Daily Mail: Married skydiver Luke Aikins become the first to jump 25,000 feet into a net without a parachute
* Aikins jumped 25,000 into a net Saturday evening in Simi Valley, California
* Found out he had to wear a parachute just hours before - but did not use it
* The skydiver, 42, has done more than 18,000 jumps and stunts in Ironman 3
* His four-year-old son and his wife both watched his record-breaking jump
An American skydiver has become the first of his trade to jump 25,000 feet into a net - without a parachute.
Luke Aikins, 42, completed the record-breaking stunt on Saturday evening in Simi Valley, California.
He hit the 100-by-100-foot net perfectly, quickly climbed out of it and walked over to hug his wife, who had been watching with other family members.
Just before climbing into a plane to make the jump, Aikins said he had been ordered to wear a parachute but indicated he wouldn't open it.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: I know that this is not a war/defense/intelligence news story .... but I had to post it. I was in my mid-thirties when I did my first (and only) parachute jump. After the jump .....I said to myself that it makes no sense to jump out of a perfectly functioning air-plane ....and I vowed to never do it again. But the story ..... and doing a 25,000 jump without parachute .... I am at a lost of words to even comment on it.
I agree 10,000%!
ReplyDeleteOh great... precision guided suicide bombers!
ReplyDeleteWNU Editor,
ReplyDeleteWas your jump a static line, or a paired free fall, or were you lucky to jump in one of the places that allows a solo freefall with a few hours training and an auto-open chute?
Love to jump. Back in the day, bought a parapent, so I didn't have to climb down the same mountains I had climbed up.
It was a tandem jump (I guess that is what you mean by a paired free fall). But I was super-lucky. There were a lot of people that day, and somehow I got stuck with an attractive lady instructor. But it was only after the jump that I realised that she was a good looking babe. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm still free fall certified. In Kamloops every year, there's a jump week, where for cheap, you can get enough jumps in to keep your certifications.
DeleteTry parapenting some time. There are ski hills now where you can take a gondola up, and a parapent down in the summer. Parapent's are more like a slow, wearable glider, than a parachute.
Jay. I am not that brave anymore. :(
ReplyDeleteWith a parapent, up until shortly after you get off the ground, it's an adrenaline rush,.........
DeleteAfter that it's like flying a slow "nerf" glider, with out the cockpit, not much of a rush at all, except for the view.
Only time it was ever "scary" for me, was 3/4's of the way down from Edgemont Glacier, when coming into the Green River flood plain, I ran into a flock of geese, and the parapent was too slow in turning for me to avoid them,
Luckily, they avoided me.
He is not the first to jump out with no parachute.
ReplyDeletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RbIivGvflkk
ReplyDeleteThe Irish did it years ago ;)
ReplyDelete