As the official keeper of US aviation world records, the National Aeronautic Association each year lists the previous year’s most memorable records ratified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI). Most years the most memorable are pretty mundane, incremental gains in speed and altitude by aircraft that earn their keep in commercial service. While important achievements, they lack a real sense of adventure.
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Which is why 2012 was a banner year. Leading the list is Felix Baumgartner’s 4-minute, 20-second, 119,431-foot freefall that topped out at 843 mph. His supersonic fall not only broke Joe Kittinger’s 1962 record, he set another record online with millions worldwide who watched him set the record live (and I didn’t get a lot of work done that day), and millions continue to watch it on YouTube.
No less remarkable is the indoor 1-minute, 5.1 second flight of the Gamera II, the University of Maryland’s human-powered helicopter. Flying a straight-line distance of 474 miles seems unremarkable, unless you do it like Dustin Martin did, with a Wills Wing T2C hang glider, in 11 hours. What most don’t know is that Martin was competing with another pilot, Jonny Durand, on what was essentially a flight of two. (The New York Times did a riveting piece on their flight.)
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