Skydiver Jump from 25,000 ft with no Parachute

[natureboy]

10 hours ago, rehmwa said:

So the risk is unknown variables or he has a bad cramp or something odd like that which would hinder his freefall manuverability.  body position and control of your position in the air is something that can be controlled very precisely - so hitting that net is very doable, and the guidance indicators were very clever and very nicely thought out.

Good for Aikins - he did something no one else has done.  The nice thing about the people in our sport that do push the edge, is that they truly do have great support and work hard on minimizing risk.  The old-school 'adrenaline' seekers are pretty much laughed at and not popular - it's not the '60's and '70's anymore.

I'm sure a lot of thought went into it, and to some extent this may pave the way for a backup safety feature at sky ranches, but yikes uncomfortably close to the edge despite the 'precise' maneuvering. It take courage, but also a bit of recklessness to try stuff like this. The wingsuit guys have had some bad accidents too. All it takes is a wrong gust or maneuver.

10 hours ago, Gunther said:

I jumped once from 13,000, connected to an instructor.  But, my thought was, how could he know where that net was?  I don't think I'd have been able to make it out from 13,000 and he was 25,000?  At what point in his fall do you think he spied the net and started maneuverin towards it?

I would think he could use landforms from that high up to aim toward the general target area and wait for the net to become visible as he lost altitude.

 

Edited August 3, 2016 by natureboy

[boogielicious]

19 hours ago, rehmwa said:

I've been jumping since 1987 (instructor, competed at a national level).  The stunt is very doable (I find it to be a 'stunt').  It's real, he did this and did a great job.  The community is fairly small and I know people that are friends with him (though I'm not).  They put a TON of thought and engineering into this.  The weather conditions of the day and the effort and skill needed itself is really simple.  So the risk is unknown variables or he has a bad cramp or something odd like that which would hinder his freefall manuverability.  body position and control of your position in the air is something that can be controlled very precisely - so hitting that net is very doable, and the guidance indicators were very clever and very nicely thought out.

That said, it was a big promo.  My wife (also a skydiver) and I recorded the event and pretty much just fast forwarded to the final jump run and jump itself (the attached clip above is about it) - we couldn't stand watching any of the 'scripted for TV and non-jumpers' buildup footage.  Then we said 'how about that?'  "neat net setup" and then deleted the video and went about the evening.

Good for Aikins - he did something no one else has done.  The nice thing about the people in our sport that do push the edge, is that they truly do have great support and work hard on minimizing risk.  The old-school 'adrenaline' seekers are pretty much laughed at and not popular - it's not the '60's and '70's anymore.

Thanks for posting this. It is good to hear perspective from an expert. I still would have been worried about unforeseen issues, but that is the engineer in me.

[rehmwa]

13 hours ago, natureboy said:

I All it takes is a wrong gust or maneuver.

 

Even a big gust wouldn't move him much off his trajectory.  And they'd have aborted on a gusty day.

But also I was surprised at the extent of missing the net center.  But he was moving pretty fast.  Seems the net size was reasonable here.

I was less interested in the jump as a skydiver and more interested as an engineer - the net/piston/etc setup was kind of cool

[natureboy]

2 hours ago, rehmwa said:

Even a big gust wouldn't move him much off his trajectory.  And they'd have aborted on a gusty day.

I was thinking more of the wingsuit guys who fly down ravines and such, but given how close to the edge he was a wind shift may have made it scary close. Could that be why he was off-center to begin with?

[rehmwa]

nah - he was just going really fast - by the time he barrel-rolled I'd think that net would look huge (and inevitable) to him.  In freefall, with the right experience, you control your body position in a column of air very tightly (i.e., within an inch relative to others in freefall)  That still picture you post above kind of showed me just how big that net was - thank you for that.  It makes me much more comfy with the margin he had.  The only thing I noticed was that once the others opened, he tracked pretty hard in one direction for a bit - kind of a strong correction, but still at 5000 feet (something like 30 seconds to impact?).  I suspect the centering lights were setup as a go/nogo for him to stay within a cone or cylinder of volume ending at the net and not necessarily for him to hit 'bullseye' but rather just the net itself with a defined safety margin from the edges - as long as he was in it, he would just stay neutral (body position to fall straight down the air he was in) - no need for tiny corrections.

[natureboy]

20 hours ago, rehmwa said:

nah - he was just going really fast - by the time he barrel-rolled I'd think that net would look huge (and inevitable) to him.  In freefall, with the right experience, you control your body position in a column of air very tightly (i.e., within an inch relative to others in freefall)  That still picture you post above kind of showed me just how big that net was - thank you for that.  It makes me much more comfy with the margin he had.  The only thing I noticed was that once the others opened, he tracked pretty hard in one direction for a bit - kind of a strong correction, but still at 5000 feet (something like 30 seconds to impact?).  I suspect the centering lights were setup as a go/nogo for him to stay within a cone or cylinder of volume ending at the net and not necessarily for him to hit 'bullseye' but rather just the net itself with a defined safety margin from the edges - as long as he was in it, he would just stay neutral (body position to fall straight down the air he was in) - no need for tiny corrections.

But the amount he was off-center seems not to support your notion of precise control possible in the free-fall. If he had that control, why would he not attempt to hit the center and give himself the maximum margin of error? If you have precise control, what's the advantage of 'staying neutral'?

Edited August 4, 2016 by natureboy

[rehmwa]

the precision I'm talking about is between two people in freefall together (ie. he can put himself in the column of air he's falling in very precisely) - this attempt if the first ever attempted as is between a spot on the net and someone else and they are converging at 120MPH - in other words, he's trying to decide which column of air he's falling in - not where in the column of air.  He did fine for never having done it before.

analogy - two airplanes can fly very tightly in flight together..  But if you have to land a glider on a runway, you won't hit the same point on landing each time even if you are world class pilot.

sorry I wasn't more clear, it's pretty hard to relate info to people not in the hobby.

he did fine

he can't slow down and make infinite adjustments, eventually you run out of altitude

if you want to see examples of precision, google Arizona Airspeed 4-way videos....the amount of power and control is amazing

[natureboy]

1 hour ago, rehmwa said:

the precision I'm talking about is between two people in freefall together (ie. he can put himself in the column of air he's falling in very precisely) - this attempt if the first ever attempted as is between a spot on the net and someone else and they are converging at 120MPH - in other words, he's trying to decide which column of air he's falling in - not where in the column of air.  He did fine for never having done it before.

Gotcha, relative to other free-fallers falling in the same shared column(s) of air control is quite precise. Relative to the approaching target on the surface and crossing through many different columns of up/down/lateral draft, not as much?

[rehmwa]

close enough - let's just say that the size of the net was successfully planned....  ; )

Blues skies

[natureboy]

30 minutes ago, rehmwa said:

close enough - let's just say that the size of the net was successfully planned....  ; )

Blues skies

Personally, I'd have wanted a bigger net if that was within the expected margin of error.