"... just lean against the wind"

From varicosity to thrombosis: Sitting for too long in a plane is very dangerous, doctors warn. The Austrian Paul Steiner preferred not to risk anything – and on the flight, went for walks in between on the wings with his Blanik.

At 1800 meters up you climbed out of a diving plane flying 160 km/h and held onto the wings coping with 2G force. Just between us, where was the trick in this stunt?

[Laughs]. There wasn’t one. But it took a while for me to know how that works.

How?

With the help of suction cups. Others have already tried to abseil from a helicopter onto the plane flying below. But I wanted to climb onto the wing from the cockpit at all costs. Anything else would have seemed unfair to me.

How did you come up with the idea of using suction cups?

I was a lorry driver and always had a lot of time to think during the hauls. For ages I thought about the problem of getting out of the cockpit onto the wing. Until one day in Salzburg I drove past a few glaziers who were carrying a pane of glass using suction cups ...

The highlight of the event was your ride on the underbelly of the aircraft. How exactly did that take place?

Getting out of the cockpit wasn’t the biggest challenge. You just have to cope with an enormously strong air stream. It was harder to catch the right moment for changing sides while the plane was turning. If I’d got there a split second too early I would’ve been overwhelmed by the G-force. And a few tenths-of-a-second later, the plane would’ve turned without me.

It’s hard to imagine how you trained for that in advance …

That you can’t train. There were only two possibilities: It works, or it doesn’t work. That’s why I made a list of all possible risks – and what I could do to counter them. For example, I was worried that the chute’s self-opening mechanism would be triggered if the air pressure had abruptly changed due to the dive. So I turned off the automatic function and packed the chote tighter – a bit like tightening the bindings on your skis in racing.

So you weren’t able to practice any of the maneuvers beforehand?

Well, yes. Some of them. For example, like how gliders react when they have to fly with an unrigged plexiglass-roof. Or with an unrigged roof upside-down. But how that influences aerodynamics if someone is standing on the deck, we didn’t know.

How was that possible at all? By using the suction cups?

No. You can do without them. Just have to lean against the wind a bit. And then use your knees as shock absorbers, because a plane doesn’t fly dead-straight.

Please describe how it felt to sit on the belly of the airplane.

Unbelievable! You sit there, knowing you’ve dreamed of this moment for a whole year; that nobody thought it was possible, but that you’re experiencing it right now ...

Nobody believed in you?

Only a few people knew what I was working on. My best friend, with whom I’ve been parachuting with for ten years, he knew. He said: ‘Paul, you’re capable of a lot, but you have to get this idea out of your head.’

You don’t like being talked out of things, do you?

It’s always been that way. Ten years ago I was interested in motorcycle riding. I trained like the devil with the 600 cc without giving up. And in my second year I became national champion even though no-one knew how I was.

But this ride on the glider was your highlight?

Up to now, yes. This campaign was the first high point of our newly-founded Red Bull Sky Dive Team, but I’ve already got a whole head full of new ideas.