Teddy bear sets skydiving world record

Many thought Felix Baumgartner’s world record feat of skydiving from the edge of space could never be beaten by another human being and they were probably right – but nobody said anything about a teddy bear.

Teddy bear skydiver

The toy, owned by balloonist David Akerman, managed to improve on Baumgartner’s record by 31 metres after falling from 39,000m.

Babbage the bear was guided up to the tremendous height by a weather balloon and then released by a Raspberry Pi computer it was being operated by.

‘The launch and both recoveries were textbook,’ Mr Akerman said.

‘There was little wind at the launch site, and both payloads landed in fields within 100-200 metres of a road.

‘The only issue really was that as Babbage was descending we lost 3G as my SIM card ran out of credit! Fortunately we managed to add a top-up before we lost contact with Babbage.’

The toy’s flight was recorded by a camera attached to its shoulder which managed to catch striking images and video.

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