Thrill Seeker: 15 Remarkable Women in Extreme Sports

Thrill Seeker: 15 Remarkable Women in Extreme Sports — page 9
Maximum Sky was a feeling like no other The adrenaline rush the speed and the challenge to her body were all things Roberta loved and couldn’t get enough of I feel free in the air she said I love the feeling with my body flying in the air Once she had completed 6,000 skydive jumps Roberta decided to try wingsuit flying At first she jumped from an air plane and found that the experience was not that much differ ent from skydiving Soon after she took things a step further and tried BASE jumping BASE Jumping Through the Ages People have been jumping from fixed structures for cen turies Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s parachute sketch many inventors modified his design and even tried it themselves often ending in catastrophe In 1783 Lou is-Sebastien Lenormand successfully jumped from the tower of the Montpellier Observatory in France using a homemade parachute Others followed designing their own parachutes and finding new places to jump from For example while modern parachutes weigh about 20 to 25 pounds 9 11 kg in 1912 Frederick Law jumped from the Statue of Liberty wearing a 100-pound parachute and lived The birth of contemporary BASE jumping began with Carl Boenish in 1978 He coined the term that describes the four possible jumping-off points buildings antennas spans 6