Daredevil wings it..Byline: By PAT FLANAGAN John Patrick "Pat" Flanagan (born 1891 in Preston, Lancashire) was an English footballer. An inside forward, Flanagan played youth football for Stourbridge before joining Norwich City in 1908, before moving to Fulham in 1909. IS it a bird, is a plane... no it's a winged stuntman stunt·man n. A man who substitutes for a performer in scenes requiring physical daring or involving physical risk. stuntman n → especialista m stuntman flying over Ireland's west coast. Ueli "Sputnik Sputnik: see satellite, artificial; space exploration. Sputnik Any of a series of Earth-orbiting spacecraft whose launching by the Soviet Union inaugurated the space age. " Gegenschatz, donned a specially-designed wingsuit and glided from above the Aran Islands over Galway Bay to Connemara regional airport. The Swiss daredevil completed the 17km journey in five minutes 45 seconds, beating the average plane time by more than a minute. He said: "I was fortunate to have strong tailwinds. I was happy not to land in the ocean as I've heard Irish waters are cold." Sputnik jumped from a skydiving aircraft at an altitude of 4,500m and reached an average speed of 250kph. It is believed to be a distance record for an unaided flight. An Aer Arann plane, which travels the 17.6km route every day, took off from Inis Mor airstrip but landed at Inverin Airport, Connemara, seven minutes later. Sputnik has made a series of leaps in his winged-suit including The Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps and Mount Popocatepetl in Mexico. Irish Mirror Comment: Page 10 CAPTION(S): FLYING HIGH Ueli soars over Inis Mor, and, inset, 17km route; ACE 'Sputnik' made record flight |
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