Here is the video. The guy, Travis Pastrana, jumps out of the plane with nothing but shorts, socks, sunglasses, and a can of Red Bull. Two other guys jump at the same time, with chutes.
Pastrana cavorts in the air for a few seconds, and then the other two guys hook up with him. One latches him on and pulls his chute; they go down in tandem.
It looks real. Is it? I know next to nothing about skydiving. Hooking up midair seems so chancy. Can you really be that confident of making contact with the other jumpers that you’d stake your life on it?
Sure it’s real, and yes, it’s chancy. These guys are apparently that confident. When you think about it, it’s not that hard when everything works out- these guys have done enough jumps that they’ve got very good control in the air. If you can make contact and latch on with some system that you’ve worked out ahead of time, it shouldn’t be hard. Unless something goes wrong, in which case you’ve got a horrible situation.
This Pastrana kid seems to be the new Evil Knevil.
He was also the first to do a double backwards motorcycle flip and also just set the new world record for an automobile ramp-to-ramp jump. He went 269 feet breaking the old record of 171 feet.
How does a skydiver direct his flight so as to hook up with another diver? Is it enough just to angle one’s body? Do you need something like webbing under the arms to act as a sail?
Here’s a clip of some flat flying in a wind tunnel that illustrates some of the moves but it isn’t narrated, which would be nice. Spreading yourself out results in more wind resistance and you fall slower, bringing your knees/arms in will make you drop faster and often at an angle depending on which. Subtle movements of the hands/arms/legs allow you to move in 3D space, spin, etc.
Yes it is real. Travis Pastrana is the second person that I’m aware of who has done this stunt, the first being Rod Pack back in 1960 or 1961. Mr. Pack jumped wearing a harness but no parachute. The harness had D-rings on the chest where the reserve was worn (at that time in the sport). Another skydiver jumped carrying a spare reserve, flew over to Mr. Pack who then hooked it up and deployed it to land.
The cameraman (and possibly others) had web straps attached to their own harnesses with snap hooks on the end so that if something went wrong (reserve got dropped in freefall) one of them could snap onto Mr. Pack’s harness via the D-rings and land them both.
From what I’ve read, Travis Pastrana did his stunt when he had only about 100 jumps of his own. If you don’t know much about skydiving that may sound like a lot but I would call that a very beginner level (it takes 25 jumps to get the basic “A” license). He is wearing a harness under his shorts (something like a climbing harness). Roughly speaking all he had to do was get into a stable arch and wait so not too complicated.
The skydiver who “saves” him was pretty experienced - at least a thousand jumps. They did this all in Puerto Rico, in part (I am assuming) because the USPA (not a governmental agency but the general governing body of skydiving in the USA) frowns on things that make the sport look bad and they’d probably come down hard on any domestic USPA certified dropzone that participated in the stunt.
As a stunt it’s completely awesome and it says a lot about the steady nerves of everyone involved. I can see why some skydivers would cringe when they see it.
Hm, I was just looking for some video and found clips from a guy named Bill Cole who evidently did something similar at least twice back in 1969 and 1972. Haven’t actually watched the video yet so can’t vouch for it.
I seem to remember a movie where something like that took place.
A character fell out of a plane without a chute, a second character puts on a chute, grabs another one and jumps after the first guy and they get the parachute on him and they both land safety, I also seem to remember reading that the stuntman that supposedly jumped without a chute actually had a spare camouflaged under some clothing in case they failed to linkup in flight.
There was a James Bond movie where Bond (I think) jumped without a chute, fought the guy with the steel teeth in free fall, stripped a chute from Steel Teeth, and put it on himself, floating gently down while Steel Teeth went splat.
Moonraker and Point Break both had scenes like that.
In Moonraker, it’s the pre-credit sequence. Bond is the only passenger in a small plane when he discovers that the pilot and flight attendant plan to kill him by disabling the plane and bailing out with the only parachutes. Bond and the pilot fight, and the pilot gets pushed out the door. As Bond is watching the pilot fall, Jaws shows up and pushes him out. Bond catches up with the pilot, wrestles the parachute away from him, and puts it on. By this time, Jaws has also jumped and catches up with Bond. As Jaws is getting ready to bite his leg, Bond opens his parachute and slips from Jaws’ grasp. Jaws pulls his ripcord, but the cable breaks and comically plumets toward the Earth.
I saw something once about how it was done, and they did have parachutes concealed under their clothes.
Poorly concealed if you know what to look for - in any of those scenes watch the view when the cameraman is above the stuntman and you can see his back. It’ll be mighty bulky and have a very conspicuous seam running the length. That’s the breakaway opening for the rig underneath.
