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Richard: When he was five years old, Felix Baumgartner drew a picture for his mum. In the picture Felix is parachuting down to Earth and his mum and family are waiting for him below.
Jackie: Just 12 years later Felix did his first skydive, and his mum gave the picture back to him. Today, the 43 year-old Austrian is famous for the most amazing skydive ever. So for this week's podcastsinenglish.com we're talking about Fearless Felix. So Richard, what exactly did he do?
Richard: Well, he went up to almost 24 miles above the Earth, that's 39,000 metres in a capsule, and then jumped.
Jackie: But 39,000 metres, that's really high.
Richard: [laughs] Yes, a commercial plane flies at around 12,000 metres so that's more than three times higher.
Jackie: Okay, so how did he get up there? Not in a plane.
Richard: No. He had a very large and a very thin hot-air balloon. So, the capsule went up with the balloon. As the balloon went higher and higher it got bigger and bigger and it took about two and a half hours to get to the correct height.
Jackie: So... so why did he do this?
Richard: Well, he wanted to break 4 world records: he wanted to be in the highest manned balloon flight and that record was 34,668 metres.
Jackie: Okay, so if he went to 39,000 metres he got that record.
Richard: Yep, he did that. Secondly he also... he wanted to do the highest freefall. Now the record for that was 31,332 metres.
Jackie: Okay, so he... he did that too.
Richard: Yep, definitely. Plus, he wanted to do the fastest freefall and to break the sound barrier.
Jackie: Now, so people have already broken the sound barrier but they're inside a plane or a spaceship, aren't they?
Richard: Exactly, he was on his own, falling to Earth.
Jackie: So Richard, what is the sound barrier?
Richard: Well, it's 1,236 kilometres per hour or about one kilometre in three seconds or approximately one mile in five seconds.
Jackie: So... so Felix did that, he went that fast.
Richard: Unbelievably he reached a speed of 1,342 kilometres per hour.
Jackie: That's just amazing.
Richard: And finally, he wanted to do the longest freefall. Now the last guy to do this was way back in 1960, and his fall lasted 4 minutes 36 seconds.
Jackie: So he... he did that too then.
Richard: Well, it took about 10 minutes from when he jumped to when he landed.
Jackie: Wow, 10 minutes falling.
Richard: But his parachute opened only after 4 minutes 16 seconds.
Jackie: 4 minutes 16 seconds, Richard. So, well, three out of four is not bad. Now Neil Armstrong, he said that's one small step for man etc etc, when he was on the Moon, did Felix have any similar comment?
Richard: He said, “Sometimes you have to go up really high to see how small you are.”
Jackie: Well, he went up very high.
Richard: Absolutely amazing.
Jackie: Mmm definitely.
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