Posts Tagged ‘Jeb Corliss’

Wingsuit flying is arguably the most dangerous feat in the sky diving world. Only a handful of people are good (or crazy) enough to do it. Hans Lange, a 44-year-old Norwegian, is one of the best. The other is, of course, Jeb Corliss.

Travelling at speeds in excess of 100 mph there is little margin for error, but wingsuit flying fits Corliss’ pysche perfectly. Having had a troubled childhood, Corliss acquired a pathological desire to confront fear. In 1997 he made his first BASEjump and since then has stepped off virtually every major outcrop and edifice on earth, including the Eiffel Tower and Malaysia’s Petronas Towers.

Things didn’t always go to plan. In 1999, he was blown into an African waterfall, broke several ribs and his back in three places and spent a month prone in a hospital bed. In 2003, his friend and fellow jumper Dwain Weston died in front of his eyes while the two were attempting to become the first duo to fly simultaneously over and under the world’s highest suspension bridge in Colorado. Weston crashed into the bridge and was killed instantly. The two men were wearing wingsuits.

His leap off the Empire State Building in 2006 was also foiled. He was caught before he could launch himself and was convicted of reckless endangerment. Wanting to stop any further attempts by anyone to throw themselves off the Empire State Building, the powers that be in New York were hoping that he would receive at least a 1-year prison sentence, but he got off with 3 years probation and 100 hours community service… The experience shook Corliss though. “I’ve become very good about dealing with fear, but sitting infront of a judge – this was a different kind of fear because I could have had my freedom taken away,” he said.

The step from BASEjumping to proximity wingsuit flying was a natural one for him, wingsuit flying being an evolution of BASE jumping that now preoccupies most of the sport’s top athletes.

And it was only a matter of time before he was looking for the ultimate challenge, the ultimate risk… to proximity fly down the Matterhorn.

It is illegal to proximity fly down mountains in the US, so to perfect his precision technique he practiced by flying close to (a few feet from) parachutist Luigi Cani, a Go Fast! sponsored test pilot. And then it was the next plane to Europe, Italy and the final training jump at the famed Montebrento.

Thank god for Europe where you are still allowed to be a daredevil even if it means you might lose your life…

Henry Lowther, a pilot, says “I like to see people doing this stuff. It’s life… There’s no 100% safety… never.”

Montebrento (psymosk) has a fearsome reputation claiming the lives of 6 BASEjumpers in 5 years…

…and it lived up to its unpredictable reputation for Jeb Corliss as he landed in trees and broke his left hand.

Did this mean that the long anticipated Matterhorn jump was off? Are you kidding? There was nothing wrong with his right hand was there?

mralan1969uk

“Oh my God,” were his first words after landing, “I was so close I can’t breathe… I scared myself so much you have no idea how scared I was. Oh my god, I shouldn’t be this close…”

And once he’d regained his breath, he said “that was so much cooler that I thought it would be. That was the best proxy flying I’ve ever done in my life. Without question.”

At times he was as little as 5 to 10ft above the mountain… that takes courage. “You have to manage your fear” he says, “but keep in the fear that keeps you alive.”

Corliss still has his eyes on the ultimate goal: to become the first person to leap from a plane and land without a parachute.

The attempt is currently stalled due to fund-raising hurdles; he needs to raise $3 million to pay for the contraption he’s dreamed up to facilitate the landing. This will be built by some former NASA engineers and is most often imagined as a sort of slide built at an angle that he will match as he flies in, then impact and use good old friction to slow him down. However, he is keeping the actual design secret for now…

“To really do something we’ve never done before is getting almost impossible,” he says. “To land something at basically terminal velocity and walk away? That’s human achievement. It’s every bit as important as climbing Everest the first time, but you can do it on the ground, in Vegas, with 500,000 spectators there watching it live…”

Watch this space…

Regular readers of this blog will know of our interest in the extreme sport of wingsuit flying. We have reported on Jeb Corliss’ ambition to be the first person to land a wingsuit without the use of a parachute.

We have trawled the information channels and have not come up with any very fresh news. However in an interview with Hannah Cornett which happened at the beginning of the year Corliss mentioned that his next goal was to jump from an aeroplane and then fly back into the aeroplane from which he has just launched.

In the interview which appears on You Tube below, thanks to mattdtv Corliss also claims that the ambition to land without a parachute is still very much alive and well.

He also explains how the make up of the actual wingsuit enables the user to achieve a glide ratio of 3:1  -  3 horizontal feet for every 1 foot of vertical drop.

And who knows – with an attitude such as ‘courage is about taking action in spite of the fear…….nothing is impossible in life if you have the desire and make the effort……..thats how winning is possible – you do not give up’  it is more than likely that Corliss will succeed.

Bon courage Jeb.

There is also an interesting explanation in the video on how the US Special Operations forces are using the technology being pioneered in the wingsuit technology to enable HALO – High Altitude Low Opening – deployments which will/could take those forces to a landing zone beyond enemy held territory.

We shall as ever keep you informed of any tangible developments in the wingsuit landing project.

We have often written about Jeb Corliss, one of the most celebrated and well known names in the world of base jumping and wingsuit flying , who in April 2006 was arrested while attempting to jump off the Empire State Building in New York. Earlier this week Corliss, 32, of Malibu, California, received probation and community service for his thwarted stunt.

He was convicted of reckless endangerment in December. Prosecutors argued he could have caused injuries by jumping, despite his claims to have studied traffic patterns around the foot of the 102-storey tourist attraction.

The skydiver could have faced up to a year in prison for the offence. The judge, Thomas Farber, said he received letters from Raymond Kelly, New York City Police Department commissioner, and the Empire State Building owners asking for a jail term for Corliss.

Mr Farber, however, rejected the suggestion, saying, “I simply don’t find it warranted in this case.” He added that in all his years as a prosecutor and a judge presiding over murder, rape and other cases, he had never received a letter from a high-ranking police official asking for a specific kind of sentence.

“From some of the letters I received, you would have thought the defendant tried to commit a terrorist act,” the judge said. Mr Farber sentenced Corliss, who had no prior criminal record, to three years’ probation and 100 hours community service, which he said the Californian could complete in his home state.

Corliss has made more than 1,000 safe jumps in countries all around the world including Japan, Russia, France and Malaysia.

Regular readers of this blog will know that Corliss is attempting to be the first man to land on earth, with only a wingsuit and no parachute, and to survive, and then go up and do it again. Details of how this will be achieved are top secret but we do understand that a special landing strip is being designed, somehow to be suspended in the air, which Corliss will have to fly to with pinpoint accuracy.

OMG – sure sounds tough – good luck Jeb.

Below is a video from wingsuitflyer which gives an update on the wingsuit landing project and as its coming up to a year since that release any further news would be greatly received. As for Corliss’s escape from imprisonment – well thank goodness Judge Farber used his great common sense – Corliss is no criminal.

[youtube=http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=UsztEWuC3cs]

Following my last article on extreme sport and my supposition that it’s probably wingsuit flyers and basejumpers who live the closest to the edge in the extreme sport field, I came across this interesting report on wingsuit flying. I know we’ve shown several wingsuit flying videos before but this is another good one. Hope you enjoy it, thanks to wingsuitflying for posting it.

We ran several stories on Jeb Corliss several weeks ago (starting the 13th November). If you want to know more about him and his extroadinary career please page backwards! One day we will make this site more simple and user-friendly I promise.

Inspired by the flight of a flying squirrel Jeb Corliss will attempt to be the first man to land from a wingsuit flight without deploying a parachute. Although details of the landing structure are top secret we do know that Corliss is going to have to master the art of precision flying.

Jumping from an aircraft Corliss will reach terminal velocity, about 120mph, and then aim for what is called a ‘gateway’, which is further described as 20 feet by 20 feet, no other details have been released. He will need to be controlled and accurate as he does intend to get up, walk away and do it all over again.

If successful it will be a fist for mankind; at the moment Corliss is practicing his flying proximity skills and control of his wingsuit whilst airborne, and attempting to raise the $2.0 million required to build the landing structure.

We will keep you posted of any developments – below is a video from wingsuitflying of Corliss’ preparations

And the inspiration – here is a short clip from moconservation of the flying squirrel, which as the commentator says ‘don’t really fly, they glide…….the only mammal to truly fly is a bat’………maybe it was Bruce Wayne who first truly inspired Corliss!

The final installment of the Jeb Corliss story – this video from excalibour88 shows Corliss basejumping from that same bridge, over the Royal River Gorge, just a year after his buddy Dwain Weston had his final fatal journey and crashed into the bridge being killed immediately.

Flipping in different directions, forwards and backwards, Corliss seemed to lose control as he nearly hit the canyon wall – in his own words, ‘I was as close to the wall as you can get without touching it…..if I had pulled (the parachute) a second later I would have gone in’.

Corliss goes on to talk about his view and opinion of both base jumping and life, ‘it is who we are, it is what we are, if I die doing something i love it is not throwing my life away………I don’t believe you can push life too far, if you stop pushing you become stagnant and die……you must evolve…….find what it is you love to do then go do it.’

Powerful words from a man who certainly follows in his own creed. Who knows where or how the story will end. We started this series of blogs reporting that Jeb Corliss wanted to be the first man to land from a wingsuit flight without deploying a parachute, tomorrow we will bring further news on this latest venture.