Michel Fournier poll: Is this guy NUTS???

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[DaveO]

OK, gang, this has nothing even remotely to do with Aikido, but I've GOTTA throw this out to my friends.
There's this nutbar here in Canada - Michel Fournier - who's about to try breaking the world free-fall record in Saskatchewan tomorrow. Here's his plan: He's going in a pressurized capsule under a weather balloon up to 40,000 meters - 120,000 feet. He then jumps out in a pressure suit and free-falls for 5 MINUTES until opening his canopy. He'll break the sound barrier within 30 seconds of jumping.
OK, ignoring the fact that, if he actually lives through it, every one of us who jump out of planes are saying "COOL! I WANNA DO THAT!", the questions are:
a) JUST HOW NUTS IS THIS GUY?
and
b) Is he gonna live or make like a meteorite?

My answers:
A) Nuttier than a Snickers bar. Loonier than a cat in a catnip factory. More balls than a bowling alley. Less sense than Oprah in a chocolate shop.
B) Sure, he's going to live; the dumb ones always survive disasters - look at the dimwits they always interview whenever a tornado takes out the trailer park.
:D :D :D
Dave

[Veers]

Man, forget snickers...he's nuttier than a babe ruth bar!

He'll probably break something, but he'll probably survive.

[Genex]

Hey! thats my idea!!!

dammit i'll have to think of something else kewl to do now...

Personaly i think he is indeed nuttyer then a packet of pistachio's however i think he's very brave (or stupid) and will succeed

pete

[Deb Fisher]

Is thrill seeking stupid or desparate?

There is something powerful and necessary about PROVING that you physically exist and have physical mass and power, as well as boundaries that are at best semipermiable. As we become more sedentary as a culture, Xtreme this and Xtreme that becomes more important to a people who are (IMHO) basically deprived of a physical understanding of the world.

Is this guy crazy? I think not - I think this kind of behavior is an appropriately Xtreme response to Xtreme denial of physicality (she typed onto a virtual discussion forum populated with people she felt she knew well, and yet had never seen...)

It's gotta come out somehow.

Deb

[stoker]

Michel Fournier probably thinks he has much more sanity that a bunch or people that go around poking their hands in other peoples faces and then falling down a lot. My wife loves jumping out of perfectly working aircraft with a parachutte but would fight me took and nail if I tried to get her to a dojo. Sanity is realative to your surroundings.

[Deb Fisher]

Amen to relativity, stoker! Most thrill-seeking stunts are very anally planned; there are very few real deathwishers out there, but they do exist - I am thinking of that famous rock climber who died free-climbing a 5.12 or so run or jumping off the mountain on purpose? I forgot his name - but (I think) he realized that the best part was falling, not climbing, and started using the ropes to dive off instead of safety equipment? And freeclimbing stupidly?

That's deathwishing.

(If anyone has facts about this, can you correct any bs in this post?)

I think this is all relevant to aikidoka - MA are also "risky" hobbies, budo is embracing mortality and corporeality (oversimplification), aikido is a way to understand and appreciate the physical limitations of the body, etc...

[Brian H]

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

THUUUUMP!!!

Human fruit roll-up

[akiy]

Dilbert is talking to Dogbert.

Dilbert: Look, Dogbert, give me one good reason I shouldn't sign up for skydiving lessons.

Dogbert: Thud.

Dilbert: You mean, "Thud... Ouch!" or just "Thud"?
One of the (ex-) core members of FreeBSD (http://www.freebsd.org), Rod Grimes, is a skydiving fanatic and named one of their main machines "freefall." I gave the above cartoon to Jordan (Hubbard) who stuck the above cartoon onto its case. Rod wasn't too amused. In any case, Jordan decided to call his new testing box (on which they'd compile and run test builds of the operating system) "thud" as he foresaw that the machine would be, well, "landing without a parachute" at times.

It always tickled me to see that cartoon on thud.freebsd.org after then...

-- Jun

[PeterR]

The guy was actually training for a similar mission with NASA and the ESA until it was cancelled. Escape systems for astronauts. After 2 years of training they up and cancelled the program.

Damm the man has a set of cojons.

And he is doing something more relevant that a few other thrill, glory seeking hounds seem to do.

[Genex]

Damm the man has a set of cojons.
Sorry testing my quote cpability, btw i know what cojons are (crown jewels etc...) however i'm not sure how it relates to testicles?

i get, Nutz, jewels, goulies, mummy-daddy parts, privates, meatn two veg, knackers etc... but why cojons?

hehe

Otamashimini (enjoy)

pete

[Brian H]

Isn't the current record the result of a balloon accident?

[deepsoup]

Most thrill-seeking stunts are very anally planned; there are very few real deathwishers out there, but they do exist - I am thinking of that famous rock climber who died free-climbing a 5.12 or so run or jumping off the mountain on purpose? I forgot his name - but (I think) he realized that the best part was falling, not climbing, and started using the ropes to dive off instead of safety equipment? And freeclimbing stupidly?

That's deathwishing.

(If anyone has facts about this, can you correct any bs in this post?)
Hi Deb,

I think you're talking about Dan Osman here. I never knew the man, but personally, I dont think he was either stupid or had a deathwish. His stunts certainly seem to have been very carefully planned, and I dont think anyone who didn't prepare themselves pretty thoroughly would live long enough to become famous for those amazing solo climbs.

There were some very long and involved discussions on rec.climbing about him, which turned up a lot of detail. Should be easy enough to find if you google. (Here (http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=&num=10&as_scoring=r&hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=Dan+Osman&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_ugroup=rec.climbing&as_usubject=&as_uauthors=&as_umsgid=&lr=&as_drrb=q&as_qdr=&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=16&as_maxm=9&as_maxy=2002&safe=images) are the results of a quick search I did just now, and here (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=Pine.A41.4.10.9907161012420.40310-100000%40blkdia.bdel.com&rnum=1) is a post by one of the technical people at Black Diamond, who had a chance to examine Osman's rope after the event.)

Sean

x

[Deb Fisher]

Yes, I did some research myself - and I am talking about Dan Osman. And no, I don't think he qualifies exactly as a deathwisher - especially on the anally planned tip (the systems he was jumping from, while anathema to the trad ethic of not relying on the equipment, were beautifully designed).

OTOH, while I don't think he actively wanted to die, I do think he was caught up in a terrifying and ultimately deadly stake-raising cycle that maybe impaired his judgement - this sense that once he did the first jump he would have to keep jumping until he died is pretty much all I remembered about him (aside from the spectacular free solos I saw on videotape), and that's what I think I was writing about earlier. Those falls were so spectacular and valuable to the xtreme this and that market - it's hard to make boundaries about what's safe and what's not when there is a lot of hype surrounding the superhumanness of you.

He's a shadowy figure in terms of debating all this - he found himself in a complex situation, and besides this is about M. Fournier, not D. Osman.

I hope that makes sense, thanks for correcting/elaborating, Deepsoup, you're right.

Deb

[batemanb]

We`re 5 days after the intended event. Did he do it? Did he survive? What happened?

[DaveO]

Damfino. There's been no word at all; I assume he cancelled until further notice. Besides the news, there's a few speed-skydiving websites out there I've been checking, no word there either.

My own pet theory? There's a news blackout 'cause the Americans picked him up on radar, freaked, and whacked him with a Patriot missile! :D :D :D

Dave

[PeterR]

My own pet theory? There's a news blackout 'cause the Americans picked him up on radar, freaked, and whacked him with a Patriot missile! :D :D :D
Beautiful.

Delayed due to high winds. Seems they need a few days window to make it all come togeather.

[Josh Mason]

This reminds me of the Cosmonauts some years ago who fell from this distance. They fell at sound breaking speed, and the pressure seperated the Iron or something from their blood. When they found them on the ground, they were stone dead.

Another guy did this from about 1000 feet or so above the earth not too long ago. His retinas detatched from his eyes, and I think he suffered permanent hearing loss.

What do these people have to prove, and why?