In the world of thrill-seeking, the wingsuit is perhaps the burliest of pursuits.
And pro suit-man Jarno Cordia just ratcheted the insanity up a notch further by strapping two homemade jet thrusters to his ankles, thereby adding 80kg of thrust to a 5,000-foot jump. From there, he glided over the Dutch countryside like a jetplane for nearly three minutes.
Cordia has more tha 5,000 skydives under his belt, along with 4,000 wingsuit jumps. On his Facebook page, he states: “It’s always been a dream taking my wingsuit flying a step further, by adding jet engines. Last week that dream finally became a reality, when I jumped from a hot air balloon with 80 kg of Jet power strapped to my legs.”
He’d been working on the can-sized jets since January, and plans to take them for a spin again soon. Speaking via email, he told us that this first jump was only made with eight liters of fuel, which is good for about three minutes of flying. “I flew with engines on 60-70% power, as it was the first flight,” he says.
He intends to continue improving the range: “On the next flights, I’ll start bringing more fuel (up to 20 liters), which should push the flight time up to 6-8 minutes, and gradually heading towards 100% thrusts, which should turn the current level flight and shallow climb into a max climb of 15-20 kmh.”
That’s the thing with thrill-seeking: once is never enough.
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