Yeah, you guessed it. Today over on the CCJ blog find the story of onetime New Jersey-based truck driver Nick Piantanida (pictured), who also holds the distinction of being a 1960s pioneer of extreme high-altitude skydiving — and who holds the unofficial record for the highest-ever manned balloon flight, 123,500 feet. He was trying to beat a U.S. Air Force colonel’s jump record on that flight, though things went awry.
Ever persistent — and “a self-styled adventurer who had dabbled in mountain climbing, sold exotic animals,” Jack Roberts writes, and was “a hard-charging do-it-yourself kind of guy” (sound familiar?) — Piantanida reloaded for another try when tragedy struck.
