It looks like he was referring to the opening of the parachute. Sounds
like as he did the somersault, part of his glider caught on the lines.

Some article said that he jettisoned his wings before opening his chute,
but the video clearly shows his wings still on him as he is landing.

-Sridhar

Larry Dighera wrote:

On Fri, 1 Aug 2003 12:33:45 -0500, "Jeff Franks"
wrote in Message-Id:
:



http://www.msnbc.com/news/946434.asp?0ql=c7p



Quotes from the link above:

“IT’S PRETTY cold up there. I still can feel nothing,” the
self-styled “God of the Skies” told reporters after a hard
landing. Baumgartner told reporters that he had a close call as
soon as he jumped out of the plane. “I went directly into the
opening with my legs,” he said, “so I had to cut my glider in
pieces because it was hanging up on the lines, but I made it and
that’s great.”

Can anyone explain what Baumgartner means by, “I went directly into
the opening with my legs?” Is he referring to the opening at the rear
of the jump-plane, or part of the apparatus he was wearing?

At the end of the first video it looks like Baumgartner may have done
a backward somersault into his shroud lines upon deploying his chute.

Baumgartner, who was equipped with cameras and high-tech tracking
gear, said he had to follow his two planes over part of the
channel when cloud cover blocked his view.

The flight was stressful but well worth it, he added. “At high
altitude I flew into my own shadow, which the morning sun exposed
on a cloud together with a rainbow,” he said. “I don’t think
anyone has experienced that before.”

Being IFR over the Channel somewhere within a 10 mile radius,
Baumgartner would have been a difficult target for pilots to
see-and-avoid.

The video showed contrails streaming from the toes of his boots. That
might be a productive area to explore for increasing his L/D.