Wingsuit athletes light up the sky
FREDERIC Fugen, Vincent Cotte and Aurelien Chatard this week flew by India’s Taj Mahal, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, to achieve something that had never been done before.
Titled the Taj Mahal Fly-by project, athlete Fugen jumped out of a Cessna 172 areoplane at an altitude of 5000 feet, about 2km away from the Taj Mahal. Using his wingsuit, he flew near the monument, in an individual proximity fly-by.
The trio performed jumps on Tuesday and Wednesday. They lit up the sky in green and orange to create a beautiful aerial display.
Fugen is one of the most talented and innovative skydivers, wingsuit pilots and base jumpers on the planet.
As part of the Soul Flyers, a group of international athletes who perform wingsuit projects around the world, Fugen has executed some truly incredible flights.
Among his craziest projects have been Door in the Sky: jumping off a mountain peak and flying into an airplane; Sky Skiing: performing a 45-second ski routine in the sky before landing and skiing down a mountain; conducting a wingsuit flight superclose to the pyramids of Giza; and base jumping off Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the highest-ever base jump and parachuting off a building.
Joining Fugen on the Taj Mahal project were Cotte and Chatard.
The thrilling moments were captured by sports videographer Dino Raffault, who had also been part of Hollywood productions where aerial filming had been involved.
Being seasoned wingsuit pilots, Fugen, Cotte and Chatard had all the experience and expertise needed to pull off the project. But, every project and location are different from the other, and none are without challenges. And so the wingsuit athletes made sure that their safety, and that of their team and everyone around the Taj Mahal, a Unesco World Heritage site, was of utmost importance. |