Don’t look before you leap

Before attempting a world record it pays to do your research. So when Chris Dawes and his wife Judy Leden were putting the finishing touches to a plan for a world record-breaking paraglide from 35,000ft they decided to contact the RAF for advice.

It wasn’t encouraging. “They gave us the details of a retired officer who was a bit of a boffin and quite dismissive about the plan,” says Leden.

“He was rather stuffy about it and told us Chris would either die from his canopy not opening, lack of oxygen or the freezing temperatures. Then he charged us £50 for the advice.”

Stuffy or not, the boffin had a point. Paragliders usually launch themselves from the ground or mountain edges using thermals to carry them higher. To attempt it from such altitude is almost unheard of.

Unlike freefalling or parachuting, to paraglide from such a height requires the jumper to deploy the canopy almost immediately after leaving the balloon used to reach the launch height, then use the air currents and cords to steer downwards. It is closer to hang-gliding than parachuting and from 35,000ft the downward journey will take two to three hours.

At the highest point, this entails floating for several minutes at an altitude where the temperature is -80C and the air is so thin that an oxygen mask must be used. The last person to approach that sort of height was a Polish paragliding champion who got caught in a storm in Australia last year and was dragged up to an altitude of about 30,000ft. She lost consciousness and was encased in ice but miraculously woke up still airborne an hour later and landed 40 miles away.

The record Dawes hopes to beat stands at 33,330ft, set by “Mad” Mike Küng over his native Austria in 2004. During that attempt a cameraman in the balloon passed out through lack of oxygen after his supply tank malfunctioned.

None of this seems to perturb Dawes when we meet during a training jump last month at a deserted airfield in Derbyshire. A former marine biologist, he says he got his passion for ropes and equipment from his father, who was part of the mine rescue team in the Peak District. “He was always fiddling around with oxygen masks, climbing ropes and diving equipment. I think the last thing he wanted me to do was work down a mine and this is as far from tunnelling underground as you can get.”

Dawes is keen to point out that although he is sponsored by Citroën, the French car maker, his record attempt will take place over Britain, and there is something endearingly British about his bid. To keep his body temperature up, Dawes will be kitted out in three thermal layers, overalls and a bright orange down suit that a friend tested for him flying over the Himalayas. Nothing more sophisticated than thermal socks and three pairs of gloves will protect his extremities.

As for his landing, he is cheerfully upbeat: “Obviously I have no idea exactly where I’ll land but there is a chance that if the wind conditions are strong higher up I could end up somewhere over Europe, or the Irish Sea.”

One area that hasn’t been left to chance is the ascent. The balloon will be piloted by Andy Elson, who set the world balloon endurance record on the Breitling Orbiter II with nine days and 17 hours of flight in 1998. The team will be in constant radio contact with air traffic control during the ascent, but it is the elements that will pose the biggest risk: exposure to atmospheric pressure at 35,000ft without breathing 100% oxygen could leave Dawes suffering from severe decompression sickness as he starts his descent. To compensate, he will be forced to wear an oxygen mask for three hours before and during the balloon ascent as well as during his descent.

Extreme paragliding is relatively new but the sport itself dates back to the early 1960s when “parascending” was developed as a way of teaching parachutists to control their descent and get used to being in the air. Trainees would be towed into the air by a vehicle on the ground, then released to float down again.

In the late 1970s three Frenchmen discovered that a parachute could be inflated by running down a hillside into the wind. It sparked a wave of interest as flyers experimented to see who could stay in the air the longest. Since then new equipment has meant that huge distances can be covered by “ridge soaring”: gaining extra lift by launching from hillsides. The world record for a nonstop flight of 286 miles was set by three Brazilians in November.

But it is height, not distance, that will be on Dawes’s mind as he prepares for his jump. The most crucial part of the attempt is releasing himself from the balloon’s gondola. Because the canopy is designed for flying it is not strong enough to be deployed like a conventional parachute.

This means that Dawes will be strapped to the underneath of the gondola with the canopy carefully packed on his chest. As he releases himself from his bindings he must simultaneously deploy the canopy to ensure it takes a minimum of stress.

“It wouldn’t be able to withstand the opening impact like a parachute – it would just explode,” he says, “but that means there’s a real possibility that when I separate from the balloon my canopy won’t deploy properly and I will spin into a fast downward spiral. You take every precaution and assess the risks but nobody has paraglided from this height before.”

Even worse, if the canopy only partially opens, Dawes faces a frantic few moments trying to cut himself free and deploy his emergency parachute. “It’s like being on the end of a rope while somebody swings it around their head. I’ll be completely disoriented and because the atmosphere is so thin and the temperature so cold I could well black out.

“This might sound like an understatement but I will be a happy man once my canopy is inflated. In trials it hasn’t launched correctly so this is by no means a foregone conclusion.”

All of which begs the question why do it? “I just want to see what it is like up there,” says Dawes, before adding with admirable British sang-froid: “The only certainty is that from the moment I leave the balloon, I’m going to land somewhere.”

Paragliding basics

The British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association oversees about 60 approved schools around the UK. Beginners first need to get their elementary pilot licence. This takes five days of tuition and costs about £500. Next comes the club pilot licence (three to five days of training, costs vary). You can then fly without an instructor, but it’s advisable to be in a group with a more experienced glider.

A paraglider costs from £2,000, less if you buy secondhand. The helmets are like those for motorcyclists, but are a quarter of the weight and cost from £50. Most gliders carry a variometer, which indicates your altitude and rate of climb or descent. They cost from £170. Get more details on all aspects of the sport at www.bhpa.co.uk.