD for $299, while every order placed after the initial 250 will cost $349. To get a run down of the proposed product from renowned aerial daredevil Jeb Corliss check out he video after the break.
Continue reading Recon Instruments offers Flight HUD goggles for wingsuit pilots and skydivers
Filed under: Wearables
Recon Instruments offers Flight HUD goggles for wingsuit pilots and skydivers originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Oct 2012 13:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
BASE jumping might just be about to enter the mainstream. What has typically been considered a fringe activity, reserved for thrill seekers and adrenaline junkies, could soon be firmly cemented in the public view. For the uninitiated, BASE jumping is like skydiving, without the plane. Participants throw themselves off bridges, antennae, buildings, cliffs, and well, whatever high object they can find. It’s not illegal, “in theory”, but as many of the chosen launch spots are public or private property — or pose a risk to public safety — gaining access to, or jumping from them, can mean stepping over the legal line.
This otherwise obstreperous activity has largely kept to itself, occasionally popping up in magazines, or YouTube videos, but — all going well — on Monday that changes. Serial boundary pusher (of wing suit across the English Channel fame) Felix Baumgartner is set to leap, in the most literal sense of the word, from relative obscurity into the history books. How? By jumping to earth from the edge of space, likely breaking the sound barrier as he does so. How does one go from humble Austrian beginnings to a capsule 120,000 feet (about 23 miles) above the Earth’s surface? Make a comparatively tiny leap past the break to find out.
Continue reading Leap of faith: Felix Baumgartner’s historic jump from the edge of space
Leap of faith: Felix Baumgartner’s historic jump from the edge of space originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Oct 2012 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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