“This thing just happened!”
This fellow, Luke Aikens, just did a 25,000 foot free fall without a parachute into a net. I’m ashamed to say that if I were a betting man, my money would have been against him, but he made it. From Fox News;
“I’m almost levitating, it’s incredible,” the jubilant skydiver said, raising his hands over his head as his wife held their son, who dozed in her arms.
“This thing just happened! I can’t even get the words out of my mouth,” he added as he thanked the dozens of crew members who spent two years helping him prepare for the jump, including those who assembled the fishing trawler-like net and made sure it really worked.
Well, congratulations to him – I’m glad he made it. I hope it was worth the two minute ride for him.
Category: Who knows
http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/31/us/skydiver-no-parachute-successful-landing-trnd/
Awesome!
Imagine the adrenaline dump. Whew!
Wonder what Joe Kittinger thinks of the feat.
Man, that’s NUTHIN’!
Look at this! No NET! Nets are for pussies! 😉
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-435540/I-survived-12-000ft-fall-parachutes.html
This guy had the benefit of being slowed by his reserve, tangled, and not fully open but still providing a lot of drag.
I always enjoyed the serenity of a nice ram-air canopy ride after a bit of freefall myself.
Props to the guy for following his dream but yikes! What a stunt.
Watching this gave me the chills. And seeing the cousin and others in freefall with him struck me about the skydiving brotherhood: wow.
https://youtu.be/g8j0YFzmqWc
Wow.
Wow squared.
Yeh, another freaking genius…wife and a baby waiting there for him, wtf was she going to tell the baby if he didn’t make it? “See that greasy spot over there, that used to be your mentally retarded daddy, you know the IDIOT that jumped out of a plane at 25,000 feet without a parachute….”!!!
And he didn’t exactly hit the net dead center. It looked like another 50 feet (maybe less) and it’s SPLAT!
He still can’t beat Felix Baumgartner, whose jump from the stratosphere was accompanied by monitors and was done for science, not as just a stupid stunt.
This was much more than “just a stupid stunt”. It was very well planned, and it paid a ton of money.
I beg to differ, FC. Anyone who plays “you bet yer life” with zero margin for error and no escape plan offering a viable chance for survival if things go bad is IMO a damned idiot.
This guy did precisely that. He misses the net due to unexpected wind gusts blowing him off-course, he’s toast. Ditto if the net fails – as happened at least once during testing, when a 200lb dummy went through the net.
Good for him that he made it. But he’s still a damnfool IMO.
Especially when he has a wife and small boy who need him alive and health.
Yeah, damn fool.
Glad he’s alive to enjoy it, but still.
Before y’all dog him too much, look into his background. He assists in freefall training for our special forces. His Pappy is a WW2 vet. He did something dangerous while being a father, but haven’t many of us who have served?
Not for zero reason, you didn’t. If you had volunteered to get shot at as a stunt, I’d call you a DM fool, too. Even the Rangers say not to take any UNNECESSARY chances.
That’s Damn Fool, durn auto correct!
Understood. You made a solid point and I agree. Thanks.
That’s bullshyt! serving is one thing, this was suicide…or could have been, a .45 to the temple would have been easier, cheaper and neater! I don’t give the a.h. credit for ANYTHING!
Felix did it for a can of red bull. 🙂
SlerpMaNcOmeth has been smashing into the ground for decades without a parachute. Perhaps alcohol works like a parachute
Maybe an AlCoHoL-InDuCeD FrEeFaLlS in his case?
The odds of Luke Aikens being able to hit his net were greater than those of a bad lawyer winning a case. At least Luke Aikens was able to use his head, comprehend fact, and have a good, viable plan in place.
How fast is terminal velocity for a skydiver? 25,000 ft in two minutes works out to about 143 mph.
Terminal velocity is slower than that – Wikipedia gives it at 122 MPH (a bit over 179 ft/sec). But the velocity during the fall isn’t uniform. It starts at zero, and it takes a skydiver around 15 seconds to reach 99% of terminal velocity.
The above assumes the flat, “arms out” body position typically associated with a skydiver in free fall. It’s possible to go considerably faster if the individual intentionally assumes a lower-drag body position for a while. However, when they revert to the flat, arms out position they will slow back down to around 179 ft/second due to increased wind resistance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_velocity
That’s at sea level, Hondo. As one goes up, because of the thinner atmosphere, terminal velocity increases. For example, during Bumgardners jump, terminal above 100k feet is nearly 800 mph.
Also note that the 120 mph figure is for a “flat” skydiver. If tucked and headfirst, terminal velocities of close to 300 mph have been measured.
But I’m with you. Stupid fool, that one.
Well, if the 122MPH figure is a measured value I kinda doubt it was measured at sea level. I’d guess at 800 to 1000 feet, maybe. (smile)
But you’re correct. Because terminal velocity is determined by wind resistance, it indeed varies with air density/pressure – both of which drop off severely with altitude.
Regarding the differences in terminal velocity with respect to body position – I believe I mentioned above that the 122MPH figure was for a skydiver in flat configuration, and that body positions offering less wind resistance made faster speeds possible. Didn’t think it was necessary to go into greater detail.
As I said elsewhere: good that he made it. He’s still IMO a freaking idiot to try that stunt – as is anyone who plays “you bet yer life” without an escape plan offering reasonable chance of survival on failure. But now he’s a famous freaking idiot.
FWIW: at least three aviators in World War II are documented to have survived a jump w/o benefit of parachute from a similar altitude. Two of the three didn’t have a working parachute (theirs had been disabled or destroyed when their aircraft was damaged by enemy action); they intentionally opted to jump and die immediately on impact vice burning to death. The third individual had a working parachute, but planned to delay opening it (to avoid being a floating target for enemy aircraft) until lower altitude; he passed out from hypoxia, and landed with his parachute unopened. All jumped from an altitude of at least 18,000 feet.
Two of the three individuals were severely injured, but survived. The third individual sprained a leg but otherwise had no serious injuries.
All three lived for decades after the war.
The three individuals were Nicholas Alkemade, RAF; Ivan Chisov, Soviet Air Forces; and Alan Magee, USAAF. Here’s the link to Wikipedia’s article on Alkemade; it has links to the other two.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Alkemade
Epic ! ! ! !
Incredible!
Congrats on his successful jump. He’s still a fucking idiot to try it.
There’s stunts. There’s thrill-seeking. There’s daring God to smite your stupid ass. And then there’s Full Retard.
Big deal…D. B. Cooper did that at night in the winter with a reserve that was sewn shut while packing a few hundred thousand in cash.
And…he did it without the net.
It was an incredible stunt and I’ll bet he’s been working his way up to it for years. The comments about terminal velocity have already been made. When it comes down to it, this thing was more about AIM than anything else and it looks like he made it dead center of the net.
No way it was dead center. More like 1/3 from edge.
He was tracking forward and then right slipping pretty hard in the last 4 seconds. Quite a bit of freefall adjustment while under 2000 feet agl.
In freefall, believe it or not, the absolute most difficult
Thing to do is fall straight down. I’m not talking about crosswind either, I’m talking about body position and slipping.
Anyway, that net is tiny until the last few seconds and at that point the ground rush had to be overwhelming. Good aim.
When I saw just the picture I thought it was, but when I saw the video you were clearly right, he wasn’t centered but it was still a hell of a shot. This guy is an excellent free faller.
Well done, a bona fide HANO Master.
Luke still has this woman to beat: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/czechrepublic/9040863/40-years-on-woman-who-survived-33000-foot-fall-still-faces-questions.html