Much of the world looks upon the adrenaline junkies who jump out of "perfectly good airplanes" as crazy, but jumping from 25,000 feet without a parachute or wingsuit? That would just be suicide, right? Not anymore. Luke Aikins recently plummeted from an airplane at 25,000 feet without any kind of parachute, landing neatly in a square 100 feet x 100 feet net set up to catch him. He landed at terminal velocity or 120 mph. Utterly crazy and even stupid, right? The guy has a wife and a four-year-old son.

But there is another angle to this story. Aikins was clear that this stunt involved a ridiculous amount of training. For starters, the 42-year-old has over 18,000 jumps to his name. Then according to CNN, "He prepared for the stunt by doing dozens of jumps—each, naturally, wearing a parachute—aiming at a 100 square foot target, opening his chute at the last possible moment. In his practice jumps he would pull the cord at 1,000 feet, something he had to get special dispensation for. He said in the runup to the jump that he had consistently been hitting a much smaller target, giving him greater leeway with the full-sized net."

As Aikins said, "Whenever people attempt to push the limits of what's considered humanly possible, they're invariably described as crazy. I'm here to show you that if we approach it the right way and we test it and we prove that it's good to go, we can do things that we don't think are possible."

Possible Preaching Angle:

Okay, so the guy still might be insane, but he does have a good point: proper training will get you to places you never thought possible.

Source:

Euan McKirdy, World first: Skydiver plummets 25,000 feet -- with no parachute,” CNN (8-7-16)