Don't try this at home ....
 

... or at your home airfield. :)






Red Bull Matadors Aerobatic Team: Paul Bonhomme & Steve Jones

Llanbedr Airfield, North Wales
17 June 2015



:ok:

Superb!

I bet that woke up the pigeons roosting in the hangar rafters.

Jokke Sommer flies under Aiguille du Midi bridge - Video | Red Bull Adventure

A piece of cake compared to these guys who really must be crazy :E

Great video worth watching if a bit different )

Or this one powered and inverted

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwaPrTmwGSg

Its not flying. Its falling with style.:)

With balls that big I am amazed they made under that bridge.

Or NO balls if you get it slightly wrong more like splat like a fly :(

Pace

Pace, see you and raise.



Brave guys all.

Megan

Never seen anything as crazy and insane as that :ok: amazing footage

Pace

That one makes me feel ill. We are all of us here pilots, and willing to accept more risk than most. But what were the chances of him ending up as a heap of strawberry jam? Fifty fifty? One in ten? Whichever, I suspect they were too high. I can admire that guy's skill, but not his judgement.

Anybody else seen the one of the wingsuiter who flies into a bridge cable? His buddy flying behind ends up covered in his blood and viscera. A life. An upbringing. Smelly nappies. Parent teacher evenings. Future kids and grandkids. All thrown away in an instant.

I guess that takes the expression "adrenaline junkie" to a whole new level.

I recall doing some grossly stupid tricks as a young buck (didn't we all ?) ... nothing in that class, though .. came close to killing myself on an occasion or two .. I think I must be just getting too old for excitement any more ... my old eyes couldn't keep up with the video, let alone provide for tracking solutions ..

This must be the ultimate flying and you must admire the guys who do this sort of thing it is not something that I would have ever considered even in my 20s
The above film turns my stomach too as the hole was so small his speed so fast and room for error almost zero.

The chances of this stunt if thats what you can call it ending in the end of his life with a large probability must surely have gone through his mind yet he still attempted it. That thought alone is sickening and yes I saw that awful video of that jumper getting it wrong and hitting a bridge

This has gone off track from the original OP subject but in a way it hasn't the aircraft doesn't know its flying between a hanger the jumpers body doesn't know its going through a tiny hole. Both are precision flying the first very calculated with minimal risk this last not very calculated with very high risk of death

Pace

It's these sort of people, with this level of mojo, that we call upon in times of conflict. If they don't have the mojo at the beginning, it's acquired through training. FJ guys used to have a "hole in the wall" (as they called it - cleft in a mountain which had minimal clearance) near our base which was seen as a rite of passage. Reminded of a story about the RAF in Germany, true or not I don't know. Someone in the flight safety branch heard a story about how a certain squadron was in the habit of flying beneath a certain bridge, so he packed his lunch and spent the day observing, intending to stamp out the practice at a rogue squadron. Saw many an aircraft flying beneath the bridge, Vampires, Canberras etc (ie everybody was doing it) but after seeing a formation of Vampires doing the same, packed up and decided the practice was wide spread and there was little risk.These guys are not foolish, they do the training and back out if conditions are not met. They, as much as anyone, appreciate the risks, and do everything in their power to minimise those risks. The professional display and aerobatic pilots are no different. They come to grief on occasion as well. Life is not without risk, it's a case of how much risk are you as an individual willing to accept.

.. and, I suppose, there is a little in the way of genetics involved.

The rite of passage/initiation practices of antiquity and before surely selected for young male bravado .. otherwise the tribal group would fall victim to a more aggressive bunch.

Most initiates live through it, some are critically injured, some die.

There is no point trying to stop such antics .. about the best we can do as a group is to encourage rational risk assessment and management .. and hope like mad that our sons/grandsons etc are in the survival group .. regardless of whatever antics they may get up to along the path to maturity.