Competition to find Earhart hot after 75 years

Time: 19.4.2012  |  Author: The Birdman  |  Category: News  |  Comments are closed

‘Admittedly, it’s a needle in a haystack’

Published : Wednesday, 11 Apr 2012, 6:51 AM EDT RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI,Associated Press HOUSTON (AP) —

Jon Thompson has traveled the world collecting art and artifacts for museum exhibits, seen the remains of the Titanic on the sea floor and participated in two unsuccessful missions to find Amelia Earhart. Now 72 and battling prostate cancer, Thompson is convinced he and a team from deep-sea exploration company Nauticos will finally be successful in finding the Kansas-born aviator’s plane, which disappeared with Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan in July 1937. He’s among the researchers looking for Earhart as the 75th anniversary of her disappearance approaches, and competition between search parties is fierce.

“Admittedly, it’s a needle in a haystack, but with the technology we have employed and the brains we have involved, if we don’t find it, no one will,” Thompson said. Theories about what happened to Earhart and Noonan are varied. They disappeared while flying from New Guinea to Howland Island as part of the adventurer’s attempt to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the globe.

Last month, the International Group for Historic Aircraft, headed by longtime Earhart seeker Ric Gillespie, said a U.S. State Department analysis of an image off the remote island of Nikumaroro, in what is now the Pacific nation of Kiribati, looks like it could be aircraft landing gear. Gillespie’s team will return in July to renew its search. A few months later, Thompson will be a sonar operator on a ship headed by David Jourdan, a deep-sea explorer who used high-tech equipment in 1999 to find the Israeli submarine, the Dakar, which went missing in 1968. “It seems to be the greatest unsolved mystery of the last century,” Thompson said.

Thompson and Jourdan are among the many historians and researchers who believe Earhart’s plane crashed into the ocean, which they say explains why extensive searches shortly after the disappearance failed to uncover remains or debris. Gillespie’s group believes Earhart and Noonan may have managed to land on a reef abutting the atoll, then known as Gardner Island, and survived for a short time. They surmise the plane was washed off the reef shortly after landing and that the wreckage may be in the deep waters nearby. That is what they will look for during their 10-day expedition in July.

Conspiracy theories that Earhart and Noonan were U.S. government agents captured by the Japanese before the World War II have been largely debunked. Thompson and his group plan to spend two months searching a 400- to 600-square-mile area within 20 miles of Howland Island. It’s the final section of an area where research from three institutions suggests the plane could have crashed. Thompson’s two previous missions searched about 2,200 square miles nearby. Before fall, Thompson will complete proton therapy treatment for prostate cancer at Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center. He will also work with students at the University of Texas’ Cockrell School of Engineering to analyze two theories about Earhart.

One investigates how far the plane would glide before sinking based on ocean drifts and other aspects of crashing on water. The other looks at where the aircraft could have flipped and broken on impact if Earhart were too exhausted and weak to operate the machine. Vishnu Jyothindran, a senior studying aerospace engineering who is leading the research, is excited by the uncertainty. “In class, you expect you’ll get a question that you can solve with data in the textbook,” he said in a statement. “We don’t have that guarantee here and that’s unfortunate, but it’s also just reality.”

If artifacts are found, Thompson already knows what the exhibit would look like. The artifacts would travel on a three-story barge and dock at dozens of North American cities. It would be called “Amelia Earhart-Mystery Solved.” Visitors would enter an area that looks like Earhart’s childhood home, go through a portion showcasing technology that helped find the crash site, and finally go into a place where the aircraft — or a replica of it — would be displayed. Human remains and any wood would have disintegrated at 18,000 feet, Thompson said. But Earhart’s jewelry, helmet and even her leather jacket could still be found. “I hope we still find it strapped in the seat belt,” he says, grinning.

Gary Connery plans skydive without using parachute

Time: 12.4.2012  |  Author: The Birdman  |  Category: News  |  Comments are closed

A stuntman is preparing to leap from a helicopter at a height of 2,400ft (730m) – without using a parachute.

Gary Connery, from Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, will attempt the stunt this week, weather permitting, wearing a specially developed wingsuit.

The 42-year-old will make the jump above Ridge Wood in Buckinghamshire and land in an area containing a stack of 18,600 cardboard boxes.

“No-one has ever attempted this before, but I will do it,” he said.

Mr Connery has worked closely with Tonysuits to develop a suit which will enable him to fly at slower speeds and land without a parachute.

The father of two, who has already completed about 880 skydives and 450 base jumps, has been working on the precision and accuracy of the suit in Switzerland, Italy and America.

“I’ve been doing lots of base jumping wearing the wingsuit, flying close to cliffs and treetops to get familiar with the ground rush,” he said.

‘Feeling scared’

During the attempt, Mr Connery will drop for three seconds before his suit “starts to fly”, and will accelerate to a top speed of about 80mph.

He will land on the giant stack of cardboard boxes – which covers a strip of about 350ft (100m) by 45ft (15m) at Temple Island Meadows on the Buckinghamshire and Berkshire border.

Mr Connery must flare his wingsuit about 200ft (60m) from the target to bring his gliding speed down to 50mph and his vertical falling speed to 15mph.

The entire flight will take about 50 seconds, but can only take place under “perfect” weather conditions.

“We need a clear, sunny day with zero wind to stop the cardboard boxes blowing away,” he explained.

“Everything to do with the jump is about precision and timing.”

Mr Connery, who will have an emergency parachute in case the stunt doesn’t go to plan, admitted to feeling “scared” ahead of all his jumps.

“It’s part of what keeps you safe.”

‘It’s phenomenal’

He added: “Paranoia in this kind of situation is a very good state of mind. It makes you look out for all eventualities and deal with them before they arrive.

“When you’re in flight, you are so in control it’s phenomenal.”

Mr Connery, who has worked on films including Die Another Day, Batman Begins and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, said performing stunts was “his life”.

“I’ve been a stunt performer for TV and film for the last 16 years and have been base jumping for 18 years so this is just an extension of who I am,” he said.

Source: BBC News

Shin flies the record distance, congrats!

Time: 29.9.2010  |  Author: The Birdman  |  Category: Birdman, News  |  Comments are closed

News Release

On September 24th 2010, Japanese wingsuit pilot Shin Ito (BIRDMAN inc “TOP GUN” Team) makes the record for non-powered, human-self flight over the suburbs of Davis, California, U.S.A. SkyDance Skydiving..

At the altitude 33,430 ft (10.180m) by PAC750XL, he flew the horizontal distance of 10.19 miles (16.4 km). Wingsuit flight distance 11.68 miles (18.8km). (From exit point to Parachute deployment. point)

Free fall time was 4 minutes and 57 seconds. The Max horizontal speed was 177.7 mph (286 km/h) with his ”flying squirrel “BLADE II Special Wingsuit Manufactured by BIRDMAN Inc. in Helsinki, Finland.

He is going to apply UK Guinness record book, US and Japanese officials to verify his record.

The details of Shin’s flight are written on the blog and website below:

Blog http://ameblo.jp/wingsuits/

HP http://www.wingsuits.jp/

Delivered on September 26, 2010

Risk Control Corp.

PARACHUTE JUMPER Shital MahajanRane from the city has become the first woman in the country to take a birdman suit jump.

Time: 23.9.2010  |  Author: The Birdman  |  Category: News  |  Comments are closed

PARACHUTE JUMPER Shital MahajanRane from the city has become the first woman in the country to take a birdman suit jump.

Mahajan completed the historic venture at Empuriabrava in Spain on September 19 when she jumped off 13,000 feet wearing a birdman suit, a specially designed outfit that enables the jumper to fly like a bird. The birdlike flight that took place during her fall between 13,000 feet and 4,000 feet came as a perfect birthday gift for Shital who also celebrated her 28 th birthday on the same day.

“ I jumped from an aircraft at 13,000 feet wearing the suit and flew like a bird with wings till 4,000 feet. Then I opened the parachute and did the normal landing. It is one of the most adventurous feat in which I exactly flew like a bird,” Shital MahajanRane said in a note shared with her brother Harshal Mahajan.

Sharing the conversation he had with his daughter immediately after the jump, Kamlakar Mahajan, Shital’s father said, “In all the earlier jumps, she had to be bothered about the timing for opening the parachute. This time however, she could experience the fall. The experience is beyond words she told me.” The speed of a normal free fall jump goes up to 193 kmph but after wearing the wingsuit the speed of free fall reduces by 81 to 97 kph enabling one to fly horizontally through the clouds at 113 to 145 kmph. “This suit nearly triples the time of flying in the air before opening the parachute. So it gives the feeling of flying like a bird in free sky. Thought the stint was scheduled to take place at 4 pm IST, it was only by 8 pm IST that the jump was complete and Shital spent about 100120 seconds floating in the air like bird.

She was accompanied by Jari Kuosma, founder and owner of Birdman Inc, world’s first company to produce wing suits for

skydivers,” added Harshal Mahajan. In 2008, she created another record when she got married to Vaibhav Rane in a hot air balloon at a height of 700 feet, the first Indian wedding in a hot air balloon.
The birdman suit jump followed after a twoyear maternity break.
Shital who underwent a caesarian operation during her pregnancy was planning the venture for the past two months. “The doctors were completely against the breathtaking stunt but then she was clear that if she did not do it, somebody else would. And that is the reason she decided to do it immediately,” added Harshal Mahajan.

Shital who was accompanied by her husband and her two 15 month old twinsVaishnav and Rishabh, has to her credit, a 2400 feet jump on the north pole in minus 37 degrees Celsius in 2004, a free fall parachute jump over White Continent of Antarctica on December 16 2006 from 11,600 feet in minus 38 degrees Celsiusthat made her the only person to have individually completed the venture.

Birdman vs. Porsche (Video)

Time: 23.4.2010  |  Author: The Birdman  |  Category: Birdman  |  1 comment →

Werner Trummer (BM1A002) with his Birdman Blade vs. Porsche 911 Carrera– A race arranged by the German TV-Motormagazin Grip on RTL2.

Birdman vs. Porsche race part 1.

Birdman vs. Porsche race part 2.

RTL home page

Birdman Blade vs. Porsche on Television

Time: 13.4.2010  |  Author: The Birdman  |  Category: News  |  No comments yet →

The race between Werner Trummer (BM1A002) with his Birdman Blade and Porsche 911 Carrera can now be viewed on Television and soon also over the Internet.

Date:  Sunday 18. April
Time: 4 p.m
Channel: RTL2
Program: Grip Motor Magazin (Austrian Television)
Internet: 2 days later you can also find the Visio on the page: http://www.rtl.de/018097_0112.html

Birdman Blade vs. Porsche – A race arranged by the German TV-Motormagazin Grip on RTL2.

A little reminder of what the race was about:
Werner Trummer (BMI A002) flying Birdman’s Blade vs. Porsche 911 Carrera. The car and the wingsuiter started from the same position, wingsuiter from a helicopter 4000 meters above the car.Wingsuiter Werner did fly in a direct line to the Postalm, about 3 km flight line, and the car took the 8 km route along the road.