American Skydiver Luke Aikins has landed into the history books with his of leap of faith from 25,000ft (7.6km) WITHOUT a Parachute !
What made this jump so special of course is the fact that Luke landed SAFELY!
A known stunt diver for movies, Aikins planned and prepared for the jump for a year-and-a-half before making the jump which saw him reach speeds of 193 kilometres per hour in Simi Valley, California.
Part of the preparation was the safety net that would eventually catch him and break his fall. The net had to have enough elasticity so as not to make too blunt a stop, but also be strong enough to slow the speed very quickly.
The full 2 minute jump was televised live on the Fox network as part of a 1Hr Reality TV program.
“Pay attention to the science and the math behind this. And we’ll show you what’s possible,” Aikins said.
Aikins, at age 42, has made more than 18,000 skydiving jumps in his career since his first tandem at the age of 12. He now runs a skydiving school in Washington state and says that in all those years of jumps, he only needed to reach for his emergency chute on 30 of those jumps.
“I’m almost levitating, it’s incredible,” he said.
“The thing that just happened. The words I want to say I can’t even get out of my mouth.
“All of these guys, everything that made it happen … It’s awesome.”
ABC News reports that sky-diving runs in Aikins family as he is a 3rd generation skydiver whose grandfather served in World War II and co-founded the skydiving school on his return.
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