Air rushes at 100-plus miles per hour through the core of a cylindrical building that resembles an air-traffic control tower. It’s probably not the tallest building in Perris—a sprawl of malls and tract homes a couple hours out from Los Angeles—but it feels like it. Up near the top, where the controllers would be sitting, a set of doors open onto the column of wind. Customers lean into the air, open their arms and legs as they fall, and are lifted off their feet. It’s the sensation of free fall with no danger or rush: skydiving with its balls removed. If it is your first visit, a staff person helps steady you in case you drift upward and panic and bounce off the walls like an air-popped kernel. Today is Felix Baumgartner’s first visit to SkyVenture, but no one is holding on to him. Baumgartner, a photogenic forty-one-year-old Austrian, is a high-profile skydiver and BASE* jumper. You can go on YouTube and watch Baumgartner jump off the outstretched right arm of the enormous Christ statue in Rio de Janeiro or, more prosaically, the roof of the Warsaw Marriott.
