1993 News Abstracts
Orlando Sentinel, Orlando, FL, Sun., Mar. 7, 1993:
p. 6, c. 6 -

JOE KITTINGER VISITING A DIFFERENT KIND OF FIELD OF DREAMS WITH
THE FREE-FALLING FIGHTER PILOT

By Charles Fishman

     The man who calls himself a red-neck fighter pilot from Orlando
is in a back booth in Bs Bar-B-Q, the new one near Orlando Executive
Airport, and he turns out to be a redhead as well as a red-neck.

     It  is  an  oddly  appropriate  place  to hear the amazing true
tales of Kittinger.  He is a modest man of immoderate achievement who
seems known by the  newcomers  hereabouts  mostly for his days as the
lead pilot for Rosie OGradys Flying Circus, the airborne advertising
for Church Street Station.

     But  sitting  in  that back booth, over turnip greens, a chopped
chicken sandwich and a large glass of iced tea, Kittinger tells the
kind of stories that make the hair on the back of your neck bristle.

     Once he had to bail out of his Air Force F100 jet at 800 feet
when the engine  disintegrated on take-off. I got just one swing under
the parachute and I hit the ground, he says.

     It was the late 1950s, a time when the boy from College Park,
near downtown  Orlando,  was  an  Air  Force  test  pilot, working on
escape and parachute systems for high altitude flight and for
astronauts.

     As part  of  that  work,  he  routinely rode up to the very edge
of the atmosphere  alone  in  balloons,  sometimes  settling  back to
earth in the balloon gondola, sometimes bailing out and parachuting
back.

     The free-fall  parachute jump of all time not just for him, but
for the world  took  place  Aug.  16,  1960. Kittinger, wearing a
pressure suit not unlike  a  space  suit, climbed alone into an open
gondola and rode up into the  sky for 90 minutes. When he got to the
desired altitude, the Air Force controllers made him float for 11 more
minutes, because I wasn't dead center over the position they wanted.

     It was 110 degrees below zero, and Kittinger says that for the
ride up, he  had  electrically  heated  socks and gloves. Without a
pressure suit to protect him, Kittingers blood would have boiled,
killing him in 8 seconds.

     When it was time to jump, Kittinger says, I did a 40-item
checklist. There wasnt a door, so I just stood up, said a prayer, and
stepped out. The last thing he did was trigger a camera, which got
frames of him headed home pictures that ended up on the cover of
Life magazine and National Geographic.

     Kittinger stepped  out of the open gondola at 102,800 feet, three
times as  high as the typical jetliner cruises. When the space shuttle
Challenger broke up, it was only 65,000 feet high.

     He fell, in a sitting position, for 4 minutes and 36 seconds
before his chute opened automatically at 14,000 feet. While he fell,
he talked into a tape recorder and watched the altimeter on his wrist.

     During the early part of the fall, in the thin reaches of the
atmosphere where  there was little resistance, Kittinger did something
that seems even more  remarkable  than  the  highest  parachute  jump.
He  broke the sound barrier,  he  went  714  mph  and  he  became  the
first human being to go supersonic without an airplane.

     IN THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF Orlando Executive Airport there is a
new city park  with  playground  equipment and paths laid out like the
runways of an airport. The park is the perfect place to watch the
planes come and go.

     Joe  Kittinger,  who has flown 14,000 hours in 63 kinds of
aircraft, who flew 483 missions during three tours in Vietnam, who was
a POW, who in 1984 was  the first man to take a helium balloon solo
across the Atlantic Ocean, who  is  even  now planning the first
round-the-world balloon trip for next year Joe Kittinger is content
sitting for an hour in the park, watching the planes come and go.

     Kittinger, who is 64, is a bit out of Top-Gun trim physically.
But his naked eyes,  which are a little  watery, are far better than
mine with glasses. He can call the plane types out before I even spot
them.

     One of the bi-planes from Church Street Station swoops low to
drop its banner, then lands. A few minutes later, the plane takes off
again, and soon  you  can  see it writing the word Rosies over
downtown Orlando. Thats what I used to do every day, Kittinger says.

     Bob Snow, creator of Church Street, taught Kittinger how to
sky-write.  The  first  day  I  went up to write Rosies, says
Kittinger, I wrote the R, then  I  wrote  s. He laughs. When I got
back on the ground, Snow called me and said, I can teach you to
sky-write, but I can't teach you to spell.

     As a boy, Kittinger used to ride his bike from College Park out
to this airport to hang out and watch the planes. This was my field
of dreams, he says.

     And when he came back from the military to Orlando, he discovered
that Orlando Executive was fenced off, that kids couldnt come watch
the planes any more. So he worked to have the park created, and the
city named it after him.

     And what might Kittinger have done had he not discovered flying?
Oh, what a horrible thought, he says. I dont know. Flying airplanes is
an adventure.  He points to a small prop plane.  You can get in that
airplane there and go anywhere. Anywhere.

PHOTO CAPTION:

Kittinger holds the world record for a free-fall parachute jump.
Photo by Red Huber




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