Red Bull Stratos – Felix Baumgartner Helmet Cam
This amazing footage was taken from a chest mounted camera that was strapped to Felix Baumgartner’s flight suit. You can see in the video that it is looking up at his tinted face mask during the flight. Part way through the flight you will notice Felix Baumgartner wildly spinning out of control. His uncontrolled spin was due to the fact that at that high of an altitude there was virtually no air pressure and Felix was falling in a vacuum. Inside of a vacuum there is no way to control your motion, as there is little to nothing around you to adjust your motion to. Once Felix entered the lower levels of the atmosphere where barometric pressure reached a more dense PSI he was able to adjust his motion and straighten out his decent.
From this video, and others supplied, one can see how his rapid spinning most likely slowed down the decent of his jump. Had he been able to avoid the spinning he would have been able to accelerate to a higher top speed during his free fall.
Another thing to note in this video is the appearance of the curvature of the Earth. Some of that curvature is due to he altitude at which Felix Baumgartner was falling, but most of it is exaggerated by the wide angle lense used for providing a more captive view of his fall.
