I mentioned to someone yesterday that I wondered if he purposely pulled the chute when he did to leave the old man with the one remaining record - longest freefall. Twenty-five seconds more didn’t seem like out of reach but hey, I’m here on the ground. I would respect him allowing Kittenger to retain that honor.
It may be that or the fact his visor heater was not working and he was transmitting that his visor was fogging over. He may have had limited vision, got a bit nervous, and opened the chute a bit early.
After a jump from 128,000 feet he may have let discretion be the better part of valor and opened his chute a bit early.
I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. Baumgartner gave Kittinger a visible role on the team, and it appeared to be an important and "real" job; not some kind of ceremonial bogus job. That struck me as a very classy thing to do.