why didn’t he continue his free fall??? he was just a few seconds away from breaking the record....
gotta say watched the video and it is super exciting...
He says that he opened his chute at the prearranged altitude. The guy has discipline—follow the plan because that’s the way you come out of it alive. Play around with the plan and get yourself killed.
He also said that, “so Joe [Kittenger] gets to keep one record [because Baumgartner followed the plan]? That’s great for Joe, Joe’s a great guy.” The guy has humility and decency too.
From what I saw, he maxed out his speed in free fall getting to 728 mph, which is beyond the speed of sound, then he began to decelerate due to increasing drag.
His peak speed was 200+ mph faster than Kittinger’s in 1960. He opened the chute at 9,000 feet above sea level, probably about 6,000 feet off the ground. If he’d waited another 15 seconds to break Kittinger’s freefall duration record, he would’ve been too low if there was a problem with the chute opening.
}:-)4
I believe Felix was traveling down much faster than anyone had traveled before, far exceeding the Speed of Sound by a couple of hundred MPH! If he had tried to exceed the Free Fall Time Record, he may well have gone “SPLAT!”