Chinese wingsuiter sets milestone for fly without oxygen

Chinese wingsuiter Zhang Shupeng set a new benchmark for the wingsuit flying record when he leapt from a hot-air balloon from an altitude of 8,150 metres without wearing an oxygen mask on Sunday.

Zhang broke the world record for 8,000 meters jump set by a Swiss man Remo Lang last year.

At 5:17 am, he took off in a large hot-air balloon at China's well-known pastoral area Xilingol grassland of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

After about one hour five minutes, he started his flying with a vertical dive for the first 100 meters and made a spiral fly, seldom used in wingsuit flyers, for over 2,000 meters.

Zhang adopted a vertical-fly style when he was below 6,000 meters in altitude and released the parachute at the height of 800 meters.

He successfully landed at 6:27:33 am after a five-kilometer fly.

Wearing a wingsuit, his freefall lasted three minutes 26 seconds and after that he slided with a parachute within one minute 12 seconds.

"My success proved that Chinese wingsuiters have abilities to fulfill their dreams," Zhang said.

There were several challenges during Zhang's flying.

When the hot-air balloon rose to 5,000 meters height, it was intended to fly levelly for avoiding civil aviation routes. However, there was no wind and the balloon controler lowered altitude to 4,000 meters again, which made Zhang uncomfortable.

Due to lack of oxygen when the balloon rose to 8,400 meters, the balloon's fire was out for a while and Zhang's oxygen mask dropped accidentially. He could only use breathing tube of the oxygen box to take breathe.

During the flying, starving oxygen made Zhang slow in reacting and brought his ears an intense pain.

Zhang, "entitled No. 1 wingsuiter in Asia", is a paraglider in China before he falls in love with wingsuit fly. Since 2004, Zhang has won the national parachute gliding championship ten times and won the paragliding world championship point title in 2009.