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Archive for the ‘wingsuit flying’ Category
Nissan Outdoor Extreme Games 2009
June 30, 2009We normally keep a close eye on the Nissan Extreme Games, but were obviously so busy writing on other things that Interlaken 2009 slipped by with no comment from us for which we apologise. However, it’s never too late to make up for past omissions and show you the high quality of both competitors and film producers… following this teaser from OutdoorGamesTV.
Nissan have been innovative in the extreme sports world and were the first to realise that an original event concept was needed in this growing sector of the market.
Because extreme sports have become more and more fashionable over the past few years, the event organisers came up with a concept like no other - 5 teams, 5 sports and a 5-minute film.
The task for the five teams is challenging: to produce a five-minute short film in seven days including five outdoor sports in the Interlaken region.
Rather than pushing the limits in outdoor sports, the Nissan Outdoor Games again reveals that certain subjects can be addressed within a sports film. The themes represented in the 2009 films go from the meaning of life and death, profound feelings as well as harmony with nature.
Extreme sports challenges have been taking place in Interlaken now for 5 years. The Games are an important event for adventure sports and film making. For a week, the best kayakers, mountain-bikers, climbers, paragliders and base jumpers combine with film makers and photographers to share their adventure in the mountains and to battle it out for prize money of Swiss Francs 70,000.
Jean-Pierre Diernaz, General Manager of Nissan’s Marketing Communications in Europe, says “The Nissan Outdoor Games allow athletes to express themselves in the most awe-inspiring way, whilst thrilling the public by capturing their exploits in a five minute film. Nissan is once again proud to be supporting the Outdoor Games and together we are working to increase participation in an active outdoor lifestyle and a sustainable engagement with the natural environment.“
Enjoy these incredible hang gliding sequences filmed by Austrian film team ‘Argon’ (orleyflo)
Marvel at Anthony Green’s 10-second death defying misting by the falls (acrotwinz).
Enjoy Swiss Team, NBFlyer’s, film for which they received the Jury’s Special Award as well as the Best Sports Sequence for its climbing scene with Cyril Albasini. (OutdoorGamesTV)
And we end with the winning film from Team Golgoht of Finland who received the Golden Peak Award.
The Finn, Petri Kovalainen from the Golgoht team, won the Best Photographer award as well as the Game of Light Award by Julbo.
Wingsuit flying – why not!
June 27, 2009This looks just amazing. Fabulous video and for once too short! Thank you imexkorea for sharing it with us:
Equipment failure to blame for McConkey’s fatal crash?
March 30, 2009The tragic news of Shane McConkey’s death on Thursday while skiing/wingsuit flying in the Italian Dolomites would appear to have its root cause in failure of the equipment that McConkey was using. This is according to an emailed statement released by JT Holmes who was with McConkey at the time of the accident and reported by Tim Mutrie.
The statement is reproduced below:
‘Yesterday, March 26, 2009, Shane died while skiing in Italy. There are some technical aspects that are left out from this statement, and it does not touch upon the beauty of the Dolomites and the skiing we shared before the accident or Shane’s typical shining persona, full of adventure, humor and life experience.
We chose to ski off of a cliff with our wingsuits and fly them away from the cliff wall before opening our parachutes for landing. We skied and hiked off of the Pordoi cable car to a spot Shane had base jumped once before, in the summer. We spent a bunch of time preparing for the jump, building a kicker, helping each other gear up, and finally we were pleased and prepared and went for it.
Shane did a double back flip in perfect McConkey style. As planned, afterwards, he went to release his skis in order to fly away from the wall and safely deploy his parachute. This is where the jump went wrong. He was not able to release either of his skis. He remained focused on releasing them by reaching down towards his bindings. This put him into a spin/tumble/unstable falling style, that may have appeared out of his control, but in reality, Shane was not concerned about flying position or style; just concerned with reaching those skis so that he could get them off and fly or deploy his parachute. He succeeded in releasing both of skis and immediately transitioned into a perfect flying position; then he impacted the snow, and died at that moment.
The whole thing took place in about 12 seconds. Once he released the skis, he was immediately in control of the flight and would have only seen the ground and imminent impact for a tiny fraction of a second before he hit. Shane’s parachute did not malfunction; it was never deployed.’
Shane McConkey was born in Vancouver, British Columbia and became a professional skier based out of Squaw Valley, California. He won numerous awards and competitions. McConkey started as a competitive freestyle skier, but moved on to be featured in a long line of extreme skiing movies. McConkey was known for combining BASE jumping with skiing, as seen in such feats as skiing into a BASE jump off the Eiger. He had more recently taken to winsuit flying and believed there was nothing better than skiing down a mountain, launching himself off a cliff and flying like a bird.
He is survived by his wife, Sherry, and 3-year-old daughter, Ayla.
Shane McConkey
And as if we could ever forget we have included just one short video footage of Shane in action where it is self evident to see a master of his chosen profession at work – a combination of balance, grace, skill and courage.
We send our most sincere condolences to Sherry and Ayla.
2009 Nissan Outdoor Games – extreme
February 20, 2009The second edition of the Nissan Outdoor Extreme Winter Games are happening right now in Chamonix.
5 international teams of extreme sporting professionals have, this week, been climbing, freeriding, BASE jumping, wingsuit flying and paragliding their way around the valley in an attempt to make the most impressive extreme sports short film.
Do you know what the Nissan Outdoor Games is all about? Here’s a quick video from OutdoorGamesTV to remind you…
The films will combine the skills of the individual athletes as well as the creative talents of the film crew that they work with.
Chamonix, the death-sport capital of the world as it has been described in the past, is the perfect backdrop for Nissan’s second games . This quote, from someone who lived in and loved Chamonix many many years ago, personifies Nissan’s quest:
“The great object of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even though in pain; it is this craving void which drives us…” Lord Byron
The results will be displayed on a giant screen in the Outdoor Games Village in the Tourist Office square today, Friday 20th, and Saturday 21st February, and prizes will be awarded for Best Sport’s Sequence, Best Photography and Jury’s Special Award.
There will also be an opportunity to talk to the experts themselves or try your hand at ice climbing, slack-rope walking and the climbing wall.
On Saturday there will also be two air shows combining BASE jumping, wingsuit flying, speed flying, acro-paragliding and hang gliding. The first one will take place at mid-day on the Aiguille du Midi and the second will be above the Grands Montets ski area at 3pm.
Cham will be at her best – difficult when lovers of Chamonix say she is ALWAYS at her best, but Cham has it all this weekend, and with the fantastic snow conditions that Europe has had this season, this year’s films should capture some amazing images of the valley and surrounding regions.
This was the Ride The Planets winner last year, again thanks to OutdoorGamesTV for posting it:
American squirrel man escapes jail sentence
January 24, 2009We have often written about Jeb Corliss, one of the most celebrated and well known names in the world of base jumping and wingsuit flying , who in April 2006 was arrested while attempting to jump off the Empire State Building in New York. Earlier this week Corliss, 32, of Malibu, California, received probation and community service for his thwarted stunt.
He was convicted of reckless endangerment in December. Prosecutors argued he could have caused injuries by jumping, despite his claims to have studied traffic patterns around the foot of the 102-storey tourist attraction.
The skydiver could have faced up to a year in prison for the offence. The judge, Thomas Farber, said he received letters from Raymond Kelly, New York City Police Department commissioner, and the Empire State Building owners asking for a jail term for Corliss.
Mr Farber, however, rejected the suggestion, saying, “I simply don’t find it warranted in this case.” He added that in all his years as a prosecutor and a judge presiding over murder, rape and other cases, he had never received a letter from a high-ranking police official asking for a specific kind of sentence.
“From some of the letters I received, you would have thought the defendant tried to commit a terrorist act,” the judge said. Mr Farber sentenced Corliss, who had no prior criminal record, to three years’ probation and 100 hours community service, which he said the Californian could complete in his home state.
Corliss has made more than 1,000 safe jumps in countries all around the world including Japan, Russia, France and Malaysia.
Regular readers of this blog will know that Corliss is attempting to be the first man to land on earth, with only a wingsuit and no parachute, and to survive, and then go up and do it again. Details of how this will be achieved are top secret but we do understand that a special landing strip is being designed, somehow to be suspended in the air, which Corliss will have to fly to with pinpoint accuracy.
OMG – sure sounds tough – good luck Jeb.
Below is a video from wingsuitflyer which gives an update on the wingsuit landing project and as its coming up to a year since that release any further news would be greatly received. As for Corliss’s escape from imprisonment – well thank goodness Judge Farber used his great common sense – Corliss is no criminal.
One man’s personal voyage from basejumping to wingsuit flying
January 7, 2009This is the story of Chris McNamara’s, ChrisMcNamara7 , journey from his first basejump to becoming a passionate wingsuit flyer. It is interesting to listen to. Once the bug bites, that’s it…. it seems!
An interesting wingsuit flying report
January 6, 2009Following my last article on extreme sport and my supposition that it’s probably wingsuit flyers and basejumpers who live the closest to the edge in the extreme sport field, I came across this interesting report on wingsuit flying. I know we’ve shown several wingsuit flying videos before but this is another good one. Hope you enjoy it, thanks to wingsuitflying for posting it.
We ran several stories on Jeb Corliss several weeks ago (starting the 13th November). If you want to know more about him and his extroadinary career please page backwards! One day we will make this site more simple and user-friendly I promise.
World record base jump from world’s tallest building
November 22, 2008The Burj Tower in Dubai will, when finished, be the world’s tallest building. How tall is that? Not sure. It currently stands at over 650 metres, or over 2,132 feet but architect William Baker from SOM is not letting the cat out of the bag until construction is finished, scheduled for 2011.
If, as speculation suggests, the tower is over 800 metres , 2,624 feet, it will be four times higher than London’s Gherkin and nearly twice as high as New York’s Empire State building. The trouble is when you build something that tall – for a base jumper or wingsuit flyer, it is like putting a carrot in front of a donkey. It just has to be done.
In May 2008, in the early hours of the morning, two men, one from France and the other from Britain, entered the building dressed as engineers. Security and workers presumed they were part of the construction team. They decided not to risk using the lifts and so climbed the stairs to the 160th floor, it took them an hour and 15 minutes, and then waited for dawn.
Everything was set, they launched themselves from the world’s tallest building, as Herve says ‘ What is always the best is the first time!!’, and they were the first - watch the video below to see their story and their flight – thank you mazen2k for the video.
As a side note it is worth mentioning that the planned 1,600 metre building, that was to be built in Moscow, has been stopped due to the economic crisis.
The wingsuit landing project
November 17, 2008Inspired by the flight of a flying squirrel Jeb Corliss will attempt to be the first man to land from a wingsuit flight without deploying a parachute. Although details of the landing structure are top secret we do know that Corliss is going to have to master the art of precision flying.
Jumping from an aircraft Corliss will reach terminal velocity, about 120mph, and then aim for what is called a ‘gateway’, which is further described as 20 feet by 20 feet, no other details have been released. He will need to be controlled and accurate as he does intend to get up, walk away and do it all over again.
If successful it will be a fist for mankind; at the moment Corliss is practicing his flying proximity skills and control of his wingsuit whilst airborne, and attempting to raise the $2.0 million required to build the landing structure.
We will keep you posted of any developments – below is a video from wingsuitflying of Corliss’ preparations
And the inspiration – here is a short clip from moconservation of the flying squirrel, which as the commentator says ‘don’t really fly, they glide…….the only mammal to truly fly is a bat’………maybe it was Bruce Wayne who first truly inspired Corliss!
