Luke Aikins
Skydiver Luke Aikins has become the first person to jump from a plane into a net on the ground without the benefit of a parachute. Aikins 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.
As the plane was climbing to 25,000 feet above the drop zone he said the requirement had been lifted and he took off the chute.
He fell for about two minutes, then flipped onto his back at the last second and landed perfectly to cheers from those gathered to watch.
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5:45 p.m.
Skydiver Luke Aikins says he learned just hours before his planned attempt to skydive from a plane into a net on the ground that he'd have to wear a parachute in order to do it.
He says he put it on but hinted strongly that he wouldn't open it.
In a live broadcast from the plane he'll jump from Aikins says wearing a parachute will make the jump more dangerous because he'll have its canister on his back when he hits the net at about 120 mph.
Aikins says he heard from the Screen Actors Guild that the jump couldn't go on unless he wore a parachute.
The jump is being broadcast live on the Fox network.
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5:30 p.m.
Skydiver Luke Aikins says he'll be wearing a parachute when he tries to become the first person to land in a net without using one.
Aikins revealed about an hour before his scheduled jump Saturday in Simi Valley, California, that the Screen Actors Guild told him the jump can't be done unless he wears a parachute.
He didn't elaborate but the jump is being broadcast on Fox television as part of a one-hour TV special.
Aikins says he is disappointed because wearing a chute will actually make it harder for him to properly put himself over the 100-foot-by-100-foot net.
He didn't say if he plans to actually open the parachute at any point.
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7 a.m.
Skydiver Luke Aikins figures his next leap into thin air will start pretty much like the thousands that preceded it, only with one small but significant difference.
This time when he steps out of a plane at 25,000 feet he won't take his parachute with him.
If all goes according to plan, he will land two minutes later in a trawler-like fishing net 20 stories above the ground and about a third the size of a football field.
His jump is being broadcast live on Fox TV at 8 p.m. EDT Saturday.
The 42-year-old daredevil has made 18,000 jumps.
He's done stunts for "Ironman 3" and other movies and trained elite skydivers.
But on Saturday he'll become the first skydiver to go from plane to planet Earth without a parachute.
Net imprint 1 hr after landing
Luke Aikins with his son Logan
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 8pm ET (5pm PT) 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.
“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.
Nearby, a pair of huge cranes define 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, came up with 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, recommended the skydiver to the two Amusement Park Entertainment executives. He told them Aikins was arguably the only guy not only good enough but also smart enough and careful enough to survive this.
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 at 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.”
