Bird Dream
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emergence of, 21–22
jumping from, 22
see also specific buildings
skysurfing, 78–79
slacklining, 161
Smithsonian, 162
Snake River, Idaho, 93, 103–4
Sohn, Clem, 75–77, 80
Sommer, Jokke:
in China, 182, 183, 188, 189, 190, 193, 194, 195, 253
and World Wingsuit League, 253
South Africa, see Table Mountain
Spanish Civil War, 77
speed flying, 149
Spinoza, Baruch, 82
Spirit of St. Louis, 75
Spy Who Loved Me, The (movie), 23
Squirrel Suits, Inc., 254
Star Wars (movie), 87
Statue of Liberty, parachute jump from (1912), 22
Stern, Shawn, 53–54, 55
and Jeb’s jumps, 56–58, 65, 67
Stone, Jordan, 129
Stratosphere Tower, Las Vegas, 99
Stratos Project, 253
stress:
and brain function, 30, 62
and performance, 185, 188, 189, 195
Stunt Junkies (Discovery), 7, 130, 135
Stunt Register, 44, 68, 224, 249
Suicide Solution, 92
Sunday Times (London), 161, 233
superhuman strength, 62
surveillance, 34
Survivor, 163
Sutton, Mark, 170–71, 175–78, 182
at the Crack, 177, 229
death of, 254
in the Dolomites, 221–22
and Gary’s wingsuit landing project, 177–78, 203–4, 227, 228, 236–38, 241–43, 244, 245, 246–50, 251–52
in Lauterbrunnen, 228–29
and London Olympics, 253
and national ethic, 237–38
and wingsuit designs, 171, 176, 201, 202, 222
Swayze, Patrick, 29
Switzerland:
Crack in, see Crack
fatalities in, 12–13, 105–6, 254
Jeb in, 1–7, 11–12, 16–18, 136, 159, 172
Swiss BASE Association logbook, 2
Sylvester, Rick, 23
Table Mountain, South Africa:
Jeb’s 2012 flight at, 205–6, 207–15, 221, 225, 226, 230
jumping without a permit at, 215–16, 218
World Championship Extreme Air in, 101
tachypsychia, 62
TEDx, 164
Teflon (polytetrafluoroethelyne), 36, 175
terminal velocity, 27, 32
terrain (proximity) flights, 4, 7, 164, 177, 208
Teton Range, Wyoming, 199
Thompson, Hunter S., 97
Thoreau, Henry David, 45
thrill seekers, 60
Tiankeng (“Heavenly Pit”), China, 124–25
Tianmen National Forest, China, 183–84
Tianmen Shan (Heaven’s Gate Mountain), China, 181–96, 206, 208, 253
Timberlake, Justin, 123
Time, 76
Today, 150, 200
TonySuits Inc., 167–70, 176, 179, 201
“Touch-and-Go” stunt, 205, 208, 209
Toumbekis, Peter, 155
Trango Towers, Pakistan, 102
Troll Wall, Norway, 27
20/20 (ABC), 3, 4
Tyson, Mike, 135
United States Parachute Association (USPA), 24
wingsuits banned by, 77–78
Uragallo, Tony, 167–72, 177, 201–2
and Apache wingsuit, 171–73, 176, 179, 201, 222
and Gary, 176, 219–21, 222, 229–30, 250
and jumpsuit designs, 168–69
and Mark’s death, 254
and Old Navy design, 171–72
partnership with Jeff, 169
and Rebel wingsuit, 223, 229, 231
and World Wingsuit League, 253
and X-Bird wingsuit, 170–71, 201
U.S. Army:
Golden Knights Parachute Team, 160–61
parachute-inflation research for, 8
Vallone, Peter, 152
Van Susteren, Greta, 136
Venice Beach, California, 160, 176, 251
Venn diagrams, 178
Verbier, Switzerland, wingsuit flights over, 111–12, 118, 119, 162
Vertigo Inc., 147, 163–64
Vincent, John, 52, 82–83
Vitruvian Man, 5, 224
Voss, Norway, Extreme Sports Week in, 175–76
Walker, Tim, 205
Wallenda, Nik, 253
Weiss, Taya, 211, 213
West, Andy, 170
Weston, Dwain:
assiduous preparation by, 119
death of, 122–24, 126, 129
as Jeb’s model, 93–94, 119
job at Boeing, 118
at Lauterbrunnen, 105, 106
monologue of, 92–93
in Norway, 91–92
at Perrine Bridge, 93
at Royal Gorge Bridge, 119–22
and Sako, 92, 118, 119–20, 122
taking BASE into new direction, 91, 92, 118
Wilking, Spencer, 205
Wingsuit Landing Project, 9, 148–49, 150, 153, 160, 161–62
wingsuits:
air-brake method with, 128
Apache design, 171–73, 176, 179, 201–2, 219–24, 230
and Bernoulli’s principle, 171, 220, 230
and control, 172–73, 178, 180, 222, 228, 248–49
descent rate and forward speed, 199, 230, 249
early records of, 3, 75–77
and fatalities, 76, 77, 78, 81, 254
first to survive ground contact with, 143
flare on landing with, 146–47, 244, 249
and flying, 81, 128, 164, 195
glide in, 4, 87, 111–12, 114, 126, 127, 146–47, 148, 168, 170, 172, 208, 219, 223, 244
and glide slope, 79–80, 147
goal to land without parachute, 7–9, 76, 112, 114, 127–28, 140, 147, 148–49, 161, 164–66, 177–80, 196, 220–21, 223–24, 227–30
GS1, 145
landing with, see landing
new designs of, 4, 78, 110–11, 128, 144–45, 167, 169–73, 176, 222–23
“No. 1 Megastunt” in history, 253
Old Navy design, 171–72
with parachutes, 74, 76, 78, 220
proximity flights with, 4, 7, 164, 177, 208
ram-air principles in, 79
Rebel design, 223, 229, 231
and risk, 199–200, 216–17
Russian version of (1999), 73–74
sewing skills needed for adaptation of, 168–69, 171, 201–2, 222
Sohn’s first flights, 75–77
technology added to, 168, 200, 203, 229
and “Touch-and-Go” stunt, 205, 208, 209
tracking with, 230
U.S. Army Parachute Team, 160–61
USPA ban of, 77–78
videos and films of, 23, 89, 112, 203, 205, 212, 216, 218, 225
world record flights, 160–61
X-bird design, 170–71, 176, 201
XRW (extreme relative work), 220
World Championship Extreme Air, South Africa, 101
World Trade Center:
jumping from, 23, 52, 84, 154
Petit’s tightrope walk of, 154
World War II, and aviation, 77
World Wide Web, 83
World Wingsuit League, 253
Wright, Chris, 202, 241, 244
Wright brothers, 22, 75
Wynn Las Vegas, 162
X Games, 29, 78, 79, 105
XRW (extreme relative work), 220
Yang, Frank:
in China, 182, 187, 188
in South Africa, 206, 209, 211
Yeats, William Butler, 129
Yellow Ocean, Lauterbrunnen Valley, 159
Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, 160–61
Yuri (Russian jumper), 86–87
Zephyrhills, Florida, 95, 166, 167–70, 171, 179, 201, 222
zone, being in, 62–63
CREDITS
Page 1: both photographs courtesy of the author
Pages 2-3: @ Andreas Gubser
Page 4, top left and bottom: courtesy of Gary Connery; top right, karen Sutton (www.limelight-marketing.co.uk)
Page 5: both photographs courtesy of the author
Page6, top: ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images; middle and bottom courtesy of the author
Page 7: Karen Sutton (www.limelight-marketing.co.uk)
Page 8 top: courtesy of Tony Uragallo; bottom, Karen Sutton (www.limelight-marketing.co.uk)
Three, two, one . . . liftoff: Each summer, hundreds of BASE jumpers and wingsuit pilots from around the world gather in the Bernese Alps, in Switzerland, lured to the Lauterbrunnen Valley by sheer, two-thousand-foot cliffs. Here, in July 2011, American wingsuit pilots Joby Ogwyn and Brian Drake prepare to fly from High Nose, one of the more popular exit points. Drake died in April 2014 following a wingsuit accident. He was thirty-three.
The jagged course of the the Crack cuts along Hinderrugg, a 7,500-foot mountain in eastern Switzerland’s Churfirsten range. By 2011, wingsuit pilots had begun redefining skill and daring in their sport by flying through the Crack. Here, Andreas Gubser is waiting to photograph a flight by California stuntman Jeb Corliss.
Close Encounter: On the morning of July 16, 2011, Jeb Corliss, wearing a wingsuit and parachute, launches from the Sputnik exit on Hinderrugg, starting a sequence that would make him internationally famous when video footage went viral. One mile below, just above the Crack (sequence at right and below), Jeb homes in on balloons held by accomplice Christian Gubser for a heart-stopping stunt that recalled William Tell. Christian dives for safety just as Jeb blasts overhead at 123 miles per hour and continues flying down the Crack. “It’s so close,” a shaken Christian would say.
A stuntman for TV and film and a former British paratrooper, Gary Connery conceived of landing a wingsuit without a parachute as a way to fulfill his desire “to be the best at something.”
Gary had already jumped from the Eiffel Tower and Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square. But in a caper worthy of James Bond, Gary climbed the London Eye undetected on November 28, 2006, while wearing a tuxedo and a parachute, and launched 440 feet from the Ferris wheel just after daybreak, making a clean getaway.
In September 2011, eight wingsuit pilots from around the world arrived in a remote region of central China to participate in a historic wingsuit exhibition at Tianmen Mountain, culminating in an attempt by Jeb Corliss to fly through a natural arch in the mountain, a first for wingsuits. Geared-up (left to right) Chris “Douggs” McDougall, Joby Ogwyn, and Jeff Nebelkopf relax before a practice flight from a platform perched 990 feet up on the mountainside.
Once in flight, the pilots traveled a course above rugged cloudy terrain, where a road “like a strand of wet spaghetti” wends to the arch called Heaven’s Gate (translation: Tianmen), which gives the mountain its name.
Wingsuit pilots Matt Gerdes and Roberta Mancino demonstrate a smoke canister for the Chinese media. Attached to the pilots’ ankles, the smoke would cast a bright trail through the sky and make the fliers easier to track from the ground. Complications with a smoke canister, though, would nearly lead to catastrophe on Jeb’s first attempt to fly through the arch.
The Eye of a Needle: On his second attempt, this time without smoke, Jeb soars through Tianmen Shan and makes history as thousands watch live from the mountain. Afterward he tells reporters: “The next real project I want to do is to land a wingsuit without deploying a parachute. That’s a goal that I’ve been working on for six years. And I will do it.”
With Lion’s Head and the south Atlantic lapping at the coast in the background, Jeff launches from Table Mountain in January 2012. Flying camera, Jeff captured footage of Jeb’s increasingly daring flights from the air. Their growing confidence and comfort on the mountain would lead to tragedy for Jeb.
Joby and Jeb hike toward the cable car station following another successful flight from Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa, carrying their stash bags. In keeping with the ethics of BASE, they leave no trace.
In a scene that resembled an old-fashioned barn raising, on May 23, 2012, hundreds of volunteers built a landing area of cardboard boxes in a field at Mill End Farm, about twenty-five miles outside London, in Buckinghamshire.
That afternoon, Gary would leap from a helicopter 2,400 feet up and, on his first attempt, flare his specially built suit in the final moments to bleed off speed, hitting the empty boxes at 70 miles an hour. A few tense minutes later, having achieved a first in human flight, he strolled from the box rig without a stitch out of place, his wife, Vivienne, and cameras waiting to greet him.
A chance meeting with wingsuit designer Tony Uragallo in Norway in the summer of 2011 led Gary to collaborate on a wingsuit design called the Rebel that would allow characteristics of slow, but stable flight—crucial for a landing attempt.
Mark Sutton (right), a former British Army officer, acted as Gary’s wingman, helping plan and execute the landing project. Here, following a trial jump from Andrew Harvey’s helicopter, they walk through a pasture at Mill End Farm. A year later, Mark would be killed in a wingsuit accident.