Bio
Felix Baumgartner constantly challenges his limits while pushing the physical boundaries of human flight. Since his unprecedented winged freefall across the English Channel in 2003, Felix had his eye on the supersonic grail. With a team of the world's top scientists, engineers, and doctors, he was ready to rewrite history and advance aeronautical research with Red Bull Stratos.
He began skydiving at age 16, polishing his skills as part of the Austrian military's demonstration and competition team. In 1988, he began performing skydiving exhibitions for Red Bull. The company's progressive thinking and Felix's daring spirit clicked, and they've collaborated ever since.
By the 1990s, Felix felt that he'd gone as far as he could with traditional skydiving, so he extended his canopy skills with BASE jumping. He felt that the lightning-fast reflexes and precise techniques required by such low-altitude feats enhanced his high-altitude skydiving technique.
But his magnum opus has to be the extreme sports event of this century, when he successfully completed the Red Bull Stratos jump from a height of just over 39km/24 miles, reaching up to 834mph during the 4 minutes 19 seconds of free fall. His jump “from the edge of space” courted worldwide acclamation as Felix set the record for the highest manned balloon height, fastest speed of free fall, and the first human to break the sound barrier outside of a vehicle.
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