![]() For his contributions to the Excelsior program, President Eisenhower awarded Kittinger the Harmon International Trophy for ballooning achievements. Then came the unforgettable jump from 31,333 meters (102, 800 feet). Three weeks later he made a jump from 23,286 meters (74,000 feet) without incident. He was able to free himself when his emergency parachute opened at 3,657 meters (12,000 feet). It nearly became his last when the shroud lines of a small stabilizing parachute wrapped around his neck. He made his first high altitude parachute jump from an Excelsior balloon at an altitude of 23,286 meters (76,400 feet) in November 1959. ![]() His next assignment was as test director for Project Excelsior, which would test the equipment and techniques that would enable a pilot to parachute from extreme altitudes and survive. During the first flight of Project Man High, on June 2, 1957, Kittinger reached an altitude of 29,260 meters (96,000 feet) in a 3-by-7 foot sealed gondola dangling beneath an enormous helium-filled balloon made of plastic film only two-thousandths of an inch thick. Ironically, the balloon, the oldest type of flying craft, was also the natural choice to carry instruments and test pilots to extreme altitudes. Kittinger tested a variety of partial pressure suits, “flew” to altitudes of over 30,480 meters (100,000 feet) in pressure chambers, and served as a test subject for experiments involving his reaction to everything from claustrophobia to extreme temperatures. John Paul Stapp at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the Aero Medical Field Laboratory, Holloman AFB, New Mexico, investigating new techniques and equipment designed for use in high altitude, high speed aircraft. That experience led to his next assignment: a team led by Col. While on his first flying assignment in Germany, Kittinger was accepted as a test pilot flying F-84G fighters for NATO. After two years at the University of Florida, he enlisted in the USAF and received his wings and second lieutenant’s bars at Las Vegas, Nevada in March 1950. He came to aviation via a familiar path that began with a flight aboard a Ford Trimotor with his father, followed by a few years of intensive model aircraft building, culminating in hours spent learning to fly a Piper Cub owned by a returning veteran. Born on July 27, 1928, Joe Kittinger grew up near Orlando, Florida. That moment, while memorable, was only one episode in a long and heroic career. Fifty years later, no one has ever jumped from a higher altitude. Eight minutes after his main parachute opened, he was back on solid ground in the White Sands Missile Range, having set three world records: the highest ascent in an open gondola, the longest free fall, and the longest parachute descent. As it was, he suffered a painfully swollen hand when one of his gloves failed during the jump. The sky above is void and very black, and very hostile.” If his pressure suit failed at this altitude, he would lose consciousness within 12 seconds and be dead in two minutes. He may live in it, but he will never conquer it. “There is a hostile sky above me,” he told ground controllers before the jump. As he dropped into the denser atmosphere near 15,240 meters (50,000 feet), his speed slowed to a mere 420 km (250 miles) per hour. In the thin upper atmosphere near the beginning of his free-fall, he was traveling at over 965 km (600 miles) per hour. Trailing a stabilizing drogue chute, he fell from the top of the atmosphere for 4 minutes, 37 seconds, until his main parachute opened at 5,334 meters (17,500 feet). Kittinger began his “long, lonely leap” by taking a single step out of the open gondola of his Excelsior III balloon drifting 31,333 meters (102, 800 feet) over New Mexico. It was one of those images that takes your breath away.Ĭapt. There was this small figure, clad in a green pressure suit and white helmet, falling toward the sold cloud deck, almost 32 km (20 miles) below. I can still remember seeing the cover of Life magazine for August 29, 1960, on the newsstand in Medway, Ohio. Augfeatured one of the most memorable aeronautical moments of my adolescence.
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