FROM THE EDGE OF SPACE
Born in Salzburg in Austria, his father was a carpenter. His mother, Eva, was a homemaker who brought Felix and his younger brother, Gerard, up.
As a child, Felix became obsessed with flying and skydiving, after watching astronauts on television. He regularly climbed tall trees, to get as high off the ground as he could and seemed to have no fear.
The family could not afford flying lessons for Felix.
After leaving school, Felix became a motorcycle mechanic before joining the Austrian military for five years, where he learned to parachute.
Felix also took up boxing, becoming a professional when he left the army. He fought one fight at welterweight. He won it but decided this was not the sport for him.
By 1999, Felix was skydiving for a living. He set a world record for a parachute jump from a building when he leaped from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
In 2003, Felix became the first person to skydive across the English Channel. He used a specially designed carbon fibre wing.
That same year, Felix set a world record for the lowest BASE jump. This is a jump from a fixed object.
He jumped from the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, a total for twenty-nine feet.
However, there was much controversy about this feat. Other divers claimed this jump had been done before, but without publicity, unlike Felix.
It was also said he landed on the slopes at the foot of the statue and therefore did not complete the full jump.
Despite all of this, his reputation as a daredevil was growing. He was known as ‘Fearless Felix’.
Around this time, Felix started dating Gitta Saxx, the German Playboy, playmate of the century. Their relationship did not last, and Felix got engaged to Austrian model and beauty queen, Nicole Oetl.
In 2004, Felix became the first person to BASE jump from the Millau Viaduct in France.
This was followed by leaping off the Turning Torso building in Malmo, Sweden.
He then did an unauthorised BASE jump from the Observation Deck (91st floor) of the Taipei 101 tower. This led to Felix being deported from Taiwan, and he was banned from entering the country again.
Felix began working on the Red Bull Stratos project, aiming to complete the highest sky dive ever.
The record was achieved by American Joseph Kittinger in August 1960. Kittinger, now in his eighties, was employed as Felix’s mentor.
Really Interesting People – JOSEPH KITTINGER, aged 94
A special pressurized suit was designed for Felix, but he suffered claustrophobia whilst wearing it. It took work with a sports psychologist to overcome this problem.
Felix did two test jumps, falling from the sky for wight minutes at 360mph (and not opening his parachute for three- and three-quarter minutes).
The record-breaking jump took place at Roswell in New Mexico. Felix’s parents attended the event. However, the weather was so bad that it was delayed for two days.
This meant Felix did his jump on 14th October 2012, the sixty fifth anniversary of Chuck Yeager being the first person to break the sound barrier.
Joseph Kittinger was on the plane and was the only person allowed to keep radio contact with Felix.
Felix fell from the edge of space. He dropped 38, 969.3 metres, 36,000 of these before he opened his parachute, a free fall of four minutes and nineteen seconds.
The speed was 846.3mph, another world record, and Felix became the first human being to break the sound barrier without a vehicle.
Felix reflected, “When I was standing on the top of the world, you become so humble…You don’t think about breaking records anymore, you don’t think about gaining scientific data – the only thing you want is to come back alive.”
Joseph Kittinger said of the jump, “Couldn’t have done it better myself.”
Felix celebrated by getting a ‘Born to Fly’ tattoo. After this, Felix labelled himself the ‘God of the Skies’.
His record lasted for two years and ten days, until it was broken by Alan Eustace.
Shortly after his jump, Felix’s fiancée, Nicole, broke off their engagement.
For pleasure, Felix started racing Volkswagen Polos. This led to him joining Audi Motorsport and he drove in the 24-hour race at Nurburgring, coming ninth.
He then joined the Flying Bulls helicopter stunt team.
Felix said, “I hate it if someone calls me a thrill seeker or an adrenaline junkie because I am not. I like the whole planning.”
He married Mihaela Radulescu, a Romanian businesswoman and television host.
Felix became increasingly vocal about political issues. He joined the extreme right-wing populist party, the ‘Freedom Party of Austria’.
He campaigned for the President of Hungary, Viktor Orban, to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and claimed in public that dictatorship was preferable to democracy.
Felix hated refugees, was anti-LGBTQ rights and denied climate change. He also stated that Green parties around Europe should be banned.
He gloated on his Facebook page (1.5 million followers), that he was, “Too uncomfortable for political elites.”
Around the same time, Felix was arrested for assaulting a Greek truck driver in a road rage incident in a traffic jam. He was found guilty and received a hefty fine.
Felix claimed that the Austrian government should give him a sporting exemption from paying tax. The authorities refused, so Felix went to live in Arbon, Switzerland.
The government promptly seized his house in Salzburg and his private helicopter.
Felix won many different awards. He was listed in Flying Magazine’s ’51 Heroes of Aviation’, the youngest person selected.
At various times, he held fourteen world records.
Felix’s final flight was a powered paraglide at Porto Sant’ Elpidio, near Fermo in Italy.
The day was extremely windy. It was so strong that a windsock was flying horizontally. Felix was warned it was too dangerous to fly but ignored it.
Felix lost control of his paraglider and crashed into a wooden hut next to a swimming pool. He was killed instantly. One other person on the ground was injured.
A witness, who was swimming, recalled, “Everything was normal, then it started to spin like a top…It went down and we heard a roar.”
It was reported in newspapers that Felix had a heart attack whilst in flight, but the inquest put the crash down to human error.
Felix has been described as, “A symbol of courage and passion for extreme flights.”
His own words were read at his funeral – “Sometimes we have to get really high to see how small we are.”
RIP – Recordbreaking Intrepid Paraglider
