WHILE plenty of Australians can claim they have seen an aerial view of the Grand Canyon, there are very few that can boast they have seen it the way birds do, gliding unassisted through the air with the wind fluttering beneath their wings.

    Heather Swan, 48, and Glenn Singleman are champion wingsuit divers who recently made history by jumping out of a plane at 28,000 feet (8,534 meters) to glide 11 kilometers over the Grand Canyon at speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour.

    Propelled along by the force of gravity, the adventure-loving grandparents spent eight minutes flying above the American landmark.

    While jumping 28,000 feet from a plane and plummeting to the ground is something that would terrify most people, Swan said she overcame her fears simply by breathing through it.

    “Breath control, that’s the key,” she said.

    “I’ve got a very strict meditation practice that helps me enormously. It helps me remain present instead of letting my mind run off with the worst case scenarios.”

    She said you can easily trick your body into thinking everything is OK by taking a few “nice, slow, deep breaths.”

    “I just know how to manage the fear and separate what I know I can do from just being afraid.”

    Swan and her husband Singleman made the record-breaking flight alongside fellow wing suit enthusiasts Roger Hugelshofer, Vicente Cajiga and cameraman Paul Tozer.

    The accomplished pair spent 14 months planning and fundraising to make their insane record attempt a reality.

    The wingsuits that made their record-breaking flight possible are gravity-powered gliders, which propel their pilots forward at three times the speed they are descending. Essentially, they are flying and falling at the same time.

    Swan and her team completed a practice run over Brisbane in January where they tested the “highly evolved” oxygen tanks they would need to survive the “breathtaking” feat.

    Being the first to cross the Grand Canyon has done nothing to quench Swan’s thirst for adventure. She said she and her husband already have another death-defying plan in the works.

    “Our intention is to start putting together plans to fly the seven summits, starting with Kilimanjaro,” she said.

    “A lot of people have climbed them but no one has ever flown over them.”

    The Sydney-based couple has three world records and two Australian records in extreme sports, including the world’s highest base jump in a wingsuit where they leapt from 6604 meters up off of Mount Meru in the Indian Himalayas.

    (SD-Agencies)