Free Falling

E

ver since he first looked up to the sky and saw birds soaring above, man has yearned to fly. Then man climbed up to a very great height and he yearned not to fall. Somewhere thereafter man invented the parachute so that he could fly like a bird for a while without then getting smashed to bits like a bug on a windshield. And thus skydiving was born. But what about flying?

Leonardo DaVinci envisioned man flying with artificial wings, but all of his ingenious designs were too heavy and turned out to be not so good for flying, but really quite good at hitting the ground very quickly.

Then along came Gary Connery, a stuntman from England who recently donned a winged-suit and jumped out of a parachute and flew 2,400 feet. He flew for nearly a mile and reached speeds exceeding 80 mph before landing safely in a ginormous pile of cardboard boxes.

“I feel incredible, just completely elated,” Connery told ABC News. “I have been training and planning for this record attempt for many years now, and I am so proud to have achieved a world first.”

Watch the video below to watch Connery’s incredible flight.