Wing Suits - Soar like Icarus

Wingsuit flying is so much fun! another other nice thing about wing suiting, is that since the discipline is relatively new; record attempts dont require hundreds and hundreds of participants like some of the other skydiving disciplines do. Its probably hard to imagine what it is like if you have never done it.. but its pretty much everything you would expect the dream of human flight to be. I know personally, many of the people on this particular wing suit record flock..  

It wasn't the way he died that made Stephen Harrington unique. It was the way he lived his life. "Steve was one of those special people," said Fran Strimenos, owner of Skydive Pepperell, Harrington's "home drop zone."  

HARRINGTON, Stephen Millard Cherished family member, passionate adventurer, beloved member of the US wingsuiting community and a respected information services professional who lived in Boston, died unexpectedly in a tragic skydiving accident on November 11, 2009 in Murrieta, California. He was 40 years old. Harrington helped set the United States record for wingsuit jumping earlier in the day, when he joined 67 divers in an arrowhead formation at Skylark Airport in Lake Elsinore in California.  

ALL over the internets pictures of "68 specially-qualified wingsuit skydivers" setting the "official US record for Wingsuit Formation Skydiving". It was in aide of Raise the Sky , an LA charity that wants to keep children in school. But look again at the picture.  

ON A bright day in 1912, an Austrian tailor named Franz Reichelt jumped off the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. This was no suicide attempt. Reichelt was wearing a special overcoat of his own design that was supposed to let him glide gently to the ground.  

THIS incredible picture shows a record-breaking parachute team who flew TWO MILES — wearing just WINGSUITS. The 70-strong bunch of international daredevils leapt from four separate planes 13,000 feet above the ground last week to attempt the largest EVER display of synchronised flying. They managed to fly horizontally in a complicated diamond-shaped pattern at speeds of up to 100mph above Lake Elsinore in California for more than TWO MILES before deploying their 'chutes.  

They jumped from four separate aircraft at 13,000ft before flying their way into a complex diamond-shaped pattern at over 100mph for two miles. Hundreds of spectators gathered at Lake Elsinore in California, America, to watch them beat the record before they broke formation to deploy their parachutes and land safely. British daredevil Mark "Birdman" Harris, who has completed more than 6,000 skydives and 600 wingsuit dives, said they have taken a "massive step forward".  

National Geographic's Adventure Magazine named ten people as Adventurers of the Year, and invite you to rate each of them to help them determine the readers' choice top adventurer. One of the profiles features 37-year-old Dean S. Potter, rock climber, tightrope walker, and BASE jumper. Potter set a world record in 2009 by jumping off a high face of Switzerland's Eiger in a wingsuit and sailing for almost three minutes!  

During one of their more memorable sky diving adventures, on what Shorb described as "an absolutely beautiful day this past June, the two jumped together and wingsuit glided in and out of tall clouds, which was fun and relaxing, he said, but caused them to lose track of where they were supposed to land. They wound up in the yard of someone who was throwing a graduation party, which caused comical confusion when the partiers thought the unexpected guests from above had been hired to make an appearance at the gathering, Shorb said.  

MURRIETA, Calif. A skydiver killed during a jump this week had tried earlier in the day to set a parachuting record in a charity event, friends and officials said Thursday. Stephen Millard Harrington, 40, of Boston was pronounced dead Wednesday after landing in a driveway in this Riverside County bedroom community, about 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

There was a laceration on his chin — and so, it was probably his chin that hit the plane and it probably knocked him unconscious, although that’s not clear   -Adam Wright