Skydiver Luke Aikins can't fly, but he's all about falling with style! On July 30, this real-life Buzz Lightyear will be ditching his parachute for a true freefall attempt from 25,000 feet. The stunt known as Heaven Sent will involve jumping out without a parachute or wingsuit. It is said to be the first of its kind.
"Everyone is calling this my 'coming-out jump', which is ironic considering I've been skydiving since the age of 16," 42-year-old Aikins said in a press release. "But nothing even comes remotely close to this. I expect Heaven Sent to change me, skydiving and the future of live spectacles forever."
Aikins is obviously an expert skydiver if he's been at it since he was a teen. What's more, Aikins even trained Felix Baumgartner in the famous Red Bull Stratos jump a couple years ago. But even the best skydivers in the world haven't cracked the laws of gravity. So how will Aikins survive the rapid 9.8 m/s squared descent without leaving a human shaped dent on the dirt?
Aikins must land on a big 100 sq. ft. net placed somewhere in the Southern California desert. While 100 sq. ft. sounds like a lot, it's actually just a 10 ft. by 10 ft. square. Without a parachute or a wingsuit, Aikins has nothing but his body and limbs to direct his freefall over the target.
A very smart team of experts has been training with Aikins to prepare him for the feat. Aerospace physiologist Chris Talley and performance psychologist Michael Garvais worked closely with Aikins and set up a target created by PVC pipes off the side of a cliff. The target was made smaller and smaller as training progressed in order to get Aikin accustomed to hitting the bulls eye "sweet spot."
"In the back of mind I know that there is that risk, there's that possibility that things could go wrong and that, you know, you could do something like this and you could not see your wife and son again," says Aikins. "Is something like this worth it? I would say that 90 percent of the world would say it's not. But I would say it's also part of who I am to be the first guy to do something like this. It would leave my personal mark on skydiving history."
Ready or not, Aikins' stunt, Heaven Sent, will be broadcast live Saturday, July 30, from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. ET on FOX. Prefer a live stream online? Watch the Heaven Sent live feed below:
The video below provides an introduction to the stunt.
