TED2009
Ueli Gegenschatz: Extreme wingsuit flying
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Wingsuit jumping is the leading edge of extreme sports -- an exhilarating feat of almost unbelievable daring, where skydivers soar through canyons at over 100MPH. Ueli Gegenschatz talks about how (and why) he does it, and shows jawdropping film.
Ueli Gegenschatz - Aerialist
Ueli Gegenschatz took flight just about every way a human can: paragliding, skydiving, BASE jumping (from the Eiffel Tower), and most breathtakingly: by donning a wingsuit and soaring. Full bio
Ueli Gegenschatz took flight just about every way a human can: paragliding, skydiving, BASE jumping (from the Eiffel Tower), and most breathtakingly: by donning a wingsuit and soaring. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
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I started with paragliding.
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Paragliding is taking off from mountains
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with a paraglider, with the possibility to
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fly cross-country, distance,
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just with the use of thermals to soar.
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Also different aerobatic maneuvers are possible
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with a paraglider.
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From there I started with skydiving.
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In this picture you can see
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there is a four-way skydive,
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four people flying together,
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and on the left hand side it's the camera flier
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with the camera mounted to his helmet
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so he can film the whole jump,
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for the film itself and also for the judging.
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From regular, relative skydiving
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I went on to freeflying.
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Freeflying is more the three-dimensional skydiving.
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You can see the skydiver with the red suit,
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he's in a stand-up position.
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The one with the yellow-green suit,
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he's flying head-down.
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And that's me in the background, carving around the whole formation
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in freefall also, with the helmet cam
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to film this jump.
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From freeflying I went on to skysurfing.
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Skysurfing is skydiving with a board on the feet.
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You can imagine with this big surface
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of a skysurfing board,
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there is a lot of force, a lot of power.
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Of course I can use this power
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for example for nice spinning -- we call it "helicopter moves."
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From there I went on to wingsuit flying.
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Wingsuit flying is a suit,
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that I can make fly, just only with my body.
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If I put some tension on my body, tension on my suit,
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I can make it fly. And as you see
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the fall rate is much much slower
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because of the bigger surface.
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With a proper body position I'm able to really move forward
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to gain quite some distance.
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This is a jump I did in Rio de Janeiro.
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You can see the Copacabana on the left-hand side.
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From there with all the skills and knowledge
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from paragliding and all the different disciplines
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in skydiving, I went on to BASE jumping.
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BASE jumping is skydiving from fixed objects,
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like buildings, antennae, bridges and earth --
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meaning mountains, cliffs.
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It's for sure -- for me -- it's the ultimate feeling
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of being in free fall,
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with all the visual references.
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So my goal soon was to discover new places
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that nobody had jumped before.
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So in summer 2000 I was the first to BASE jump
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the Eiger North Face in Switzerland.
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Two years after this, I was the first to BASE jump from Matterhorn,
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a very famous mountain that probably
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everybody knows in here.
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2005 I did a BASE jump from the Eiger, from the Monk and from the Jungfrau,
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three very famous mountains in Switzerland.
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The special thing on these three jumps were,
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I hiked them all and climbed them all in only one day.
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In 2008 I jumped the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
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(Laughter)
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So with all this knowledge, I also
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wanted to get into stunts.
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So with some friends we started to do different tricks,
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like for example this jump here,
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I jumped from a paraglider.
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Or here -- everybody was freezing, pretty much, except me,
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because it was very cold in Austria
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where we did this filming.
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Everybody sitting in a basket,
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and I was on top of the balloon,
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ready to slide down with my skysurf board.
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Or this jump, from a moving truck on the highway.
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(Laughter)
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Extreme sports on top level like this
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is only possible if you practice step by step,
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if you really work hard on your skills
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and on your knowledge.
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Of course you need to be in physical, very good, condition,
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so I'm training a lot.
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You need to have the best possible equipment.
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And probably the most important is
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you have to work on your mental skills, mental preparation.
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And all this to come as close as possible
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to the human dream of being able to fly.
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So for 2009,
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I'm training hard for my two new projects.
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The first one, I want to set a world record
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in flying from a cliff with my wingsuit.
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And I want to set a new record,
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with the longest distance ever flown.
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For my second project,
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I have a sensational idea
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of a jump that never has been done before.
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So now, on the following movie you will see
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that I'm much better in flying a wingsuit
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than speaking in English.
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Enjoy, and thank you very much.
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05:46
(Applause)
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(Applause)
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June Cohen: I have some questions.
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I think we all might have some questions.
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Question one: so does that actually feel
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the way the flying dream does?
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Because it looks like it might.
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Ueli Gegenschatz: Pretty much. I believe this is probably the closest
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possibility to come to the dream of being able to fly.
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10:09
JC: I know the answer to this, but how do you land?
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UE: Parachute. We have to open a parachute
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just seconds before, I would say, impact.
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(Laughter)
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It's not possible to land a wingsuit yet.
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JC: Yet. But people are trying. Are you among those --
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you're not going to commit -- are you among those trying to do it?
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UE: It's a dream. It's a dream. Yeah.
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We're still working on it and we're
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developing the wingsuits to get better performance,
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to get more knowledge.
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And I believe soon.
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JC: All right. Well we will watch this space. But I have two more questions.
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What is the -- there was exhaust coming
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out of the back of the wingsuit. Was that a propelled wingsuit that you were wearing?
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UE: Nope. It's just smoke.
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JC: Coming off of you?
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(Laughter)
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UE: Hopefully not.
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(Laughter)
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JC: That seems dangerous.
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UE: No, smoke is for two reasons,
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you can see the speed, you can see the way
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where I was flying.
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That's reason number one. And reason number two:
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it's much easier for the camera guy to film
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If I'm using smoke.
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JC: Ah, I see. So the wingsuit is set up to deliberately release smoke
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so that you can be tracked. One more question.
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What do you do to to cover your face?
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Because I just keep thinking of going that fast
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and having your whole face smushed backwards.
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Are you in a helmet? Are you in goggles?
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UE: The purest and the best feeling would be with only goggles.
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JC: And is that how you usually fly?
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UE: Usually I'm wearing a helmet. In the mountains I'm always wearing a helmet
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because of landings -- usually it's difficult --
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it's not like regular skydiving where you have like the big landings.
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So you have to be prepared.
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JC: Right. Now is there anything you don't do?
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Do people come to you with projects and say, "We want you to do this!"
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and do you ever say, "No, no I'm not going to."
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UE: Oh of course, of course. Some people have crazy ideas and --
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(Laughter)
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JC: ...a round of applause...
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(Applause)
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UE: Thank you very much.
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(Applause)
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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Ueli Gegenschatz - AerialistUeli Gegenschatz took flight just about every way a human can: paragliding, skydiving, BASE jumping (from the Eiffel Tower), and most breathtakingly: by donning a wingsuit and soaring.
Why you should listen
Ueli Gegenschatz was known for his expert paragliding, skydiving and BASE jumping -- and his utterly jawdropping flight in a wingsuit, a high-tech flying-squirrel-inspired getup that let him soar as close as humanly possible to our shared dream of flight. His "addiction to speed" continues to inspire.
A member of the Swiss national paragliding team for four years, Gegenschatz co-founded the Red Bull acro team in 1995. His BASE jumping stunts are the stuff of YouTube legend: the Eiffel Tower; Petronas Towers in KL; the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau peaks all in one day.
Ueli Gegenschatz | Speaker | TED.com