newjerseynewsroom.com

BY BOB HOLT

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

On the 65th anniversary of U. S. test pilot Chuck Yeager breaking the speed of sound in a jet plane, Austrian skydiver “Fearless” Felix Baumgartner has accomplished the same feat with just his pressurized spacesuit.

Baumgartner set a new record for the highest manned balloon flight, taking a space capsule 24.26 miles above the Earth. Then he jumped from his helium balloon, free falling for over nine minutes.

According to an Associated Press report in The Courier-Journal, Baumgartner landed safely in the eastern New Mexico desert.

GrindTV reported that Baumgartner hit a record top speed for a skydiver of 833.9 mph about a minute into the jump, breaking the sound barrier by reaching Mach 1.24. The balloon took about 2.5 hours to reach the stratosphere.

Motor Authority reported that Baumgartner, 43, went into a dangerous flat spin about 90 seconds into the jump. He slowed his rotation by using his arms, and quickly regained control.

According to CSMonitor.com, Federation Aeronautic International said Baumgartner’s other records included the highest altitude skydive of 128,100 feet, and the longest free fall of 119,846 feet. Baumgartner broke the previous 52-year-old skydiving altitude record of 102,800 feet.

Before he made the jump, Baumgartner said, "Sometimes you have to get up really high to know how small you are."

Research from this jump is expected to help scientists design safer and better space suits for astronauts in the future.

Not to be completely outdone, 89-year-old retired Air Force Brig. General Chuck Yeager also took to the sky on Sunday to repeat his historic flight that broke the speed of sound in 1947. The F-15 Eagle, carrying Yeager in the backseat, reached supersonic levels at 10:14 a.m., 30,000 feet over the Mojave Desert in California, the same time and place that history was made 65 years ago.