Felix Baumgartner

BO 105 aerobatic pilot & stratosphere jumper

Story

As a child, Felix Baumgartner dreamed of two things: skydiving and sitting in the cockpit of a helicopter as a pilot. He was able to fulfill both of those dreams.

In his first career, he thrilled people with his spectacular base jumps. His jumps from the 88th floor of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, from the right arm of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio and into the 190-meter-deep Mamet Cave in Croatia are simply unforgettable. He followed a consistently upward path, culminating in a balloon trip to the outer edge of the stratosphere where he jumped from a height of 39,045 meters. This daring feat forever immortalized the Salzburg native and his "Red Bull Stratos" mission in the annals of aviation and space travel. In 2006, he began flying helicopters, first as a hobby, then later as a professional pilot. Today, Felix flies the BO 105, the Bell 47 and the Écureuil with The Flying Bulls and is one of the very few aerobatic helicopter pilots in the world.

Interview

Felix, have you always wanted to fly a helicopter? Are you living your dream?

FB: Yes absolutely! Besides skydiving, piloting a helicopter was my second childhood dream. For a long time, I did not think I would ever fulfill my dream of flying helicopters. That is why I was all the more excited when I finally started flying in 2006. First, I trained for about 20 hours on the Bell 47 in Salzburg. After that, I went to the USA, stayed in a cheap motel and survived on home-cooked spaghetti. Not exactly glamorous, but I was able to fly twice a day and earned my license in just three months. Back in Europe, I continued to spend a lot of time in the air and built up a good 700 hours of flying experience in a relatively short period of time. This foundation of experience got me to the point where I could start with The Flying Bulls. At first, I helped out now and then, but later I became more and more active in the team. Filming with the on-board camera, dropping jumpers and now also doing aerobatics.

Do you have a specific routine that you go through before every flight?

FB: Several! I have a photo of the cockpit of every helicopter I fly. I study them regularly. I call it flying in the hammock. I study where everything is positioned and go through certain routines and procedures in my head. This helps me later in the air, so I can do everything automatically. Every helicopter is a little different, and the seconds you save can be crucial. If it has been awhile since I have flown a particular model, I sit in the cockpit first for 20 minutes and go through everything. I call this: “taking in the smell”. I have two principles in my life as a pilot. I do not want to damage anything. And I want to deliver the aircraft and my passengers safely to their destination.

The whole world knows about your unforgettable skydives. How did you get into skydiving?

FB: In a roundabout way through the husband of a friend of my mother. He just happened to be Roland Rettenbacher, athletic director for HSV Salzburg, later HSV Red Bull Salzburg. He always shared exciting stories about skydiving and really inspired me as a child. Ever since I was a child, I have always wanted to jump out of a plane. As you can imagine, I could hardly wait to finally turn 16 and get started. And that is exactly what I did, starting off with precision parachuting using a normal parachute. I later applied to the Austrian Army and, through a bit of coincidence, wound up at the Military Sports and Close Combat School in Wiener Neustadt. I was able to do a lot of jumping there, allowing me to build up a good amount of experience within a short period of time. In 1996, I wanted to start base jumping. That was still before the internet was around. By chance, I met Tracy Lee Walker, an American living in Bavaria, who became my teacher for 500 German marks. He not only taught me how to base jump, but also how to deal with risks and the importance of very careful and thorough planning. That was the best investment of my life. In 1997, with just 31 jumps under my belt, I won the unofficial BASE World Championships, jumping from the New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia. After that, my career really took off.

What was and is your secret?

FB: I am very good at acrobatics and used to be a high diver, which has been extremely helpful for me. I immediately realized that base jumping was the sport for me. On top of that, right from the start I was someone who worked with cameras a lot and knew how to sell myself. This was not yet the norm at the time, so it really helped me build a name for myself. Also, I am a total risk manager. That is probably why I am still alive after all these stunts.

What does your personal risk management look like?

FB: Dealing with risk is a central aspect of my life. As a skydiver and also as a pilot. I pay close attention to my flight preparation and do it extremely meticulously. That is who I am and that was always the message I wanted to convey to people through my public image. I think that is also the reason why doors in aviation keep opening for me. Because people know that I never push things too far. Whether on a solo flight through the mountains, a jump or at an air show in front of 100,000 people. For Red Bull Stratos, we had a very long list of “what ifs”, in other words eventualities that could happen and how we would deal with them in an emergency. The list kept getting longer and longer. I was only afraid of the things that were not on the list. The things we had not thought of. My instructors, both for skydiving and for flying, always drilled me to be cautious and consider things carefully. Everything is possible, nothing is a must. And to this day, I abort missions if the conditions are not right. I believe that your teachers and mentors play a much more important role than they realize. Reinhold Messner once told me that saying no when you are about to achieve a big goal is one of the most difficult things in life. The only ones that count, are those who return from the mountain and can share their tale. Then you are the winner. If you never come back down, the mountain was the winner.

What is the difference between conventional helicopter flying and helicopter aerobatics?

FB: A lot! It starts with how you physically handle the control stick. Flying a helicopter requires very fine motor skills with minimal movement of the control stick. When doing aerobatics, you really have to get active with the control stick, which at the beginning really goes against everything you have learned, causing you to be over hesitant. With a lot of practice, you get more and more relaxed and then it starts getting really fun. At the beginning, it is a real fight and the helicopter is your enemy, but now we have become good friends.