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Archive for the ‘wingsuit flying’ Category

Wall climbing is one of the more extreme sports that we blog about but when that wall is a mile high and you only have a narrow window of opportunity in which to make that climb you can understand why we believe this to be one of the most extreme challenges that we have come across this year.

The Asgard project is top climber Leo Houlding’s ambitious expedition to make the first free ascent of Mt Asgard’s daunting north face – regarded as one of the most difficult big walls in the world.

Mt Asgard

Mt Asgard is part of the Baffin Mountains in Canada’s Nanavut Province and is one of the most spectacular peaks on Baffin Island. It contains two peaks, both flat-topped cylindrical rock towers, separated by a saddle. The northeast peak is slightly higher than the southwest peak. The northeast peak is a 1200-m vertical rock climb, and is one of the most difficult climbs on Baffin Island.

With great support from main sponsors Berghaus and Nokia,  Houlding set about putting a team together which would film their attempt on the summit.  To reach Mount Asgard, Houlding, with fellow top climbers Sean ‘Stanley’ Leary and Carlos Suarez, learn how to fly in a wing suit. The plan was to leave the scene of their conquest via a wing suit - a trick that had already been enacted when 007 BASEjumps off a cliff in the opening sequence of the 1976 Bond classic The Spy Who Loved Me, the scene was filmed from Asgard. Perhaps it did not quite work out like that; what is sure is that the film and rigging crew had to take on a gruelling 5 day trek carrying 30kg packs.

The You Tube video from  HospitalRecords shows Houlding and Suarez learning how to fly in a wing suit.

Let’s see how events did turn out in this next video from posingpodcasts as the guys went sky diving to make their arrival rather more extreme and altogether less burdensome  - all right for some!

It is an exciting and extreme adventure the outcome of which can be seen when the film première’s on November 20th at the Kendal Mountain Festival which runs from Nov 19th to 22nd at Kendal, the gateway to the Lake District in north west England.

This comes from their own website www.mountainfest.co.uk

Kendal is by far the largest and most varied event of its type in Europe and it’s the main social event for outdoor enthusiasts in the UK. At the heart of Kendal’s programme is the mountain film competition, attracting film premières from around the world. Over 50 films are screened (from 200+ entries) with ten coveted prizes up for grabs.

Together with the Art and Book Festivals, speciality Bike, Snowsports, Wild Water and Free-Flight nights, the Boardman Tasker literary award plus the Adventure Film Academy for aspiring filmmakers, make it one of the best mountain festivals in the world.

THE MANAGEMENT ARE SORRY TO INFORM YOU THAT ALL TICKETS FOR THE PREMIERE ARE SOLD!

Not surprising – this is one we will have to get hold of…..watch this space. If you want to visit the project’s website it is

http://www.theasgardproject.com

This is yet another awesome video of wingsuit flying courtesy of melioped. Many of these videos have a clip or two of something we’ve seen before, but they can also be filled with other awe-inspring content… as this one is.

These guys are pushing themselves to the very limit -  an exhilarating feat of almost unbelievable daring, where wingsuit flyers soar over mountains and through canyons at over 100 mile per hour virtually scraping their fingernails over the rocks.

Wingsuit flying must have the leading edge on all extreme sports… give me a rock face any time!!!

Wingsuit flying is arguably the most dangerous feat in the sky diving world. Only a handful of people are good (or crazy) enough to do it. Hans Lange, a 44-year-old Norwegian, is one of the best. The other is, of course, Jeb Corliss.

Travelling at speeds in excess of 100 mph there is little margin for error, but wingsuit flying fits Corliss’ pysche perfectly. Having had a troubled childhood, Corliss acquired a pathological desire to confront fear. In 1997 he made his first BASEjump and since then has stepped off virtually every major outcrop and edifice on earth, including the Eiffel Tower and Malaysia’s Petronas Towers.

Things didn’t always go to plan. In 1999, he was blown into an African waterfall, broke several ribs and his back in three places and spent a month prone in a hospital bed. In 2003, his friend and fellow jumper Dwain Weston died in front of his eyes while the two were attempting to become the first duo to fly simultaneously over and under the world’s highest suspension bridge in Colorado. Weston crashed into the bridge and was killed instantly. The two men were wearing wingsuits.

His leap off the Empire State Building in 2006 was also foiled. He was caught before he could launch himself and was convicted of reckless endangerment. Wanting to stop any further attempts by anyone to throw themselves off the Empire State Building, the powers that be in New York were hoping that he would receive at least a 1-year prison sentence, but he got off with 3 years probation and 100 hours community service… The experience shook Corliss though. “I’ve become very good about dealing with fear, but sitting infront of a judge – this was a different kind of fear because I could have had my freedom taken away,” he said.

The step from BASEjumping to proximity wingsuit flying was a natural one for him, wingsuit flying being an evolution of BASE jumping that now preoccupies most of the sport’s top athletes.

And it was only a matter of time before he was looking for the ultimate challenge, the ultimate risk… to proximity fly down the Matterhorn.

It is illegal to proximity fly down mountains in the US, so to perfect his precision technique he practiced by flying close to (a few feet from) parachutist Luigi Cani, a Go Fast! sponsored test pilot. And then it was the next plane to Europe, Italy and the final training jump at the famed Montebrento.

Thank god for Europe where you are still allowed to be a daredevil even if it means you might lose your life…

Henry Lowther, a pilot, says “I like to see people doing this stuff. It’s life… There’s no 100% safety… never.”

Montebrento (psymosk) has a fearsome reputation claiming the lives of 6 BASEjumpers in 5 years…

…and it lived up to its unpredictable reputation for Jeb Corliss as he landed in trees and broke his left hand.

Did this mean that the long anticipated Matterhorn jump was off? Are you kidding? There was nothing wrong with his right hand was there?

mralan1969uk

“Oh my God,” were his first words after landing, “I was so close I can’t breathe… I scared myself so much you have no idea how scared I was. Oh my god, I shouldn’t be this close…”

And once he’d regained his breath, he said “that was so much cooler that I thought it would be. That was the best proxy flying I’ve ever done in my life. Without question.”

At times he was as little as 5 to 10ft above the mountain… that takes courage. “You have to manage your fear” he says, “but keep in the fear that keeps you alive.”

Corliss still has his eyes on the ultimate goal: to become the first person to leap from a plane and land without a parachute.

The attempt is currently stalled due to fund-raising hurdles; he needs to raise $3 million to pay for the contraption he’s dreamed up to facilitate the landing. This will be built by some former NASA engineers and is most often imagined as a sort of slide built at an angle that he will match as he flies in, then impact and use good old friction to slow him down. However, he is keeping the actual design secret for now…

“To really do something we’ve never done before is getting almost impossible,” he says. “To land something at basically terminal velocity and walk away? That’s human achievement. It’s every bit as important as climbing Everest the first time, but you can do it on the ground, in Vegas, with 500,000 spectators there watching it live…”

Watch this space…

Regular readers of this blog will know of our interest in the extreme sport of wingsuit flying. We have reported on Jeb Corliss’ ambition to be the first person to land a wingsuit without the use of a parachute.

We have trawled the information channels and have not come up with any very fresh news. However in an interview with Hannah Cornett which happened at the beginning of the year Corliss mentioned that his next goal was to jump from an aeroplane and then fly back into the aeroplane from which he has just launched.

In the interview which appears on You Tube below, thanks to mattdtv Corliss also claims that the ambition to land without a parachute is still very much alive and well.

He also explains how the make up of the actual wingsuit enables the user to achieve a glide ratio of 3:1  -  3 horizontal feet for every 1 foot of vertical drop.

And who knows – with an attitude such as ‘courage is about taking action in spite of the fear…….nothing is impossible in life if you have the desire and make the effort……..thats how winning is possible – you do not give up’  it is more than likely that Corliss will succeed.

Bon courage Jeb.

There is also an interesting explanation in the video on how the US Special Operations forces are using the technology being pioneered in the wingsuit technology to enable HALO – High Altitude Low Opening – deployments which will/could take those forces to a landing zone beyond enemy held territory.

We shall as ever keep you informed of any tangible developments in the wingsuit landing project.

Wingsuit flying is something else. That and BASE jumping. They are about as extreme as our extreme sports go…

“The oldest rule in base jumping is to never ask permission just forgiveness!” Shane McConkey

If you are new to the concept, this is a fabulous video brought to us by redbull and dedicated to Shane McConkey who died on 26th March, 2009 whilst skiing and wingsuit flying in the Italian Dolomites. His death was the result of faulty equipment.

This particular video, which brings the sport so much to life, was taken in New Zealand when Shane, Miles Daisher and Chuck Berry explored unchartered terrain in new Zealand – another incredible Red Bull project.

The Department of Conservation in Queenstown, New Zealand, gave the team permission to film in Sinbad Gully.

As Shane says, in his blog, “Chuck has done plenty of recon work in most of Fiordland over the years so he had a very good idea where we needed to look to find big cliffs for us to jump. It would all be completely exploratory base jumping. Most of the Fiordland area has never seen a base jump. The problem is access. The mountains in Fiordland are impressive. They shoot straight up and maintain a steep angle all the way to the top. Normally base jumpers can find a way to hike to a good exit point usually with minimal climbing required. Not here. Just about everything in the area is steep, rugged terrain that would require at the very least a few days of serious climbing and rope work. We had the time and the gear but didn’t have an exact jump that we knew was possible so we decided to hire a helicopter and went big wall hunting the easy way. We flew straight to to one of the gems that Chuck has had circled on his map. The mountain was called Terror Peak and the cliff just below it was perfect. A 3,400 foot jump to the valley floor with a 1,000 foot start and some fun ledges and terrain to buzz with our wingsuits. An easy jump and flight with some great visuals along the way down.”

And the result of it was that fabulous video, and another sensational place for wingsuit flyers and BASEjumpers to practice their terrifying art!

“Miles coined the jump “Terrorflying” even though the jump was anything but that! For a base jumper, pioneering new jump sites, or what we call “Opening a new object” is perhaps the most exciting aspect of the sport. The sport is still quite young and the base world is still being discovered and mapped. To have the opportunity to open up a new site, and a big one, in a stunning place like Fiordland is an amazing experience. It was one I will not soon forget!” said McConkey.

In a sense, wingsuit flying is a cross between skydiving and hang gliding. Like both of these activities, wingsuit flying requires the flyer to either jump out of an aircraft or off a precipice to achieve a high enough altitude. While hang gliders can coast in for a safe landing, wingsuit flyers have to deploy their parachutes and float the rest of the way to the ground – they simply can’t reduce their speed fast enough for a safe landing without the use of a chute.

­But, until the moment they pull their parachute chord, wingsuit flyers can soar horizontally, like a bird, at high speeds and perform aerial acrobatics – all the while descending at a rate much slower than that of a typical skydiver.

It must be an exhilarating sport – albeit a death defying one.

This is the same crew doing mainly BASEjumps from a cliff they later called ‘Sin Good’  as “it was anything but bad”. The video is from shanemcconkey.

You might have noted the Red Bull wingsuits, the Red Bull Chutes etc. So what has Red Bull got to do with all this?

You all know what Red Bull is don’t you? That sexy slender container that contains an energy drink produced and sold by the Austrian company Red Bull GmbH and sold in over 130 countries.

However, it also has an aggressive international marketing campaign. The numerous sponsored activities range from extreme sports like windsurfing, snowboarding, skateboarding, wakeboarding, wingsuit flying, BASEjumping, surfing, Formula 1 racing, and breakdancing to art shows, music, and video games.

They play a very active role in extreme sports.

We’ll finish with a longish video, also from redbull, of the boys and Red Bull having a ball in China and BASEjumping a Chinese sinkhole… and anything else that looked interesting along the way. It took months of negotiation to get the government to allow the Red Bull Air Force and friends into their borders for the BASE jumping session at one of China’s natural wonders, and although no professional film crew was allowed to accompany them, each diver operated a personal camera with great success:

This article is dedicated to Shane McConkey. He will be sorely missed.

We normally keep a close eye on the Nissan Extreme Games, but were obviously so busy writing on other things that Interlaken 2009 slipped by with no comment from us for which we apologise. However, it’s never too late to make up for past omissions and show you the high quality of both competitors and film producers… following this teaser from OutdoorGamesTV.

Nissan have been innovative in the extreme sports world and were the first to realise that an original event concept was needed in this growing sector of the market.

Because extreme sports have become more and more fashionable over the past few years, the event organisers came up with a concept like no other - 5 teams, 5 sports and a 5-minute film.

The task for the five teams is challenging: to produce a five-minute short film in seven days including five outdoor sports in the Interlaken region.

Rather than pushing the limits in outdoor sports, the Nissan Outdoor Games again reveals that certain subjects can be addressed within a sports film. The themes represented in the 2009 films go from the meaning of life and death, profound feelings as well as harmony with nature.

Extreme sports challenges have been taking place in Interlaken now for 5 years. The Games are an important event for adventure sports and film making. For a week, the best kayakers, mountain-bikers, climbers, paragliders and base jumpers combine with film makers and photographers to share their adventure in the mountains and to battle it out for prize money of Swiss Francs 70,000.

Jean-Pierre Diernaz, General Manager of Nissan’s Marketing Communications in Europe, says “The Nissan Outdoor Games allow athletes to express themselves in the most awe-inspiring way, whilst thrilling the public by capturing their exploits in a five minute film. Nissan is once again proud to be supporting the Outdoor Games and together we are working to increase participation in an active outdoor lifestyle and a sustainable engagement with the natural environment.“

Enjoy these incredible hang gliding sequences filmed by Austrian film team ‘Argon’ (orleyflo)

Marvel at Anthony Green’s 10-second death defying misting by the falls (acrotwinz).

Enjoy Swiss Team, NBFlyer’s, film for which they received the Jury’s Special Award as well as the Best Sports Sequence for its climbing scene with Cyril Albasini. (OutdoorGamesTV)

And we end with the winning film from Team Golgoht of Finland who received the Golden Peak Award.

The Finn, Petri Kovalainen from the Golgoht team, won the Best Photographer award as well as the Game of Light Award by Julbo.

This looks just amazing. Fabulous video and for once too short! Thank you imexkorea for sharing it with us:

The tragic news of Shane McConkey’s death on Thursday while skiing/wingsuit flying in the Italian Dolomites would appear to have its root cause in failure of the equipment that McConkey was using. This is according to an emailed statement released by JT Holmes who was with McConkey at the time of the accident and reported by Tim Mutrie.

The statement is reproduced below:

‘Yesterday, March 26, 2009, Shane died while skiing in Italy. There are some technical aspects that are left out from this statement, and it does not touch upon the beauty of the Dolomites and the skiing we shared before the accident or Shane’s typical shining persona, full of adventure, humor and life experience.

We chose to ski off of a cliff with our wingsuits and fly them away from the cliff wall before opening our parachutes for landing. We skied and hiked off of the Pordoi cable car to a spot Shane had base jumped once before, in the summer. We spent a bunch of time preparing for the jump, building a kicker, helping each other gear up, and finally we were pleased and prepared and went for it.

Shane did a double back flip in perfect McConkey style. As planned, afterwards, he went to release his skis in order to fly away from the wall and safely deploy his parachute. This is where the jump went wrong. He was not able to release either of his skis. He remained focused on releasing them by reaching down towards his bindings. This put him into a spin/tumble/unstable falling style, that may have appeared out of his control, but in reality, Shane was not concerned about flying position or style; just concerned with reaching those skis so that he could get them off and fly or deploy his parachute. He succeeded in releasing both of skis and immediately transitioned into a perfect flying position; then he impacted the snow, and died at that moment.

The whole thing took place in about 12 seconds. Once he released the skis, he was immediately in control of the flight and would have only seen the ground and imminent impact for a tiny fraction of a second before he hit. Shane’s parachute did not malfunction; it was never deployed.’

Shane McConkey was born in Vancouver, British Columbia and became a professional skier based out of Squaw Valley, California. He won numerous awards and competitions. McConkey started as a competitive freestyle skier, but moved on to be featured in a long line of extreme skiing movies. McConkey was known for combining BASE jumping with skiing, as seen in such feats as skiing into a BASE jump off the Eiger. He had more recently taken to winsuit flying and believed there was nothing better than skiing down a mountain, launching himself off a cliff and flying like a bird.

He is survived by his wife, Sherry, and 3-year-old daughter, Ayla.

Shane McConkey

And as if we could ever forget we have included just one short video footage of Shane in action where it is self evident to see a master of his chosen profession at work – a combination of balance, grace, skill and courage.

We send our most sincere condolences to Sherry and Ayla.

The second edition of the Nissan Outdoor Extreme Winter Games are happening right now in Chamonix.

5 international teams of extreme sporting professionals have, this week, been climbing, freeriding, BASE jumping, wingsuit flying and paragliding their way around the valley in an attempt to make the most impressive extreme sports short film.

Do you know what the Nissan Outdoor Games is all about? Here’s a quick video from OutdoorGamesTV to remind you…

The films will combine the skills of the individual athletes as well as the creative talents of the film crew that they work with.

Chamonix, the death-sport capital of the world as it has been described in the past, is the perfect backdrop for Nissan’s second games . This quote, from someone who lived in and loved Chamonix many many years ago, personifies Nissan’s quest:

“The great object of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even though in pain; it is this craving void which drives us…” Lord Byron

The results will be displayed on a giant screen in the Outdoor Games Village in the Tourist Office square today, Friday 20th, and Saturday 21st February, and prizes will be awarded for Best Sport’s Sequence, Best Photography and Jury’s Special Award.

There will also be an opportunity to talk to the experts themselves or try your hand at ice climbing, slack-rope walking and the climbing wall.

On Saturday there will also be two air shows combining BASE jumping, wingsuit flying, speed flying, acro-paragliding and hang gliding. The first one will take place at mid-day on the Aiguille du Midi and the second will be above the Grands Montets ski area at 3pm.

Cham will be at her best – difficult when lovers of Chamonix say she is ALWAYS at her best, but Cham has it all this weekend, and with the fantastic snow conditions that Europe has had this season, this year’s films should capture some amazing images of the valley and surrounding regions.

This was the Ride The Planets winner last year, again thanks to OutdoorGamesTV for posting it:

We have often written about Jeb Corliss, one of the most celebrated and well known names in the world of base jumping and wingsuit flying , who in April 2006 was arrested while attempting to jump off the Empire State Building in New York. Earlier this week Corliss, 32, of Malibu, California, received probation and community service for his thwarted stunt.

He was convicted of reckless endangerment in December. Prosecutors argued he could have caused injuries by jumping, despite his claims to have studied traffic patterns around the foot of the 102-storey tourist attraction.

The skydiver could have faced up to a year in prison for the offence. The judge, Thomas Farber, said he received letters from Raymond Kelly, New York City Police Department commissioner, and the Empire State Building owners asking for a jail term for Corliss.

Mr Farber, however, rejected the suggestion, saying, “I simply don’t find it warranted in this case.” He added that in all his years as a prosecutor and a judge presiding over murder, rape and other cases, he had never received a letter from a high-ranking police official asking for a specific kind of sentence.

“From some of the letters I received, you would have thought the defendant tried to commit a terrorist act,” the judge said. Mr Farber sentenced Corliss, who had no prior criminal record, to three years’ probation and 100 hours community service, which he said the Californian could complete in his home state.

Corliss has made more than 1,000 safe jumps in countries all around the world including Japan, Russia, France and Malaysia.

Regular readers of this blog will know that Corliss is attempting to be the first man to land on earth, with only a wingsuit and no parachute, and to survive, and then go up and do it again. Details of how this will be achieved are top secret but we do understand that a special landing strip is being designed, somehow to be suspended in the air, which Corliss will have to fly to with pinpoint accuracy.

OMG – sure sounds tough – good luck Jeb.

Below is a video from wingsuitflyer which gives an update on the wingsuit landing project and as its coming up to a year since that release any further news would be greatly received. As for Corliss’s escape from imprisonment – well thank goodness Judge Farber used his great common sense – Corliss is no criminal.

[youtube=http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=UsztEWuC3cs]