Joseph Kittinger
Joseph William Kittinger II was an American military pilot who was an officer in the United States Air Force. He served from 1950 to 1978 and earned Command Pilot status before retiring with the rank of colonel. He held the world record for the highest skydive—102,800 feet —from 1960 until 2012.
Kittinger participated in the Project Manhigh and Project Excelsior high-altitude balloon flight projects from 1956 to 1960 and was the first man to fully witness the curvature of the Earth.
A fighter pilot during the Vietnam War, Kittinger shot down a North Vietnamese MiG-21 jet fighter. He was later shot down as well, subsequently spending 11 months as a prisoner of war in a North Vietnamese prison before he was repatriated in 1973.
In 1984, Kittinger became the first person to make a solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in a gas balloon.
In 2012, Kittinger participated in the Red Bull Stratos project as capsule communicator at age 84, directing Felix Baumgartner on his freefall from Earth's stratosphere, which broke Kittinger's own 53-year-old record. Felix Baumgartner's record would be broken two years later by Alan Eustace.
Early life and military career
Born in Tampa, Florida, and raised in Orlando, Florida, Kittinger was educated at The Bolles School in Jacksonville, Florida, and the University of Florida. He became fascinated with planes at a young age and soloed in a Piper Cub by the time he was 17. After racing speedboats as a teenager, he entered the U.S. Air Force as an aviation cadet in March 1949. On completion of aviation cadet training in March 1950, he received his pilot wings and a commission as a second lieutenant. He was subsequently assigned to the 86th Fighter-Bomber Wing based at Ramstein Air Base in West Germany, flying the F-84 Thunderjet and F-86 Sabre.In 1954, Kittinger was transferred to the Air Force Missile Development Center at Holloman AFB, New Mexico. It was during this assignment that he flew the observation/chase plane that monitored flight surgeon Colonel John Stapp's rocket sled run of in 1955. Kittinger was impressed by Stapp's dedication and leadership as a pioneer in aerospace medicine. Stapp, in turn, was impressed with Kittinger's skillful jet piloting, later recommending him for space-related aviation research work. Stapp was to foster the high-altitude balloon tests that would later lead to Kittinger's record-setting leap from over. In 1957, as part of Project Manhigh, Kittinger set an interim balloon altitude record of in Manhigh I, for which he was awarded his first Distinguished Flying Cross.
Project Excelsior
Captain Kittinger was next assigned to the Aerospace Medical Research Laboratories at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. For Project Excelsior, a name given to the project by Colonel Stapp as part of research into high-altitude bailouts, he made a series of three extreme altitude parachute jumps from an open gondola carried aloft by large helium balloons. These jumps were made in a "rocking-chair" position, descending on his back, rather than in the usual face-down position familiar to skydivers. This was because he was wearing a "kit" on his behind, and his pressure suit naturally formed a sitting shape when it was inflated, a shape appropriate for sitting in an airplane cockpit.Excelsior I: Kittinger's first high-altitude jump, from about on November 16, 1959, was a near-disaster when an equipment malfunction caused him to lose consciousness. The automatic parachute opener in his equipment saved his life. He went into a flat spin at a rotational velocity of about 120 rpm, the g-forces at his extremities having been calculated to be over 22 times the force of gravity, setting another record.
Excelsior II: On December 11, 1959, Kittinger jumped again from about. For this leap, he was awarded the A. Leo Stevens Parachute Medal.
Excelsior III: On August 16, 1960, Kittinger made the final high-altitude jump at. Towing a small drogue parachute for initial stabilization, he fell for 4 minutes and 36 seconds, reaching a maximum speed of before opening his parachute at. Incurring yet another equipment malfunction, the pressurization for his right glove malfunctioned during the ascent and his right hand swelled to twice its normal size, but he rode the balloon up to 102,800 feet before stepping off.
Of the jumps from Excelsior, Kittinger said:
There's no way you can visualize the speed. There's nothing you can see to see how fast you're going. You have no depth perception. If you're in a car driving down the road and you close your eyes, you have no idea what your speed is. It's the same thing if you're free falling from space. There are no signposts. You know you are going very fast, but you don't feel it. You don't have a 614-mph wind blowing on you. I could only hear myself breathing in the helmet.
Kittinger set historical numbers for highest balloon ascent, highest parachute jump, longest-duration drogue-fall, and fastest speed by a human being through the atmosphere. These were the USAF records, but were not submitted for aerospace world records to the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. Kittinger's record for the highest ascent was broken in 1961 by Malcolm Ross and Victor Prather. His records for highest parachute jump and fastest velocity stood for 52 years, until they were broken in 2012 by Felix Baumgartner.
For this series of jumps, Kittinger was profiled in Life magazine and the National Geographic Magazine, decorated with a second Distinguished Flying Cross, and awarded the Harmon Trophy by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Kittinger appeared as himself on the January 7, 1963, episode of the game show To Tell the Truth. He received two votes.
Project Stargazer
Back at Holloman Air Force Base, Kittinger took part in Project Stargazer on December 13–14, 1962. He and the astronomer William C. White took a balloon packed with scientific equipment to an altitude of about, where they spent over 18 hours and performed a number of astronomical observations. After the first flight, however, the project was canceled due to the NASA's recent ability to send astronauts into space, and launch satellites into Earth orbit.Later USAF career
In 1965, after returning to the operational Air Force, Kittinger was approached by civilian amateur parachutist Nick Piantanida for assistance on Piantanida's Strato Jump project, an effort to break the previous freefall records of both Kittinger and Soviet Air Force officer Yevgeni Andreyev. Kittinger refused to participate in the effort, believing Piantanida's approach to the project was too reckless. Piantanida died in 1966 as the result of a mishap suffered during his Strato Jump III attempt.Kittinger later served three combat tours of duty during the Vietnam War, flying a total of 483 combat missions. During his first two tours he flew as an aircraft commander in Douglas A-26 Invaders and modified On Mark Engineering B-26K Counter-Invaders as part of Operations Farm Gate and Big Eagle.
Following his first two Vietnam tours, he returned to the United States and soon transitioned to the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II. During a voluntary third tour of duty to Vietnam in 1971–72, he commanded the 555th Tactical Fighter Squadron, the noted "Triple Nickel" squadron, flying the F-4D Phantom II. During this period he was credited with shooting down a North Vietnamese MiG-21 while flying an F-4D, USAF Serial No. 66-7463, with his WSO, 1st Lieutenant Leigh Hodgdon.
Kittinger was shot down on May 11, 1972, just before the end of his third tour of duty. While flying an F-4D, USAF Serial No. 66-0230, with his weapons systems officer, 1st Lieutenant William J. Reich, Kittinger was leading a flight of Phantoms approximately northwest of Thai Nguyen, North Vietnam, when they were engaged by a flight of MiG-21 fighters. Kittinger and his wingman were chasing a MiG-21 when Kittinger's F-4 was hit by an air-to-air missile from another MiG-21 that damaged the plane's starboard wing and set the aircraft on fire. Kittinger and Reich ejected a few miles from Thai Nguyen and were soon captured and taken to the city of Hanoi. During the same engagement, Kittinger's wingman, Captain S. E. Nichols, shot down the MiG-21 they had been chasing.
Kittinger and Reich spent 11 months as prisoners of war in the Hỏa Lò Prison, the so-called "Hanoi Hilton". Kittinger was put through rope torture soon after his arrival at the POW compound and this made a lasting impression on him. Kittinger was the senior ranking officer among the newer prisoners of war, i.e., those captured after 1969. In Kittinger's autobiography "Come Up and Get Me", Kittinger emphasized being very serious about maintaining the military structure he considered essential to survival. Kittinger and Reich were returned to American hands during Operation Homecoming on March 28, 1973, and they continued their Air Force careers, with Kittinger having been promoted to full colonel while in captivity. Following his return, Colonel Kittinger attended and graduated from the Air War College at Maxwell AFB, Alabama and concurrently completed requirements for a bachelor's degree via an extension center of Tulane University.
Following completion of the Air War College, Kittinger became the vice commander of the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath, United Kingdom, where he again flew the F-4 Phantom II. In 1977, he transferred to Headquarters, 12th Air Force, at Bergstrom AFB, Texas, retiring from the U.S. Air Force in 1978.
Kittinger accumulated 7,679 flying hours in the U.S. Air Force, including 948 combat flying hours during three tours during the Vietnam War. In addition, he flew over 9,100 hours in various civilian aircraft.