Michel Fournier (born 9 May 1944) is a French

adventurer An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme spo ...

and retired

Air Force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an a ...

colonel. He has been involved in planning attempts to break

freefall In Newtonian physics, free fall is any motion of a body where gravity is the only force acting upon it. In the context of general relativity, where gravitation is reduced to a space-time curvature, a body in free fall has no force acting on it. ...

jumping height records, but has yet to be successful in carrying out an attempt. He was born in

Treban Treban () is a Communes of France, commune in the Allier Departments of France, department in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in central France. Population Inhabitants are called ''Trébanais'' or ''Trébanaises''. See also *Communes of the Allier de ...

(

Allier Allier ( , , ; oc, Alèir) is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region that borders Cher to the west, Nièvre to the north, Saône-et-Loire and Loire to the east, Puy-de-Dôme to the south, and Creuse to the south-west. Named afte ...

), in the

Auvergne Auvergne (; ; oc, label=Occitan, Auvèrnhe or ) is a former administrative region in central France, comprising the four departments of Allier, Puy-de-Dôme, Cantal and Haute-Loire. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region Auverg ...

region of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Parachuting experience

According to the French version of his own biography, he (Michel Fournier) claims to have a total of more than 8,700 jumps in 2011, including a French record of height in

at 12,000 m. However, his parachuting experience was disputed by

Patrick de Gayardon Patrick de Gayardon (; 23 January 1960 in Oullins, Rhône – 13 April 1998 in Hawaii) was a French skydiver, skysurfer and a BASE jumper. De Gayardon was famous for pushing the boundaries of skydiving. He was one of the first people to develop ...

Paramag #125, October 1997 and the magazine ''Paramag''. No official institution has ever confirmed one of his titles.

Le Grand Saut

Fournier has attempted to make record breaking

jumps on three occasions. In 1998, the French space agency chose Fournier to conduct a record jump to test the ability of astronauts to survive reentry without a space craft. This project was quickly canceled. In 2003, Fournier attempted his first privately financed jump but the balloon ripped while being filled. The ''New York Times'' reports that Fournier has spent "nearly $20 million" on his two private attempts. Fournier was scheduled to carry out the ''Grand Saut'' (Big Jump) project in May 2008, which would have seen him ascend to in a balloon and freefall to earth before opening his parachute at to go. In the process he was expected to attain a speed in freefall faster than the speed of sound, and reach speeds upward of . His freefall was expected to last 15 minutes. If successful, this would have broken records previously held by

Joseph Kittinger Joseph William Kittinger II (July 27, 1928 – December 9, 2022) served as a United States Air Force (USAF) officer from 1950 to 1978. He was a fighter pilot who earned Command Pilot status and retired as a colonel. He held the world record for ...

, who set the previous parachute record by jumping from in 1960 (with a small parachute for stability) under

Project Excelsior Project Excelsior was a series of parachute jumps made by Joseph Kittinger of the United States Air Force in 1959 and 1960 from helium balloons in the stratosphere. The purpose was to test the Beaupre multi-stage parachute system intended to be ...

; and Eugene Andreyev from the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, who jumped from in 1962, setting the longest free fall record. The jump was expected to take place over the plains of

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. After several delays due to weather, the attempt was made on 27 May 2008, but the balloon detached from its capsule as it was being inflated and floated away. Another attempt was made on 16 May 2010 which was unsuccessful due to the skydiver's reserve parachute deploying inside the capsule during a pre-launch test while the balloon was being filled. The next attempt was announced for May 2011, delayed until August and then apparently postponed to 2012.

References

* Burkhard Bilger, ''Falling'', The New Yorker, 13 August 2007
Abstract
* Leonard David

space.com, 13 July 2006

External links

Le Grand Saut project
official website {{DEFAULTSORT:Fournier, Michel 1944 births Living people French Air and Space Force personnel French balloonists French skydivers Sportspeople from Allier Space diving