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Fearless Filex


Richard: When he was five years old, Felix Baumgartner drew a picture for his mum. In the picture Felix is parachuting down to Earth and his mum and family are waiting for him below.
Jackie: Just 12 years later Felix did his first skydive, and his mum gave the picture back to him. Today, the 43 year-old Austrian is famous for the most amazing skydive ever. So for this week's podcastsinenglish.com we're talking about Fearless Felix. So Richard, what exactly did he do?
Richard: Well, he went up to almost 24 miles above the Earth, that's 39,000 metres in a capsule, and then jumped.
Jackie: But 39,000 metres, that's really high.
Richard: [laughs] Yes, a commercial plane flies at around 12,000 metres so that's more than three times higher.
Jackie: Okay, so how did he get up there? Not in a plane.
Richard: No. He had a very large and a very thin hot-air balloon. So, the capsule went up with the balloon. As the balloon went higher and higher it got bigger and bigger and it took about two and a half hours to get to the correct height.
Jackie: So... so why did he do this?
Richard: Well, he wanted to break 4 world records: he wanted to be in the highest manned balloon flight and that record was 34,668 metres.
Jackie: Okay, so if he went to 39,000 metres he got that record.
Richard: Yep, he did that. Secondly he also... he wanted to do the highest freefall. Now the record for that was 31,332 metres.
Jackie: Okay, so he... he did that too.
Richard: Yep, definitely. Plus, he wanted to do the fastest freefall and to break the sound barrier.
Jackie: Now, so people have already broken the sound barrier but they're inside a plane or a spaceship, aren't they?

Richard: Exactly, he was on his own, falling to Earth.

Jackie: So Richard, what is the sound barrier?