Renowned adrenaline junkie, Jeb Corliss has hurled himself from the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Seattle’s Space Needle, the Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Stratosphere casino in Las Vegas, and even received three years probation after being arrested trying to breach (famously) New York’s Empire State building.

Now, Corliss has set his sites on an even more radical departure: “becoming the first man to jump from a plane and land (alive) without a parachute.”

“‘Everybody has a gift, something they’re good at — and my gift is fear. I can do things with fear. When most people are crippled by fear, on the ground, puking, that’s when I’m at my best,’” reports Bill Gifford of Men’s Journal

photo credit: robertpaulyoung

Tom Clynes of National Geographic Adventure writes about aerotrekking (expeditions with ultralight airplanes) the skies above southwestern New Mexico with John McAfee, owner of McAfee antivirus software and his own aerotrekking club, the Sky Gypsies.

“…I’m on the back of an open-cockpit, winged tricycle, swooping through the air above the Peloncillo Mountains. Up front, in the birdbrain position, McAfee pulls the control bar toward his right hip and sends us diving into Skeleton Canyon.”

“‘This is what Icarus dreamed of,’ McAfee yells, as we pirouette around a granite spire, then level off five feet above the floor of the Animas Valley, skimming over ocotillos and longhorn cattle at 65 miles an hour. McAfee stomps the throttle and aims for the crown of a small butte, then flicks the bar forward to spirit us over the top.”

Austrian-born skydiver and world renowned BASE jumper Felix Baumgartner (“Fearless Felix”) plans to ride a helium balloon to an atmospheric height of 120,000 feet, and then jump–all in an attempt to surpass the 50-year record for the highest-altitude parachute jump set in 1960 by retired U.S. Air Force pilot Joe Kittinger.

Jason Paur of Wired writes about David Clark’s supersonic suit that will help keep Felix alive during the jump: “Baumgartner (like Kittinger did) is working with several scientists to research new, safer suit designs for pilots and future space travelers. The hope is to develop the next generation of full pressure suits that would help increase survival if the need to bail out of a spacecraft should ever arise at extremely high altitudes.”

April in Arctic Circle: Collin Scott of Littleton, CO and 23 members of his Baffin BASE Jumping Expedition are headed to Baffin Island, Canada to load up snowmobiles and drag rations to Sam Ford Fjord–and hopefully craft a new brand for the misunderstood (but growing) sport of BASE jumping.

“‘We’re looking at this as a way to really show BASE jumping in a different light. We’re trying to put a different face on it, to show people that it’s an actual sporting endeavor and this is a real expedition,’ said Scott, 35, returning to Baffin for the second time since 2008. ‘Some of the hikes we’ll be doing might take 12 hours to reach jumps as high as 5,700 feet. There’s nothing comparable to that around here.’” reports Scott Willoughby of The Denver Post

Austrian-born skydiver and world renowned BASE jumper Felix Baumgartner (“Fearless Felix”) plans to ride a helium balloon to an atmospheric height of 120,000 feet, and then jump–all in an attempt to surpass the 50-year record for the highest-altitude parachute jump set in 1960 by retired U.S. Air Force pilot Joe Kittinger. Red Bull is sponsoring the jump as the  Stratos mission.

John Tierney (“TierneyLab”) of The New York Times wonders about the value of Baumgartner’s proposed supersonic jump: “I can think of one obvious explanation for jumping into the void: Because it’s not there. Or more simply: Because it’s cool.”

Yes, “skyaking” is what it sounds like: skydiving with a kayak. Miles Daisher, a resident of Twin Falls, Idaho and a longtime BASE jumper and skydiver, tells The Daily Telegraph how he came up with the idea of throwing himself and plastic boats out of planes and helicopters.

“‘It took us nearly a year before we could get our wish to come true as no one was really looking to throw a kayak out of an aeroplane. To begin with we did it off a 600ft bridge on a static line, and landed in Feather River, California,’” says Daisher. “‘A year later I got permission to jump out of an aeroplane and so since that time I have jumped out of four different aircraft, including a helicopter.’”

Two men attempt a world record BASE jump off the world’s tallest building: Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the tallest man-made structure ever built (2,717 ft).

Produced by buzzfilms

In 2006 two professional kayakers–Montana’s Seth Warren and Tyler Bradt–decided to travel (and paddle) more than 21,000 miles (Alaska to Argentina) in a red Toyota firetruck (“Baby”) which was retrofitted to run on vegetable oil. The highly regarded film Oil + Water documented their environmental activism and adventure.

Recently, Seth Warren has been touring the country promoting his second film, Nature Propelled, which he describes to Planet Green as film that “shows how different sports are connected through the life cycle of water…”

Produced by Nicholas Franczyk

Float Plane, Alaska

“Flightseeing,” touring large, inaccessible regions by small, dependable planes, has become a common way to negotiate the enormous scale and lack of infrastructure found in Alaska’s backcountry.

Sarah Maslin Nir of The New York Times writes about the spring and winter viewing opportunities and her exhilarating experiences:

“Just as Alaska’s native people have multiple words for snow, pilots have multiple descriptions for turbulence. I may have experienced them all. I even recognized a few of the terms. Yawing, when the plane shimmies across its course as a gust buffets first one wing, then the other? Check. Hitting rough air, when the plane stutters and hiccups across clear sky that has suddenly become as potholed as a dirt road? Check.”

photo credit: WordRidden

Stratos Mission: Austrian-born skydiver and world renowned BASE jumper Felix Baumgartner (“Fearless Felix”) plans to ride a helium balloon to an atmospheric height of 120,000 feet, and then jump–all in an attempt to surpass the 50-year record for the highest-altitude parachute jump set in 1960 by retired U.S. Air Force pilot Joe Kittinger.

Production by Red Bull