Afternoon Play: The Man Who Jumped To Earth
Thursday 11th of November 2.15pm Radio 4
The real life story of Captain Joe Kittinger and Project Excelsior. As jet planes flew higher and faster in the 1950s, the USAF became increasingly worried about the safety of flight crew who had to eject at high altitude. So Project Excelsior was initiated to perfect a parachute system that would allow a safe, controlled descent after a high-altitude ejection.
For those of you how didn't know, he was (effectively) testing the parachute system that would later be used on this bad boy - the SR-71 'Blackbird'. A high-altitude, long range spy plane most famous for still being the fastest aircraft ever built, cruising at around 3.2Mach (approx 2200 mph). It covered a mile every 2 seconds and could fly New York to London in under 2 hours. It was also just about the sexiest and the scariest looking thing in the air.
Where most normal airplanes fly at around 35,000ft, this fella soared at 85,000ft - so high the pilots wore what amounted to space suits. If they had to bail out, they would free fall down to around 15,000 before their chutes would (hopefully) open. Hence, Captain Joe chucking himself out of a balloon and our favorite music video in the World
Mexicola wrote:For those of you how didn't know, he was (effectively) testing the parachute system that would later be used on this bad boy - the SR-71 'Blackbird'. A high-altitude, long range spy plane most famous for still being the fastest aircraft ever built, cruising at around 3.2Mach (approx 2200 mph). It covered a mile every 2 seconds and could fly New York to London in under 2 hours. It was also just about the sexiest and the scariest looking thing in the air.
Where most normal airplanes fly at around 35,000ft, this fella soared at 85,000ft - so high the pilots wore what amounted to space suits. If they had to bail out, they would free fall down to around 15,000 before their chutes would (hopefully) open. Hence, Captain Joe chucking himself out of a balloon and our favorite music video in the World
Mexicola wrote:For those of you how didn't know, he was (effectively) testing the parachute system that would later be used on this bad boy - the SR-71 'Blackbird'. A high-altitude, long range spy plane most famous for still being the fastest aircraft ever built, cruising at around 3.2Mach (approx 2200 mph). It covered a mile every 2 seconds and could fly New York to London in under 2 hours. It was also just about the sexiest and the scariest looking thing in the air.
Where most normal airplanes fly at around 35,000ft, this fella soared at 85,000ft - so high the pilots wore what amounted to space suits. If they had to bail out, they would free fall down to around 15,000 before their chutes would (hopefully) open. Hence, Captain Joe chucking himself out of a balloon and our favorite music video in the World
Yeah, that plane is amazing. That Blackbird is 46 year old technology! Imagine what they have now! It would blow your mind.
thanks for the history on that mexicola, good find. it is crazy to think what "they've" got now. as i've heard, the apollo 11 mission to the moon and back was all done on gameboy (black&white, version 1) technology. most people walk around with 10,000 times that computing power in their pockets now.
zeitgeist wrote:thanks for the history on that mexicola, good find. it is crazy to think what "they've" got now. as i've heard, the apollo 11 mission to the moon and back was all done on gameboy (black&white, version 1) technology. most people walk around with 10,000 times that computing power in their pockets now.
it's less amazing if you never underestimated the power of green-tinged dot matrix in the first place
"grand mistress of the grace note freedledeedee melodies" - Cupz, 2026
"Sitting in my gondola, which gently twisted with the balloon's slow turnings, I had begun to sweat lightly, though the temperature read 36 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Sunlight burned in on me under the edge of an aluminized antiglare curtain and through the gondola's open door."
"No wind whistles or billows my clothing. I have absolutely no sensation of the increasing speed with which I fall. [The clouds] rushed up so chillingly that I had to remind myself they were vapor and not solid."
I'm pretty sure these are from his autobiography, which I plan on picking up this week
"We're just a band. Not an IDM band, not an electronic band, and not a dance band."
"An imaginary road trip in a rusty pick-up heading west through the brain"
zeitgeist wrote:thanks for the history on that mexicola, good find. it is crazy to think what "they've" got now. as i've heard, the apollo 11 mission to the moon and back was all done on gameboy (black&white, version 1) technology. most people walk around with 10,000 times that computing power in their pockets now.
it's less amazing if you never underestimated the power of green-tinged dot matrix in the first place
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