King Of The Daredevils: Felix Baumgartner A Supersonic Skydiver Drops To Earth From Nearly 128,000 Feet Above Earth !

For more than four nerve-racking minutes, he was a tiny white speck against a dark sky, hurtling from 24.5 miles above the Earth at up to 834mph.
Then his parachute opened and five minutes later, to the relief of the millions watching, ‘Fearless Felix’ Baumgartner was back on solid ground – having made the
highest and fastest skydive in history.

After flying to an altitude of 39,045 meters (128,100 feet) in a helium-filled balloon, Felix Baumgartner completed a record breaking jump for the ages from the edge of space, exactly 65 years after Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier flying in an experimental rocket-powered airplane.

Felix reached a maximum of speed of 1,342.8 km/h (833mph) through the near vacuum of the stratosphere before being slowed by the atmosphere later during his 4:20 minute long freefall.

In the process, the 43-year-old Austrian became the first freefall diver to break the sound barrier, and also broke the record for the highest-ever manned balloon ascent.

For many, it was the first they had heard of ‘Fearless Felix’. But, in fact, his plunge — the highest and fastest yet made by a skydiver — was only the crowning achievement on a career that has seen him make more than 2,600 jumps, most of them utterly terrifying.

Baumgartner has jumped from a plane and flown across the Channel with wings strapped to his back. He’s jumped off the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, and the 101-storey Taipei Tower in Taiwan.

The king of base jumpers, Baumgartner loved nothing better than finding a bridge or building that no one had ever tried to parachute from. He preferred illegal jumps as it was ‘more fun’.

He jumped off anything from the Mandalay Casino in Las Vegas to the Olympic Tower in Munich, but it wasn’t until 1999 that he really grabbed the world’s attention.

In April of that year, he jumped from the 1,479ft Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia — then the world’s highest man-made structure. And, in December, he proved that when it came to base jumping, low jumps could be even more terrifying than high ones when he stepped off the outstretched hand of Rio’s Christ the Redeemer statue, which is just 95ft high.

The Austrian — whose other passions are boxing, mountain climbing, motocross and rally driving — claims his body is starting to ‘creak’ and that he has plans to ‘retire’ and become a helicopter rescue pilot. We will believe that when we see it.

Felix admits, however, that one thing makes him nervous — his mum fussing and telling him to ‘be careful’ all the time.

One would have thought poor Mrs Baumgartner — holding back the tears as she watched his descent from mission control on Sunday — had given up fretting years ago.
But, then, when it comes to a mother’s love, the sky’s the limit.

Felix Baumgartner's supersonic freefall from 128k' - Mission Highlights [VIDEO]: