

Without air resistance, anything from a feather to a fuel tanker will accelerate towards the earth at a rate of 9.8 meters per second squared. In a vacuum, as you may recall from middle school science, all objects fall at the same rate. The sport pits extreme thrill seekers against each other - and the laws of physics. First developed in Florida in 1999, speed skydiving began gaining recognition as an international discipline in the early 2000s. This technique, developed by jumping out of a plane five to 10 times a day for the better part of several years, is just part of the explanation for how Lobpries has propelled himself to the peak of the sport of speed skydiving. Then he locks his knees, points his toes, clenches his buttocks, tucks his arms into his sides, shrugs his shoulders and hurls himself toward land as fast as humanly possible.

He continues to drift until he feels he’s perfectly perpendicular to the planet. As he watches it fly away, he leans back and shifts his gaze toward the inverted horizon, the sky bowing before the earth. Kyle Lobpries jumps out of the airplane - backward.
