Posts Tagged ‘English Channel’

Arnie Schwarzenegger once famously pronounced ‘I’ll be back’ in one of his Terminator movies – well I am back and this leaves me with a dilemma – my co editor and family have fulfilled their part of our ‘deal’ – they bungee jumped at Victoria Falls! Congratulations – and I am pleased to say they are all fit and well and smiling.

You must understand that as a blog which writes, reports and does all things about extreme sports we feel we are somewhat obliged to have experienced as many of the extremes about which we write as possible. My co-editor and her family, having agreed to the bungee jump, then helpfully pronounced that my part of the ‘deal’ would be to wingsuit fly! Here you should note that I was not allowed to comment and have steadfastly refused to be a party to the deal.

However in understanding that to get even close to becoming a wingsuit flyer you have to have many hours of tuition, training, practicing, parachuting and free diving I thought I could at least do a little research – please note that this in no way suggests that I accept the deal.

And the results – well it seems that we can date back the first wingsuit flyer to 1928 when Captain Anthony Rogers – otherwise known as Buck Rogers – first appeared in a sci-fi story in a popular pulp magazine. Manned flight has long been in mind – the legend of Icarus, Leonardo da Vinci’s helicopter – but it was Buck who really fired up the imagination.

Steve Kramer of the Wall Street Journal reports on a book just published called Jetpack Dreams by Mac Montandon:

‘Nevertheless, a few obsessed engineers and enthusiasts keep trying to achieve lift-off. In “Jetpack Dreams,” Mac Montandon tours this wreckage-strewn territory and sketches some of its fanatical inhabitants………

At the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, Thiokol Chemical and, most notably, Bell Aerospace, engineers inspired by Buck Rogers spent years and fortunes designing jetpacks. Then as now, the contraptions featured strap-on tanks filled with volatile fuel, usually hydrogen peroxide, that powered thrusters for propelling the pilot skyward. Then as now, most of the jetpacks flew about as well as ostriches.

The partial exception was the Rocket Belt, developed by an appealingly monomaniacal engineer at Bell Aerospace named Wendell Moore. Mr. Montandon tells this part of the story well. After Mr. Moore shattered his kneecap in a crash, he surrendered the throttle to other test pilots but kept refining the Rocket Belt. Success, when it finally arrived, was modest: In April 1961, a pilot scudded 112 feet in 21 seconds. Mr. Moore and others improved the device’s maneuverability but couldn’t extend that 21-second duration. Funding dried up.

Mr. Montandon earnestly recounts the Rocket Belt’s high points: an exhibition for President Kennedy, cameos on the TV show “Lost in Space” and in the 1965 James Bond movie “Thunderball” (“one of the most profound pop culture touchstones for jetpack junkies,” Mr. Montandon writes), and a flight at the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. The device was also popular at state fairs and sporting events.

Mr. Montandon strains to portray these 21-second displays as triumphs and the use of jetpacks in ads and videogames as significant cultural markers. But in truth his examples show the jetpack dwindling from a potentially world-shaking invention into a high-tech toy for entertaining but irrelevant stunts.’

So you see – when I read words such as ‘ostrich, shattered knee cap and wreckage strewn territory’ you will understand why I might spend quite a long time in the research department!

Of course on my return to Europe I was greeted by the very exciting news of Yves Rossy’s successful powered wingsuit flight over the English Channel – La Manche – and to keep up the spirits I have added a very good video by Atika Shubert CNN’s NewsRevue who interviews Rossy before his successful Channel crossing.

MIf he’s successful, the 31-year-old trial lawyer from Des Moines will be the first American to achieve both feats. Only three others have done it, an accomplishment known as the peak and the pond.

“It’s a challenge that’s been floating around in adventure circles for a while now,” Wittmack said in a telephone interview from England while waiting for seas to calm enough for his attempt.

If the weather cooperates, Wittmack plans to dive into the waters of the English Channel about 10 a.m. Friday at Shakespeare Beach in Dover. He hopes to climb out of the channel on the French coast about 12 hours later. For Wittmack, it’s his latest venture into the world of extreme sports.

On May 22, 2003, he reached the summit of Mt. Everest. He trained seven years for the climb and once there, he found himself in what he said were the worst conditions ever recorded on the mountain.

“I spent three days without food or water and a day without oxygen above 20,000 feet,” Wittmack said.

The conditions in the English Channel should be considerably better, but not without risk.

“We expect the water to be up to 67 degrees this week — at that level hypothermia is still a major concern,” said Wittmack.

Wittmack, who swam for Roosevelt High School in Des Moines, began training for the channel swim about three years ago. For the past six months, he’s been training four hours a day, most of it swimming. He has been swimming every other weekend in either Lake Michigan or Lake Superior, and he’s competed in a 12{-mile race in Key West, Fla.

He said his experience on Everest inspired him to attempt the channel crossing.

“I realized after that that my body was predisposed for climbing at higher elevations,” he said. “After Everest I wanted to try something that would be as great a challenge and I decided on the English Channel.”

Michael Reed, president of the Channel Swimming Association, confirmed Wittmack would be the first American to accomplish both feats. The other swimmers were from Britain, Greece and Mexico.

Wittmack said plenty of people in adventure circles consider the dual challenge, but few have attempted both.

“The reason it’s difficult is because of the body’s physiology,” he said.

Wittmack said climbers, such as himself, tend to be shorter with less body fat and a high weight-to-strength ratio. By comparison, long distance swimmers tend to have higher body fat, which makes them more buoyant, and taller with longer limbs to help propel themselves through the water faster.

Randy Clark, the manager of the exercise science laboratory at the University of Wisconsin Hospital Sports Medicine Center in Madison, Wis., said that while mountain climbers and distance swimmers tend to have different physical characteristics, there is an underlying similarity.

“There is some cross over in physiological and psychological makeup,” he said. “Anybody that is able to climb Mt. Everest or do anything that is highly physically demanding over a long period of time, it takes incredible cardiovascular fitness, and I would say the same about swimming the English Channel.

“You can’t underestimate the need for incredible cardiovascular fitness to pull off either of those events, let alone both,” Clark said.”

Wittmack arrived in England nearly two weeks ago and in his first practice swim in the colder water his legs “seized up.”

Oh, Oh, that doesn’t sound too good……….but less us hope he is better acclimatised when he sets out and to give you an idea of the challenge that Charlie has set himself I have included this YouTube video of Edward Williams’ Channel crossing in August 2006 – great commentary and love the opening line to the video – PAIN IS TEMPORARY – GLORY IS FOREVER.

Good luck Charlie.

Thanks to Michael J. Crumb of the Chicago Tribune.com for the article and to edward5930 for the video.