Felix Baumgartner

Felix Baumgartner is an Austrian skydiver, daredevil and BASE jumper. He is best known for his participation in the Red Bull Stratos project, in which he jumped to Earth from a helium balloon in the stratosphere on October 14, 2012. Doing so, he set world records for skydiving an estimated 39160km , reaching an estimated top speed of 1,357.64160kmh , or Mach 1.25, . He became the first person to break the sound barrier without vehicular power relative to the surface on his descent. He broke skydiving records for exit altitude, vertical freefall distance without drogue, and vertical speed without drogue. Though he still holds the latter records, the first was broken two years later, when onOctober 2014, Alan Eustace jumped from 135,890 feet or, 41.42160km with a drogue.

Felix Baumgartner was born first of two boys onApril 1969 , in Salzburg, Austria. As a child, he dreamed about flying and skydiving. In 1999 he claimed the world record for the highest parachute jump from a building when he jumped from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. OnJuly 2003, Baumgartner became the first person to skydive across the English Channel using a specially made carbon fiber wing. Alban Geissler, who developed the SKYRAY carbon fiber wing with Christoph Aarns, suggested after Baumgartners jump that the wing he used was a copy of two prototype SKYRAY wings sold to Red Bull two years earlier.

Source: Wikipedia