Is this MANLY??

Not to derail our other thread....

 

http://www.france24.com/en/20160729-luke-a...sports?ref=tw_i

 

 

 

Luke Aikins: The US daredevil attempting skydive without parachute

 

He's made 18,000 parachute jumps, helped train some of the world's most elite skydivers, done some of the stunts for "Ironman 3." But the plunge Luke Aikins knows he'll be remembered for is the one he's making without a parachute. Or a wingsuit.

 

Or anything, really, other than the clothes he'll be wearing when he jumps out of an airplane at 25,000 feet this weekend, attempting to become the first person to land safely on the ground in a net.

 

The Fox network will broadcast the two-minute jump live at 8 p.m. EDT (5 p.m. PDT) Saturday as part of an hour-long TV special called "Heaven Sent".

 

And, no, you don't have to tell Aikins it sounds crazy. He knows that.

 

He said as much to his wife after a couple Hollywood guys looking to create the all-time-greatest reality TV stunt floated the idea by him a couple years ago.

 

"I said, 'You won't believe these guys,'" the affable skydiver recalls with a robust laugh. "'They want me to jump out without a parachute.' She said, 'Oh, with a wingsuit.' I said, 'No, they want me to do it with nothing.' We both had a good laugh about that."

 

But in the weeks that followed he couldn't shake one persistent thought: Could anybody actually do this and live to tell the tale?

 

Because if anyone could, Aikins wanted to be that guy.

 

After all, the 42-year-old daredevil has practically lived his life in the sky. He made his first tandem jump when he was 12, following with his first solo leap four years later. He's been racking them up at about 800 a year ever since.

 

He took his wife, Monica, on her first jump when they were dating and she's up to 2,000 now. The couple lives with a 4-year-old son, Logan, in Washington, where Aikins' family owns Skydive Kapowsin near Tacoma.

 

Over the years Aikins has taught skydiving, taught others to teach skydiving, even participated in world-record stacking events, those exercises where skydivers line up atop one another as they fly their open chutes across the sky.

 

He tells of having his chute tangle with others on a couple of those efforts and having to come down under his reserve parachute. In all, he's used his reserve 30 times, not a bad number for 18,000 jumps.

 

This time, though, he won't have any parachute.

 

"If I wasn't nervous I would be stupid," the compact, muscular athlete says with a grin as he sits under a canopy near Saturday's drop zone.

 

"We're talking about jumping without a parachute, and I take that very seriously. It's not a joke," he adds.

 

‘Aikins the only guy good enough’

 

Nearby, a pair of huge cranes defines the boundaries where the net in which Aikins expects to land is being erected. It will be about one-third the size of a football field and 20 stories high, providing enough space to cushion his fall, he says, without allowing him to bounce out of it. The landing target, which has been described as similar to a fishing trawler net, has been tested repeatedly using dummies.

 

One of those 200-pound (91-kilogram) dummies didn't bounce out. It crashed right through.

 

"That was not a good thing to see," recalled Jimmy Smith, the veteran Hollywood public relations man who, with his partner Bobby Ware, sold Fox on the idea of having someone skydive without a parachute.

 

Chris Talley, who had worked with Aikins on other projects and helped train him for this one, proposed the parachute -free idea to Smith, creative director for Amusement Park Entertainment, telling him Aikins was arguably the only guy who was not only good enough but also smart enough and careful enough to survive such a feat.

 

Smith recalled how the three men gazed at each other with a look of foreboding after that dummy crashed through the net. Then they looked over at Aikins.

 

"Luke just said, 'No biggie, that's why we test.'"

 

Fox has had little to say about the stunt other than it will be broadcast on a tape delay, as is the case with all its live broadcasts, says network spokesman Les Eisner. It contains a warning not to try this at home.

 

That would seemingly be difficult, as Smith and Ware had to scour a good part of the world, from Arizona Indian land to Dubai real estate, before they found what everyone agreed was the best place for Aikins to land.

 

He'll come down in a dry, dusty, desolate-looking section of an old movie ranch north of Los Angeles where not that long ago Shia LaBeouf was battling "Transformers."

 

The drop zone, surrounded by rolling hills, presents some challenges, Aikins said, noting he'll be constantly fighting shifting winds as he falls 120 mph (193 kph).

 

Other skydivers have jumped from planes without parachutes and had someone hand them one in midair. But Aikins won't even have that.

 

Why?

 

"To me, I'm proving that we can do stuff that we don't think we can do if we approach it the right way," he answers.

 

"I've got 18,000 jumps with a parachute, so why not wear one this time?" he muses almost to himself. "But I'm trying to show that it can be done."

I hope he makes it. Seems like suecide.

The guy has a death wish, I can only imagine the stress he's putting his family through.

I hope he makes it. Seems like suecide.

 

I'm calculating it to be roughly 100' x 50'......my god that's small. Not sure how you aim for that so high up?

 

The guy has a death wish, I can only imagine the stress he's putting his family through.

 

Dumb. Not my life. Could never take risks like that.

Bread and Circuses...

5150

Reminds me of why we have Darwin awards.

 

http://www.darwinawards.com

Can he do it???..... I guess we'll find out soon enough!!!

To answer the question: IMO, no. I call it lunacy and suicidal. To quote a cliche: If man were meant to fly, God would have given him wings. Ok, he's not exactly flying but man wasn't given or evolved into having some bio-cushion or exoskeleton to protect him from a huge fall/impact either.

 

Perhaps the details of the stunt are not fully disclosed. I.e. he carries a reserve chute but have no intention to deploy it until it's absolutely necessary. But it'll likely be too late by the time it's determined that he can't make the target. I mean the title reads: "Luke Aikins: The US daredevil attempting skydive without parachute." That could mean he isn't planning on using one but it doesn't mean he won't have one with him.

 

Also perhaps Roman can chime in again: out of curiosity, what are the disclaimers that one has to declare to pull something like that? I mean it's outright prudence isn't it?

To answer the question: IMO, no. I call it lunacy and suicidal.

 

Some union told him "no chute, no jump". So, he will be wearing a chute.

Some union told him "no chute, no jump". So, he will be wearing a chute.

....and now at the last minute, they've come back and removed the requirement for him to wear the chute. Good luck man!

HOLY SHIT..that was insane

Completely moronic!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g8j0YFzmqWc

Also perhaps Roman can chime in again: out of curiosity, what are the disclaimers that one has to declare to pull something like that? I mean it's outright prudence isn't it?

 

 

Sorry... I must've been absent the day they covered "Bat Shit Crazy" law.

Sorry... I must've been absent the day they covered "Bat Shit Crazy" law.

 

Thank you. That seems like a good enough answer already.

If he has no family, than if he wants to do such things fine, but once you have a family, continuing to do stuff like that is IMO selfish in the extreme.

 

As a side note, 800 jumps a year? Is he doing like three or so a day!?

If he has no family, than if he wants to do such things fine, but once you have a family, continuing to do stuff like that is IMO selfish in the extreme.

 

As a side note, 800 jumps a year? Is he doing like three or so a day!?

 

He must be on some very powerful drugs in order to have the desire of jumping out of a plane that many times a year.

 

It's his life I just feel sorry that someone will eventually need to clean up the mess and deal with the loss, selfish is an understatement.

 

I hope this guy will die a peaceful death at 100 in his bed at home but what are the chances? LOL

And he made it. Pretty amazing. Congrats to him. He has cojones the size of Texas.

And he made it. Pretty amazing. Congrats to him. He has cojones the size of Texas.

 

don't worry, next week he will attempt it without the net, he will have a go at a bean bag for sure.

 

Might as well skip the bean bag and go straight for a body bag!

Success it seems

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-36935087

 

Well that's the stupidest thing I have seen in a while....love the commentary "half way home"

 

Has a wife and son apparently.