The response to "I'd like to skydive" is often this: "why would you jump out of a perfectly good plane?" Planes are optional for the current generation of aerial adventurers: BASE jumpers and wingsuit flyers and their ilk.
Their exploits are daring in the extreme, and do sometimes meet with tragedy.
Freelance journalist Matt Higgins gets inside the pursuit in his book Bird Dream: Adventures at the Extremes of Human Flight, now in paperback. Matt pulls the ripcord and lands on the Exchange for a discussion.
