The Longest Leap

The Longest Leap Heroism is not limited orate technology and a team of ex- was suffering extreme pain in his to combat, but the valor perts in several fields, came close to right hand that was caused by par- being his last. In November 1959. he tial failure of pressure in that glove of only a few, like Joe bailed out of a balloon at 76.000 feet. during the ascent. Kittinger, is tested in the highest anyone had been in an After he had fallen for four min- both peace and war. open gondola. His small stabilizing utes and thirty-seven seconds. Kit- chute, which was to prevent a flat lingers main chute opened. and BY JOHN L. FRISBEE spin that could be fatal at rotation some eight minutes later he landed CONTRIBUTING EDITOR speeds of 150 to 200 rpm. malfunc- at the White Sands MissileRange in tioned and wrapped around his New Mexico with no permanent in- I N 1934, the Air Force abandoned, neck. He dropped unconscious to juries but with three world records: seemingly for all time, its lighter- 12,000 feet, where his main chute the highest open-gondola balloon than-air program that included both saved the day. Three weeks later, he ascent, the longest free-fall, and the balloons and airships. 'No decades jumped without incident from longest parachute descent. He was later, the tremendous advances that 74,000 feet. In September 1%0. also the first man logo supersonic in had been made in aviation technolo- President Eisenhower presented the a free-fall. Joe Kittinger had proved gy called back to active duty a tech- Harmon International Trophy that man could function in near- nologically obsolete form of mili- (Aeronaut) for 1959 to Joe Kittinger. space and that parachuting from tary aeronautics—the balloon. August 16, 1960. was set for the very high altitudes was feasible. There may have been a few ac- ultimate test. Kittinger rode a four- For another two years. Kittinger tive-duty Air Force officers who and-a-half-foot open gondola to continued balloon-borne experi- wore balloonist wings. but certainly 102,800 feel. The ascent, through ments for the Air Force before join- none young enough for the balloon- temperatures that fell to ninety-four ing the Air Commando Wing at borne experiments the Air Force degrees below zero, took an hour Hurlburt Field, Fla. He flew 483 had in mind. By the mid-I 950s, and a half, Failure of his life-support missions during three combat tours high-altitude supersonic fighters system above 60,000 feet would in Vietnam—two in A-26s and the were rapidly coming into opera- have meant almost instant death. last as vice commander of an F-4 tional units. The Air Force needed With that and other hazards in wing, Four days before completing to know whether crew members mind. he stepped out of the gondola that tour, Kittinger, then a lieuten- could parachute safely from dis- and plunged through the strat- ant colonel and with one MiG-21 to abled aircraft flying in the strat- osphere. reaching supersonic speed his credit, was shot down over osphere. The balloon was an ideal in the ratified atmosphere. Between North Vietnam and spent eleven platform for very-high-altitude 90,000 and 70.000 feet, he experi- months as senior officer of the "new parachute jumps that would answer enced great difficulty in breathing. guy" POWs—those captured after that question and point the way for At about 50,000 feet, his free-fall 1970. development of new emergency speed had dropped to 250 miles an Col. Joseph Kittinger retired equipment. A young test pilot, hour in the denser atmosphere. lie from the Air Force in 1978. but not Capt. Joseph W. Kitiinger, Jr., was from flying either airplanes or bal- one of those selected to train for loons. After winning a number of experiments under USAF's Project races. including the Gordon Ben- Man High. nett Balloon Race in 1982 and 1984, On June 2, 1957. Kitlinger made the filly-six-year-old Kiitinger the first Man High flight to an al- made the first solo balloon crossing titude of 96.000 feet in a sealed gon- of the Atlantic. (See National Geo- dola, setting a record for manned graphic, February 105 issue.) His balloon flights. He was then named eighty-three-hour flight from Car- director of Project Excelsior. an in- ibou, Me.. to near Genoa. Italy. vestigation of human exposure to ended when he was forced down by stratospheric conditions and of thunderstorms, breaking a foot as parachute descent from extreme al- the balloon crashed in trees. titude. No one knew with certainty Joe Kittinger—high-altitude re- if a man could survive a bailout from search pioneer, combat pilot, and several miles above the earth until it POW leader—is one of those rare was tried. At the start of his record jump, Joe people whose skill and heroism in Kittinger's first high-altitude Kuhn get takes that first big step from peace and in war have earned them a parachute jump, supported by dab- his gondola at 102,800 feet up, place in the Air Force hall of valor. • 150 AIR FORCE Magazine / June 1985 .

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