Hurtling to earth at 150mph ...
LUKE AiKin’S jump started at 25,000ft — about the height of a Himalayan mountain. That’s 4.7 miles above the California desert.
HE HURTLED towards earth at up to 150mph, only 12mph slower than the fastest Formula One lap time.
AS THE atmosphere thickened closer to earth, his descent decelerated to a slightly less scary 120mph.
THE death-defying stunt took just 2 minutes and 9 seconds to complete, during which Luke’s heart rate peaked at 148 beats per minute — which doctors say is relatively modest.
LUKE’S fall was cushioned by a superstrong 10,000 sq ft net — equivalent to roughly three tennis courts — strung between four 200ft, 70-ton cranes.
THE net was constructed using a material called Spectra, a highdensity polyethylene cord that is twice as strong as steel.
HOWEVER, the net was not unbreakable; on one practice run a 200lb weight didn’t just bounce out of the net, it crashed straight through it. Luke’s weight is approximately 14st (196lb).
WHiLE the net measured 100ft by 100ft, Luke’s focus during the freefall was on a 28ft-by-28ft ‘sweetspot’ in the middle — a target he hit on all 81 out of his last 81 practice jumps.
25,000FT is just below what climbers call the death zone, where the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere falls to a third of what it is at sea level — as a result, Luke had an oxygen tank for the first 10,000ft of his fall.
WHEn Luke leapt on Saturday, the temperature was close to minus 17c (0f) and wind speed a relatively modest 5mph.
OF THE three skydivers jumping with him (all with parachutes), one jumper’s job was to collect Luke’s discarded oxygen tank, while another carried a camera and the third trailed smoke so that people on the ground could follow the descent.
WHiLE Luke wore a GPS device for tracking purposes, his own journey to earth was guided largely by eight high-tech lights in formation on the ground below.
THE intricate system of PAPi lights (Precision Approach Path indicators), similar to those used to guide planes on landing, point straight up and use a special lens to emit red and white beams (white while indicating the correct trajectory) — and they were just about all Luke could see on the ground when he started his descent. AT 12,000ft, a beep sounded in an ear device, alerting the skydiver to the halfway point, followed by another alert at 6,000ft and a final alert at 2,000ft.
THE final 5,000ft of the descent was completed alone, with the three other members of the team deploying parachutes.
SKYDIVERS guide their route by descending belly-first, but Luke had to flip onto his back (a move that he could be seen practising during the descent) at 200ft to ensure that he did not snap his spine on landing.
THE daredevil lost two stone in weight in preparation for the jump and employed a gymnast to help him perfect his landing, the 3.9 Gforce of which is comparable to a high-force rollercoaster, and far less than that endured by a fighter pilot during a jet’s vertical acceleration.
A MEMBER of the support team had the daunting task of pressing a button to release the net — taut right up until the very last second — moments before touchdown to ensure the landing was not equivalent to Luke hitting a solid surface.
OnCE Luke’s plummeting body hit the net, four compressed air cylinders, connected to the netting via ropes and pulleys, slowed him down in the same way you might catch an egg in your hand — by decelerating it gently over a distance.
An EXPERiEnCED parachutist, Luke has completed more than 18,000 jumps, making his first tandem jump when he was just 12 and his first solo leap four years later — following in the footsteps of most of his family, including his mother, who completed six jumps while she was pregnant with her daring son.
IN ALL those years of jumping, Luke needed to use his emergency chute on 30 occasions.
WHEn the hair-raising plan was first broached, it was suggested the team build an 800ft slide and have Luke land near the top, then glide to earth. Unsurprisingly, he said no.