BASE jumpers are known for jumping from a variety of fixed objects. BASE jumping—which is an acronym for buildings, antennas, span, and Earth—generally provides less altitude than traditional skydiving from a plane and is considered riskier because of this. The jumper has less time to react and to deploy their parachute.

One female BASE jumper decided to jump from a Hot Air Balloon. While this might sound unusual to the people who are only familiar with skydiving, it actually traces parachuting back to its origins; people were jumping from hot air balloons before they started skydiving from airplanes. The woman regarded as China’s first female BASE jumper recently decided to attempt the daring stunt of jumping from a hot air balloon.

The female BASE jumper, Shi Chunyan, is making the news after her most recent jump in late September. Her jump occurred at the height of 689 feet (or 210 meters).

Chunyan admitted even though she is a highly experienced BASE jumper, she was still slightly nervous before her hot air balloon jump. The jump took place on September 27, 2017. She jumped above Shiniu village which is a rural town located in the Hunan province in central China.

Due to the lower altitude, the jump was extremely quick. The whole stunt took a total of 50 seconds – she opened her parachute after a mere three seconds of freefall time.

Since a skydive takes place at altitudes of roughly 13,000 feet, Chunyan’s plunge was much shorter. A typical skydive takes five to seven minutes and contains approximately 60 seconds worth of free fall time.

Chunyan’s jump and landing went as planned. She had an audience waiting for her on the ground offering their support. A round of applause erupted when she touched the ground.

China Daily’s official Twitter handle which states, “Inspiring constructive dialogue between China and the U.S.”, posted four photos of Shi Chunyan’s hot air balloon endeavor. The photos were published on Twitter on Friday, September 29, 2017. One picture shows Chunyan in freefall after just departing from the balloon, with fields and buildings below her. Another picture captured her peering over the edge of the balloon before her jump. A third showed a crowd of at least 20 people waving as the balloon departed.

The fourth picture is of the balloon in the sky—the balloon was multi-colored: blue, red, white, orange, yellow and green. (The design was a unique box-like pattern of various colored boxes stretching diagonally over the balloon.)

The place where the jump took place in is known as the Danxia landform, which consists of various landscapes in the southeastern, southwestern, and northwestern regions of China. In some of these landforms, there are red bed cliffs. It is estimated the origins of some of these red sandstones trace back to 80 million years ago. The landforms “made the challenge even tougher,” according to China Daily’s news article on Chunyan’s jump.

The post China’s First Female BASE Jumper Completes Hot Air Balloon Jump appeared first on Soaring Sports.