Spectacular Head Over Heels Paragliding Jump from 7km

Story ByMichael Leidig, Sub EditorJoseph GolderAgencyCentral European News 

Video Credit: CEN/@madmike.kueng

This amazing footage of a somersaulting parachutist is the moment the extreme paraglider Mike Kung notches up another world record.

The jump was taken from a height of 7,100 metres (23,293 feet) over the Austrian Alps when channel crossing sportsman Kung, 51, leapt from a balloon for a difficult ‘head over heels’ leap.

Picture Credit: CEN/@madmike.kueng

According to the organisers, it is a world record for the highest head over heels jump.

In the controversial and dangerous manoeuvre, the parachute is already released and is underneath the jumper who has to leap headfirst and avoid landing on the material before he can start using it to slow his descent.

In the amazing footage he can be seen then spiralling around and around the chute over the mountain vista below him.

Video Credit: CEN/@newsroom

The jump which was 7 kilometres up was not only risky but also spectacular. He said: “The special thing about the head over jump is the special leap that you need to make, and the way you fall.”

He said it was technically very challenging, in particular because the paraglider was already open when you leap. And he added: “I’m delighted it worked at the first attempt, the conditions were fantastic and we had a cloudless sky with spectacular views of the distance.”

Picture Credit: CEN/@newsroom

The temperatures nevertheless were minus 18 degrees Celsius on ground for the 51-year-old sportsman and at the height he was it was minus 25 degrees Celsius. He managed the job without any artificial oxygen and was so high up that by the time he had landed he had gone from Achensee in Tyrol in Austria into neighbouring Bavaria in Germany.

He is no stranger to world-record jumps, setting altitude record in 2004 with a hot air balloon ride at 10,100 metres. In 2000, the Austrian made another international breakthrough with his victory at the Acro World Championship “Wings over Aspen” in the USA – the paragliding acrobatics world championship.

He is best known in the UK however from his paragliding trip across the English Channel in 2003.

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