Mute5916

I listened to it again also... no email address. Either I'm making it up or he gave his email address in the first interview they did. That was show #105 from a few years ago. I'll go download that right now. If I am actually able to email Joe Kittinger, I would be eternally grateful. It would be such an honor to talk to a man like him. Few people that have done something so great are as humble as he is. That makes him admirable.

Thank you all for your feedback, especially labry for pointing me to skydive radio. I downloaded the episode where Joe Kittinger comes on the show. I didn't notice him list his email in that. However, he did explain why they needed this parachute in the episode. Apparently pilots were not trained back then on how to sky dive. So they were totally inexperienced. That may also be true for today. So the chute was designed for a person who has little or no experience in how to free fall and to help stabilize and prevent them from entering into a flat spin before the chute opens fully. I'm going to order Joe Kittinger's book as well. Felix Baumgartner, a man being sponsored by Red Bull, is being helped by Joe Kittinger and others in order to break Kittinger's record of longest free fall. He plans to free fall without the help of this parachute and use his training as a skydiver to help glide him down. However, he still does have a chute similar to it in case something goes wrong or he goes into a flat spin. He does not intend to actually use it unless an emergency happens though. Joe goes into more detail about this in the skydive radio episode. Thanks again for all of your feed back.

I am researching free falling from high altitudes and I read this on the U.S. Air Force official website. "As new jet aircraft flew higher and faster in the 1950s, the USAF became increasingly concerned with the hazards faced by flight crews ejecting from high-performance aircraft. The emerging space age introduced the problem of how to provide astronauts with a safe method of escape while within the atmosphere. Without proper stabilization, a crewmember ejecting from an aerospace vehicle at high altitudes could enter a life-threatening flat spin of up to 200 rpm. Project Excelsior was formed in 1958 to study and solve high altitude escape problems as jets became increasingly high performance." So basically, I'm trying to figure out why a person would enter into a "life-threatening flat spin" in the stratosphere. Is this not a problem at lower altitudes? Any links you can give me that would answer this question, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks.