When you are very very close to the edge of anything, you have to meet your greatest fear.
The greatest fear for me was probably dying.
In 1999, I started the first company in the world to make
commercial wingsuits for licensed skydivers.
You feel almost omnipotent. You feel that you can keep on flying, and keep on
flying ,and keep on flying. This is the reason why there has been so many
accidents: people get this feeling that that they can keep on flying while
in reality, we are always falling, we are all just gliding and you cannot keep flying forever.
Testing a wingsuit can be very very risky
and a lot of people in the past have died.
There was one statistic before I started making wingsuits that 72 out of 75 "bird men"
had died making making different kinds of designs. So I went to
the bookstores - the old book stores especially - and so I bought all
the books that I could find about the ancient bird men and about the way they fly.
I wanted to read their stories, I wanted to read about their successes but
I especially wanted to read and study the reasons why they died
You test the wingsuit by making one, then you wear it and then then you try it.
And if it's successful you're alive and yet then you make another one
a better one you improve it and so it goes.
I think I'm still alive, because I admit that I'm afraid to die, so I'm very calculated.
My first BASE jump with the wingsuit was 1999 from Arco Italy. Before you have a wingsuit you're
kind of like almost like a sack of potatoes.
We had an eight-second freefall and now with the wingsuit I was able to glide
hundreds of metres forward for 28 seconds. I stayed alive but barely.
There were a number of mistakes I learned from them (winguits) and was like "phew" and improved things.
Wingsuits have killed many many many people,
hundreds of people. Last year (2018) I think there were 32 or 33 BASE jumping deaths.
That's a lot - that's the most extreme and dangerous sport in the world.
When I started selling the wingsuits, it was really important for me to have
education for the people. I didn't sell the suits just to sell them - I created a
kind of like a driver's license system for skydivers.
It has worked so well that the World Aviation Association has adopted my method
of teaching now. Like every tool in the world, you can you can misuse. Like a with
a hammer, you can build a house or you can hit somebody in the head - same thing
with the wingsuit. You can use it to increase your chances of survival and
for the great joy and pleasure and experience. But you can also misuse it.
As the parachute opens and you just feel incredible joy.
Because you really feel alive. You didn't die - you're alive.