I think it was on auto deploy. Not sure.. But kittinger jumped from 103k and deployed at 18k. Felix jumped from 130 and deployed at 5k. They expected a freefall of 5 minutes. Guess the math was wrong
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I think the plan was to deploy at 5000 but I think it was actually quite a bit higher - I am going to say 8000. He was riding the canopy for a very long time.
My question is - How did he find the landing zone from 128000 feet. He had to pass thorugh the jet stream - so you got to believe he was quite a ways east when he stepped out. Presumably GPS would get him in headed in the right direction. But the capsule also came down in the same general vicinity.
The first altitude reading announce after the chute was open was 6800'. It leads me to believe that the chute opened around 7800-8000'.
Skydivers pretty much fall like rocks. Winds have very little effect on them. I believe that this time of the year was pick due to no jet stream in NM. They had to delay due to winds for a few days.
This is funny. Per Andrea Mitchell and MSNBC, this chap traveled "faster than the speed of light." Ya, right.
http://twitchy.com/2012/10/15/scienc...peed-of-light/
I was thinking more about the impact on the way up. At one point they were talking about his speed approaching 100mph - at the same time they were talking about the jet stream - so I put them togehter in my head and figured he was going down range. Since it took him a couple hours to go 23 miles up - that is hardly in the neighborhood of 100mph. Maybe in the days to come they will show his relative starting point over the launch point.
Nonetheless - it was amazing to watch.