A Red Bull wingsuiter set an obscure, albeit impressive record recently when he jumped into the jet stream over Chile and flew at more than 300 mph. "I was flying way faster than a Formula One car," Sebastián Álvarez said after the flight. "It's not that I want to compare to them, but it feels pretty good to be really fast - especially the fastest human alive." The former Chilean Air Force pilot, known as El Ardilla (The Squirrel) in his home country broke three speed records for that branch of aviation. Red Bull called the effort the Starman Mission.
No Progress!!! Oh Raf, come ON! I’ve never used electrically heated underwear even on my motorcycle here in the northeast! Come to think of it though… my BMW does have an electric bun warmer.
I’ve heard that a sky diver can make about a 1:1 glide radio. At that, the hypotenuse of a right equilateral triangle of 40K feet on a side would be around 56,500 feet or 10.7 miles without a wing suit. And what was his true airspeed? Impressive for sure given the altitude, but what was his indicated speed? What was the jet stream speed?
Not impressed other than it took big ones to jump at that altitude.
So we have a somewhat streamlined projectile on a downward trajectory being pushed by jet stream winds to a GROUND SPEED of of 342 miles per hour. He certainly wasn’t going that fast. Perhaps he would like to be mounted in a wind tunnel and subjected to that speed just to prove his wingsuit is equal to the occsasion. Somehow I doubt it. Let’s move on.
I’m not sure why all the blasé comments, this brought a big smile to my face. Some fun news in aviation, and a welcome change from the stories of late. I loved the adrenaline rush, I felt I was there with him. Very happy it ended well (not all repeated attempts will) and he gets two thumbs up from me.
Yes, the clickbait headline should’ve made it more clear that it was 342 MPH groundspeed. On the other hand, not as many people would have clicked on it if it had said that, and nowadays it’s clicks that count.
It’s theater. It’s mythmaking. But it sells. As for the heated underwear, having spent time in “Cold weather” training having pulled guard at night at Camp Hale, CO, back in the winter of 1964. I can understand that.
