In the last year, two repeat survivors have written improbably interesting books about their exploits. In the last half-century or so, as the occupation of "test pilot" has become somewhat more professionalized and scientific, it has become possible for certain aviation obsessives to accomplish extraordinary feats and survive at a higher rate than their predecessors. He expected to drift down like Mary Poppins, but he sunk like a torpedo to his death on the icy Champ de Mars below. He tested his prototype - a billowy cloth frame barely bigger than his body - by jumping from the Eiffel Tower. In 1912, Austrian-born Franz Reichelt became obsessed with designing a parachute that pilots in the newly invented airplane could use. In 1785, the pioneer of hot-air ballooning, Jean-Francois de Rozier, filled his balloon with hydrogen gas, which held him aloft beautifully until his furnace-flame turned his balloon into an enormous bomb. History is littered with the corpses of these maniacs.
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