Luke Aikins

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Luke Aikins (born November 21, 1973 in Corpus Christi , Texas ) is an American extreme athlete , stunt performer and photographer .

The free fall jump 2016

Aikins freefalled an airplane from 7600 meters (25,000  feet ) in the desert 50 km northwest of Los Angeles on July 30, 2016 , to a 30 × 30 m (100 × 100 feet) stretched 60 m above the ground Network. Never before had a person jumped from such a height without using a parachute .

The case lasted about 2:10 minutes and was filmed from multiple perspectives, including from Aikins' helmet camera , and followed by an audience at least 400 m from the target point. The net was stretched elastically between the almost vertical arms of four truck-mounted cranes, had a few wind flags in its center and, when viewed from above, was highlighted in light green, which resulted in a clearly visible color and brightness contrast in the red-brown desert landscape. The asymmetrical placement of the light-colored fleet of vehicles and the grandstand ensured that there was a directional orientation (e.g. north). A brightly prepared circular area about 180 m in diameter was around the green target square, the center of which had a brown circular disc about 10 m in diameter and eight markings similar to a target cross.

Aikins used an oxygen mask , which he gave to his cousin Andy, one of the three parachutists who accompanied him up to about 1200 m (4000 ′) with plumes of smoke free-falling, at an altitude of about 4600 m (15,000 ′ ). During the prone approach, he practiced the transition to the supine position several times early, which he last took about 1.5 seconds before hitting the net. The upright arms of the cranes set up in a square gave the jumper, who was experienced with 18,000 parachute jumps and who had previously trained this jump 34 times with a parachute that he opened at a height of 300 m, a sight and thus orientation.

At about 5,200 m (17,000 ′) above sea level, it had a speed of 240 km / h (150 mph ) fall with 8 km / h (5 mph) WSW wind and a pulse of 148 beats per minute.

At the Big Sky Movie Ranch near Simi Valley, Aikins hit the square net at about half its inscribed radius from the center. By pulling the net about 40 m deep with him, his speed was completely slowed down by impulse transfer to the net, his air resistance and elastic forces of the suspension - without great jerks and without swinging .

The US broadcaster Fox broadcast the jump live on a one-hour TV show. Aikins admitted that he was nervous before the jump. His mother was the only relative who did not watch the jump live.

The idea for the jump came from Aikins' friend Chris Talley two years earlier.

Other

Aikins was on the Red Bull Stratos team , which carried out a stratospheric jump through Felix Baumgartner in 2012 . There he was responsible for safety tests and intended as a substitute jumper.

As a stuntman he worked in the film Iron Man 3 . As a photographer, he specializes in aerial photography.

Aikins is married and has one son.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://orf.at/#/stories/2351910/ Skydiver jumps from a height of 7,600 meters without an umbrella in the net. orf.at, July 31, 2016, accessed July 31, 2016.
  2. ↑ Skydiver makes history by jumping 25,000 feet into a net without a parachute The Telegraph, July 30, 2016.
  3. ↑ http://www.nola.com/celebrities/index.ssf/2016/07/skydiver_luke_aikins_jumps_wit.html Skydiver Luke Aikins jumps with no parachute, aims for net and ... (video), July 31, 2016, accessed 1 August 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Aikins, Luke
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American extreme athlete, stunt performer, and photographer
DATE OF BIRTH November 21, 1973
PLACE OF BIRTH Corpus Christi , Texas