"What altitude record?", we hear you say. Well, the greatest height gain above takeoff has been held for years by "Whittling" Bob Whittler and was set way back in the days before electricity [1993 - Ed] in the South African heartland [XC-Rag take note - Ed] [They did Ed - Ed]. Very little is known of the "dark ages" of paragliding but, given the right motivation, very little escapes a Pie journalist.
Back in "the day", when sky-blue, yellow and purple were considered a good colour combo for your flight suit, it seems that setting records simply involved getting up early on a sunny Wednesday morning, clipping in and going for some flying.
Thus was set one of PG's longest standing records, taking off and climbing out 4526m above takeoff. In fact the record is so bloody old it's in the FIA records as record number five.
Yes, that old.
Over the years, many people have claimed to have broken the record, Le-Roy Westerhaus and those old jet-flap freaks down at Skytalk have made a claim and Eva Withoutskis was probably in with a chance back in 2007 had she only remained concious throughout. But when all's said and done, none of them seem to have been ratified by those old codgers down at the FIA, so the Whittler's record has remained virgo-intacto for nearly 20 years.
Until now, of course.
Next up is Big Mike Kong, the Big Klunk, the Kling, the Klang, the Klung. [Enough - Ed] Well, whatever you want to call him, that guy who showed us all how to walk over a Ford Focus is going to have a lash at it and in keeping with the spirit of aviation record breaking he's keeping it simple.
He's simply going to show up and "have a go" in the Himalayas with 7 or 8 fellow pilots and a small support team of 20 or so. Let's face it, carrying that wing to the 4700m takeoff would be a bitch without a few Tenzing's doing the hard work. He also seems to be armed with the full backup of the marketing dudes down at U-Burn and it's said they'll only have enough oxygen for 3 months. So the pressure will be on then.
Good Luck Mike! [ overuse of sarcasm here - Ed ]
Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1908 "Louis Bleriot Tree-Landing" helmet cam video
Funnier than the 1908 "Louis Bleriot Tree-Landing" helmet cam video