Valuetainment

00:00:00.000 They say, hey, Luke, we got this idea.

00:00:01.520 We want you to jump without a parachute.

00:00:03.260 And I laughed.

00:00:04.580 I got a wife and a son, and I want to be here to talk about it.

00:00:07.700 How much of this has to do with math?

00:00:10.260 How much is science?

00:00:11.480 How much is psychological?

00:00:12.780 How much is preparation?

00:00:13.940 How much is the right team?

00:00:15.080 I mean, how do you go about preparing for something like this?

00:00:17.340 I think if you don't have all those things, I'm not here talking to you today.

00:00:20.180 I think you have to stack the deck in your favor.

00:00:22.160 And I can only imagine the conversations.

00:00:23.720 Are you sure you want to do this?

00:00:25.000 What were those talks like?

00:00:26.300 Best talks that we've ever had in our whole relationship.

00:00:28.660 I've been married 19 years.

00:00:30.240 Luke, if you had to do it, how could you do it?

00:00:32.480 Is there a way to do it safe?

00:00:33.580 You don't have the level of fear that people have.

00:00:36.300 What do you fear?

00:00:37.320 Yeah, I think I got this.

00:00:38.400 I think everything's going to work out great.

00:00:39.740 What if it doesn't?

00:00:40.560 And why would I want to do something like this?

00:00:42.260 I need to treat this just like another jump.

00:00:44.280 I saw the video.

00:00:45.200 I can't even tell where you're landing.

00:00:47.100 It's tiny.

00:00:47.940 It is so small.

00:00:48.960 I mean, I have over 20,000 jumps.

00:00:50.440 I did about 350 jumps getting ready for this.

00:00:53.320 You could do something that seems impossible if you go about it the right way.

00:00:57.100 Really, it's a simple physics problem.

00:01:00.440 Let's take 220 pounds going 130 miles an hour, and we need to stop it in about 200 feet.

00:01:09.720 It's insane.

00:01:10.560 You know, a lot of people consider themselves thrill seekers.

00:01:16.660 I, myself, yesterday at my house, my dad was in town.

00:01:18.920 My dad is sitting there.

00:01:20.160 It's myself and a few of our friends, and he says, this jalapeno is very spicy.

00:01:24.800 Can you take it?

00:01:25.800 Mario takes it.

00:01:26.640 He starts crying.

00:01:27.400 I'm like, give me a break.

00:01:29.020 I can have this jalapeno.

00:01:30.200 So he gives me the jalapeno.

00:01:31.680 I take it.

00:01:33.060 For the first five seconds, I look very brave.

00:01:35.080 15 seconds, I'm good.

00:01:36.700 30 seconds, I'm good.

00:01:37.740 A minute later, I have the milk, bread, anything you can think about because I was crying like

00:01:42.240 a little baby.

00:01:43.580 But if you think you're a thrill seeker, today is the ultimate thrill seeker because our friend

00:01:48.040 today, Luke Atkins, who is a third generation jumper, he's jumped over nearly 20,000 times.

00:01:54.980 He's been a stuntman, and I think Ironman, and Godzilla, and a couple other things that

00:01:58.840 he's worked on.

00:01:59.580 He decided recently on July 30th of 2016, I believe it's July 30th, 2016, to jump with

00:02:07.700 no parachute.

00:02:08.640 Yes, we're talking about jumping with no parachute, 25,000 feet in air, and land in a net.

00:02:16.680 You couldn't even see where he was landing, but he was able to pull it off, and there were

00:02:20.380 millions of people to watch it worldwide, on the social media, TV, news, all this other

00:02:25.040 stuff.

00:02:25.580 So he's with us.

00:02:26.340 Luke, thank you so much for being a guest on Valuetainment.

00:02:28.520 Hey, thanks for having me.

00:02:29.540 I'm stoked to talk to you.

00:02:30.920 So Luke, I mean, what's the story with wanting to jump out of a plane with no parachutes?

00:02:35.220 I mean, there's better things to do in life.

00:02:37.040 You have a, I think your son's name is Logan.

00:02:39.340 I think you're married.

00:02:40.280 You're happily married.

00:02:40.920 I mean, why would you want to jump out of it, 25 feet up without any parachute?

00:02:45.100 Sort of funny story.

00:02:46.220 I got a phone call that said, hey, Luke, will you sign an NDA, a non-disclosure agreement?

00:02:50.800 And I was like, sure, I get to hear about all kinds of cool stuff.

00:02:53.240 After I helped Felix Baumgartner jump from the edge of space and some other things I've

00:02:56.640 done, and they give me this thing, and I was sure I sign it, and they get me on the

00:03:00.360 phone, and they say, hey, Luke, we got this idea.

00:03:02.680 We want you to jump without a parachute.

00:03:04.520 And I laughed, and I told him thanks, but no thanks.

00:03:08.140 I got a wife and a son, the exact things you're just saying.

00:03:11.180 I might appear to be this crazy nutball, but hey, man, I got a life.

00:03:14.620 I need to be around.

00:03:15.880 I couldn't figure out how to do it.

00:03:17.260 I said, thanks, but no thanks.

00:03:18.500 I'll help you find somebody.

00:03:19.740 I'll find the crazy guy to do it.

00:03:21.420 Then I started thinking in my mind.

00:03:23.160 I kept waking up in the middle of the night.

00:03:24.620 Luke, if you had to do it, how could you do it?

00:03:26.860 Is there a way to do it safe?

00:03:28.120 How can we get there?

00:03:29.300 And then I started coming up and churning, calling people, and I called them back, and

00:03:33.100 I said, hey, I think I'm in.

00:03:34.780 Let's do it like this.

00:03:36.620 And then what happened next?

00:03:37.880 So you say you're in, because I'm assuming for a guy, I watch some of the interviews,

00:03:42.140 I watch the videos.

00:03:43.200 How much of this has to do with math?

00:03:45.780 How much is science?

00:03:47.000 How much is psychological?

00:03:48.300 How much is preparation?

00:03:49.460 How much is the right team?

00:03:50.840 I mean, how do you go about preparing for something like this?

00:03:53.520 I think if you don't have all those things, I'm not here talking to you today.

00:03:56.220 I think you have to stack the deck in your favor.

00:04:00.500 I just finished working with David Blaine, so I got a lot of card references right now.

00:04:03.800 So you stack the deck by, you know, coming up with the idea.

00:04:07.440 This guy came to me with the idea, Chris Talley, and I was like, you know, no way.

00:04:10.960 And then I started thinking, okay, maybe there's a way to do it.

00:04:13.660 Let's do it.

00:04:14.680 I started calling some stunt guys.

00:04:16.340 And really, it's a simple physics problem.

00:04:18.540 Let's take 220 pounds, going 130 miles an hour, and we need to stop it safely in about

00:04:25.280 200 feet.

00:04:26.460 And how do we do it?

00:04:27.700 So it's like a kid's science project on a massive scale that you get to test at the end

00:04:32.400 with your life.

00:04:33.960 So that part was pretty cool.

00:04:36.120 Yeah.

00:04:36.460 By the way, how old were you when you had your first jump?

00:04:39.060 I was 12 years old when I made my first tandem skydive.

00:04:42.840 And I started jumping by myself when I was 16.

00:04:45.880 At 16.

00:04:46.760 And then the family, it started off with your grandpa, I believe, right?

00:04:50.320 Yeah.

00:04:50.580 My grandpa got shot down during the war, tried to open up the cockpit and bail out.

00:04:55.360 A crash landed in Allied territory in a field, all fine, came back from the war.

00:04:59.880 And he always wondered what it would have been like that day if he could have jumped out.

00:05:03.600 So him and a buddy went to a skydiving club in the 60s and made one jump.

00:05:08.200 He fell in love with it back when instructors had five jumps.

00:05:11.580 And he got the family business started.

00:05:14.700 And my aunt and uncle took that club and turned it into a full-blown family operation that they're

00:05:19.700 running to today.

00:05:20.820 Now, I remember being in the Army.

00:05:22.360 I was at 101st Airborne when you would hear stories of guys who would go to become jumpers

00:05:26.920 back in the 60s, there was a risk of breaking your knee because the way you were coming down

00:05:31.840 and technology wasn't as good.

00:05:33.780 The equipment wasn't as good.

00:05:35.200 How much has, you know, equipment and technology advanced over the last 1960s, last 50, 60 years?

00:05:41.840 It's insane.

00:05:42.820 So like back when you jumped and you had to be tough, you just had to be tough.

00:05:46.960 There was no way around it.

00:05:48.080 They're coming down a round parachute.

00:05:49.740 It's simply how big is the parachute?

00:05:51.720 How much do you weigh?

00:05:52.600 That controls how hard you hit the ground.

00:05:54.620 Then technology changed.

00:05:55.960 They came up with a parafoil design, which is more like the wing of an airplane.

00:06:00.480 And now we're gliding in with the materials and the design changes.

00:06:03.400 We're gliding in like a glider airplane and we flare the parachute out.

00:06:07.160 And we get tiptoe landings nowadays compared to back then.

00:06:10.000 I mean, respect for all those guys in the Army.

00:06:12.020 They're still doing it today, right?

00:06:13.280 Yeah, they're still doing it today.

00:06:14.780 All that stuff, bailing out and crash landing in a field and then have to go to work.

00:06:18.460 I was at 101st Airborne, even though it was an airborne unit.

00:06:21.180 By the time I got that, they stopped airborne.

00:06:23.240 They did aerosol.

00:06:24.080 So I only did aerosol.

00:06:25.340 I never had the opportunity to do airborne, but I respected airborne guys like yourself.

00:06:30.360 So, you know, there is this real cool picture you showed of your entire family.

00:06:34.980 It was like two cousins, grandpa, aunt, auntie.

00:06:38.580 Can you talk?

00:06:39.260 I mean, assume the audience is looking at the picture right now.

00:06:42.060 Talk about the picture that you have with your family jumping.

00:06:44.100 Yeah, so my family's got, you know, I grew up on it.

00:06:47.460 When I was 16, it wasn't so much of if you were going to jump, it's when.

00:06:51.960 You know, as soon as I was able, we jumped right in there.

00:06:54.260 And I was the older of a bunch of my cousins.

00:06:56.800 So we all started skydiving.

00:06:58.320 As it got bigger and bigger, we started jumping more and more.

00:07:01.740 And most people, you know, you go play sports at high school.

00:07:03.740 At the end of the day, you'd zip back over, jump back into skydiving, pack parachutes to make more jumps.

00:07:09.200 And it was kind of like a family business.

00:07:11.180 If you worked at a restaurant, you're a busboy.

00:07:13.200 In our family, you pack parachutes.

00:07:16.820 It's similar to my conversation with Walanda, where he said seven generation, they walked on wire rope, tight ropes.

00:07:22.620 And that's what they did for a living.

00:07:23.860 And that was their family thing.

00:07:24.900 But do you notice a common thread or a common trend with people that you run into that are obsessive or love jumping as much as you do?

00:07:35.300 Is there a commonality?

00:07:37.320 Yeah.

00:07:37.560 What I think it does is skydiving gives you a freedom, whether you're a world-class skydiver or someone who just made a jump or two.

00:07:45.740 And you have this common bond.

00:07:47.700 You find this small group of people that not very many people in the world have experienced what you have.

00:07:51.980 And it kind of draws you in.

00:07:54.020 And it kind of consumes your life.

00:07:55.780 And it becomes part of you have this bond that not many people have of jumping out of an airplane together.

00:08:00.540 I mean, in the world, you know, maybe there's 300,000 people who've made a skydive, including one jump, you know.

00:08:06.840 And that's a very small group of people on the planet that have gotten to feel what you do.

00:08:11.160 So I think it draws you in.

00:08:12.820 And then you just want to get some people have a competitive spirit.

00:08:15.520 You want to just go, go, go and be a world-class competitor.

00:08:18.000 Or you just want the freedom of a guy on the weekend going out to the Y and playing basketball with their friends.

00:08:23.120 It's the same thing with skydiving.

00:08:24.420 Just a little more adventurous.

00:08:25.840 Yeah.

00:08:25.940 There seems to be a very common personality on how they are and, you know, what, you know.

00:08:32.680 It's very interesting when I run into them.

00:08:34.480 I have friends that are just diehard jumpers and they can't get enough of it.

00:08:37.800 They can't wait for the next one.

00:08:39.220 It's like they're fiending it.

00:08:40.460 It's like an addict.

00:08:41.600 I got to have my next jump.

00:08:43.040 I get that feeling about him.

00:08:44.380 But since your jump that you had, you know, the year Roger Bannister broke the record a four-minute mile.

00:08:50.700 You know, they say, oh, when he ran, broke the four-minute mile, 30-something people did it the following year.

00:08:55.280 Ever since you jumped without a parachute, how many people have done it since you?

00:08:59.480 Nobody.

00:09:00.580 See, that's what's crazy about it.

00:09:02.700 That's what's crazy about this record, Luke.

00:09:04.400 I mean, I know for you, you know, you're the person that did it.

00:09:08.620 We're the audience.

00:09:09.860 Okay?

00:09:10.080 So there's 7.7 billion people in the world.

00:09:13.240 A lot of people can say they climbed Mount Everest.

00:09:16.240 A lot of people can say they did a lot of different.

00:09:17.780 There's many billionaires in the world.

00:09:19.660 There are four trillion-dollar companies in the world.

00:09:22.440 There's only one, let me say the proper adjective, courageous guy.

00:09:28.980 There's only one courageous guy that jumped out of a plane 25,000 feet, 215, 220 pounds, going 120 miles an hour with 200 feet at the bottom that was willing to do it.

00:09:39.960 Can you kind of take a couple minutes and walk us through the entire process?

00:09:44.580 I know you said Felix called you.

00:09:46.140 You said yes.

00:09:46.740 You signed the NDA.

00:09:47.800 You kind of went through the process of that.

00:09:49.780 But then what happened from there?

00:09:51.440 The day of, talking to family, preparation, concerns, fears.

00:09:55.300 Walk us through a little bit.

00:09:56.340 Yeah, no problem.

00:09:57.620 First off, when you say, like, I'm the only person who's done it, this is true.

00:10:01.400 Travis Pastrana jumped out without a parachute but clipped into somebody.

00:10:05.240 You know, they've all landed with the parachute.

00:10:06.680 This was the first time doing it without a parachute, without anything, and coming all the way to the net.

00:10:11.780 And I think that what that shows, that nobody has attempted it, it's interesting because for my skydiver friends, my peers, I would say, my equals in skydiving, the respect that you get, and like some people say it's crazy, it's stupid, why would you do it?

00:10:26.840 But to a person, every single person's come back to me saying that that moment that you step out and that commitment and the self-confidence to be able to make something like that happen is something that just doesn't come along.

00:10:37.540 And I think that doing it once, I'm done.

00:10:41.460 You know, I did it one time, that's good.

00:10:43.140 And I think people really realized how serious that was.

00:10:46.320 But going back to, I get the call, hey, can you do this?

00:10:50.100 How can we do it?

00:10:50.800 They had an idea of a giant slide, landing on a giant half pipe in like the Grand Canyon, sliding it out.

00:10:57.000 Theoretically, that makes sense to me.

00:10:58.560 You match the wall with your body and you come down, you touch the wall and you slide out like a big skateboard ramp.

00:11:04.140 I just couldn't figure out how can you test that?

00:11:06.060 Can you drop something in that net and make it swoop out?

00:11:09.180 Again, I got a wife and a son and I want to be here to talk about it.

00:11:13.260 You know, I wanted to see, is there a way I could do this where it's not the flip of a coin?

00:11:16.920 I really worked hard to make sure that, yes, I'm the crazy guy that jumped out of a plane without a parachute.

00:11:21.780 But I also wanted to show that you could do something that seems impossible if you go about it the right way.

00:11:27.340 We made baby steps.

00:11:28.520 So came up with the netting idea to land in a giant, almost like a circus net, really strong netting.

00:11:34.460 And then to slow it down, we used air cylinders, big pistons.

00:11:38.800 So when you hit the net, it compressed the air and it pulled it out.

00:11:42.980 There was talk about bungee cords and all different kinds of things.

00:11:46.240 But the only thing I could picture is Wile E. Coyote hitting a net and shooting back up in the space.

00:11:50.440 So we end up with this air system and this net.

00:11:53.920 And then we want to know, hey, can this work?

00:11:55.720 You know, like I want to see, is this even possible?

00:11:58.020 So we built a half scale model in a friend's yard, Jim Churchman, the stunt coordinator down in California.

00:12:04.140 We started dropping punching bags filled with weights into this net and measuring the G-forces.

00:12:09.700 And then we start to figure out, wow, we can actually do this.

00:12:13.080 So then we built a full scale one, a 100 feet by 100 feet.

00:12:16.900 We took it out in the middle of the desert.

00:12:18.360 We took a helicopter.

00:12:19.440 Aaron Fitzgerald flies this dummy up.

00:12:21.760 We called it a dummy.

00:12:23.160 It was this weight that matched my weight in the same drag.

00:12:26.560 And we started dropping it in the net from lower and lower.

00:12:29.300 My wife and son come out to watch.

00:12:31.020 And we're measuring the G-forces.

00:12:32.280 And they come out to check it out.

00:12:33.820 The very first drop, they take this thing up in the air and they drop it.

00:12:38.380 It cuts through the net like butter and smashes into the ground right in front of my wife and son.

00:12:44.280 Camera crews are all filmed documentary.

00:12:46.360 They all turn to my wife right away.

00:12:49.440 And my wife has a big smile on her face. 0.98

00:12:51.260 And they're like, oh, Luke, you know what's going on?

00:12:52.920 This is over.

00:12:53.720 We haven't even gotten started.

00:12:54.960 They all think it's over.

00:12:56.220 And my wife looked at me and the cameras and she said, well, I think it's great because now it's not happening.

00:13:02.700 You know, we're not doing this thing.

00:13:04.860 So for her, it was a moment.

00:13:05.920 But she really didn't want it to happen.

00:13:07.960 It wasn't so much she didn't want it to happen.

00:13:09.660 It was just she understands the reality of how dangerous this is.

00:13:12.200 Got it.

00:13:12.400 Yeah.

00:13:12.660 But when that didn't work, she knows I'm not going to do it if that's how it works.

00:13:16.000 So in her mind, okay, this is done.

00:13:18.240 We're not doing this thing.

00:13:19.280 We're going to collect a little paycheck and hang out.

00:13:21.040 And that's that.

00:13:22.600 And then as the testing started coming along and we started, we fixed the netting.

00:13:26.680 We fixed the problem with how it ended up going through the net.

00:13:29.600 We get everything sorted out.

00:13:30.780 And then it all starts to hit home.

00:13:32.200 It starts to get real that, you know, we're doing this, you know, and that's when my wife

00:13:37.180 and I had to have some real talks about the possibilities that could come from this.

00:13:41.120 You know, we went into this with our eyes open.

00:13:42.840 We definitely were not everything's rosy and there's no way anything bad can happen.

00:13:48.420 I think that the guys that go into big stunts like this with that attitude where nothing

00:13:52.800 can happen to me.

00:13:53.760 I think that they're naive and irresponsible.

00:13:56.660 You know, we are taking a risk when you step off and do something like that.

00:14:00.240 Now I've stacked the deck in my favor.

00:14:02.220 We've calculated it.

00:14:03.360 It's calculated risk.

00:14:04.720 It's not flip of a coin.

00:14:06.220 Fingers crossed.

00:14:07.040 Maybe it'll work.

00:14:08.260 It was very dialed in that we were certain it was going to work.

00:14:10.840 I just had to do my job and hit that net that day.

00:14:14.060 And, you know, we had those long talks with the wife.

00:14:17.180 It was a real deal.

00:14:18.980 And what was that like?

00:14:20.820 Because, I mean, I can only imagine the conversations.

00:14:22.960 Are you sure you want to do this?

00:14:24.220 I mean, you know, we have a life ahead of us.

00:14:26.340 You know, what if something goes wrong?

00:14:28.560 What were those talks like?

00:14:30.460 So, you know, before we went down to California, it was like, yeah, it's getting closer.

00:14:34.260 It's getting real.

00:14:34.900 We finally got permission to do this without a parachute, to not to wear a parachute from

00:14:38.880 the FAA.

00:14:39.700 And then for me, that was the day it got real for me.

00:14:42.260 I always thought someone's going to step in, Luke, and stop this, right?

00:14:46.080 We announced it on Fox.

00:14:47.340 This is happening live.

00:14:48.920 I'm sure.

00:14:49.600 I'm confident.

00:14:50.560 But I'm confident somebody is going to step in and say, hey, whoa, whoa, pump the brakes.

00:14:55.620 You can't do this, especially not live on TV.

00:14:59.080 And we get a letter saying, not that we support it from the FAA, but we see that you found

00:15:05.040 essentially a loophole in the rules and there's nothing that we could do to stop this.

00:15:10.020 And at that moment on, I was like, whoa, it got very real for me.

00:15:14.060 And so I was in the mindset of it happening.

00:15:16.980 On our way to California, my wife got very quiet.

00:15:19.580 We flew our own little private Cessna down.

00:15:21.840 She was very quiet on the plane ride a couple of days in.

00:15:24.120 And then we're out at the site and she's watching and seeing everything goes.

00:15:28.220 And I woke up two days before the jump.

00:15:30.140 I walked out onto the beach and we're staying a little beach house there in Oxnard.

00:15:35.600 It's a friend's house.

00:15:36.380 And she goes, hey, can I go out with you?

00:15:37.760 I was like, sure.

00:15:38.360 Our son was sleeping.

00:15:39.600 We walked out on the beach and we sat there.

00:15:41.680 It's probably, I almost get emotional talking about it now.

00:15:44.180 It's probably one of the best talks that we've ever had in our whole relationship.

00:15:47.940 I've been married 19 years.

00:15:49.020 And I asked her flat out, I said, you know, where's Logan going to be?

00:15:53.160 Where's our son going to be when the jump happens?

00:15:55.500 And she had a different answer than I expected.

00:15:58.520 I wanted him to be with her and all that.

00:16:01.280 And she said, Logan's going to be with my mom.

00:16:03.900 I want to be as close to the net as possible.

00:16:06.580 If something happens, I have the rest of my life to be with our son.

00:16:09.740 But I have only that moment with you, which is like, I mean, that's a real, that answer

00:16:15.780 I was not expecting.

00:16:17.220 She had obviously put a lot of thought into this, you know, we talked about it and she

00:16:21.600 had, she's very practical and she had thoughts of, well, if something happens, how do we get

00:16:25.920 this airplane home that we flew down in?

00:16:28.180 What logistically has to happen?

00:16:29.880 She's very, I think that's the way she helped deal with it was thinking very clinically about

00:16:34.540 those kinds of things.

00:16:35.580 But, you know, we went in with our eyes fully open to the possibilities.

00:16:40.060 Now we had that talk after that, we took a nice deep breath and, you know, everything

00:16:44.580 moved forward just like it planned.

00:16:46.420 She did have power at that jump that nobody knew she had. 0.91

00:16:50.540 She had a radio to talk to the pilot in the airplane.

00:16:53.880 The pilot was a lifelong friend.

00:16:55.640 If she had any bad feelings, anything she didn't like, she was going to call up to Dave and

00:17:00.920 tell, say, Hey, Dave, Monica, Dave was going to wiggle the tail of the airplane.

00:17:05.260 And I would have sat down and not jump.

00:17:07.760 And like I said, that would have been almost harder than actually jumping, but she had 0.60

00:17:11.740 all of that control right up, right up until we went.

00:17:14.760 Who knew that only you, Dave and Monica knew that nobody else knew.

00:17:18.380 That's correct.

00:17:19.520 Nobody.

00:17:20.040 Wow.

00:17:20.800 She had a radio that would talk to him and it was kind of our little thing.

00:17:24.900 I said, if you get any feelings, you don't like something, you're not happy.

00:17:28.420 You know, this is about us and our family.

00:17:30.200 It's about me.

00:17:30.760 Obviously I'm the greedy one that wants to jump out and play without a parachute.

00:17:34.280 She wouldn't choose to do that, but you know, we are a family and we got to do this together.

00:17:39.380 What a, what a cool story.

00:17:40.940 Did you have any conversations with Logan as well?

00:17:43.360 Did he kind of know what's going on and what was his reaction?

00:17:46.600 So Logan was four at the time.

00:17:48.640 Okay.

00:17:49.080 He understands skydiving.

00:17:50.660 He's been around and he's seen his whole life.

00:17:52.040 Uh, he did ask me, there was talk in the beginning, whether I was going to use this net or an airbag.

00:17:56.440 And it went back and forth, back and forth.

00:17:57.840 And he heard the conversations and my wife was involved listening.

00:18:01.120 And one night I was put in a bed.

00:18:02.840 He goes, Hey dad, are you going to use an airbag or a net?

00:18:05.980 What are you going to use?

00:18:07.180 If he was four.

00:18:08.360 And I said, I don't know, Logan, whichever one's safer.

00:18:11.520 And he said, well, what if neither one are safe?

00:18:13.920 I said, then we won't do it.

00:18:15.380 And he's like, okay.

00:18:16.840 And he goes back to his Legos.

00:18:18.060 You know what I mean?

00:18:18.360 That's a kid, right?

00:18:19.500 He's like, okay.

00:18:20.100 Dad says he's only going to do it if it's safe.

00:18:22.200 That's it.

00:18:22.800 You know?

00:18:23.220 So when I look back on it and I know he was sitting there when I did the jump.

00:18:27.400 And nowadays, I think that's crazy.

00:18:29.900 Looking back, thinking, you know, my son was sitting right there and you know, you're, you're throwing it all out there.

00:18:35.920 Yeah.

00:18:36.440 I mean, I saw that when, I think the first guy came out, he gave you a high five.

00:18:40.600 Then your wife gave you a big hug and you saw everybody else that was there when you landed, uh, the jump.

00:18:46.180 So you said something, you said when you, when you met with the CEO,

00:18:50.100 Seattle Seahawks psychologist, Mike Gervais, he told you that every time somebody is about to face something big two weeks before the event, they have a moment where it's kind of like, you're almost a second guessing yourself.

00:19:03.460 Did you have that moment privately yourself or no?

00:19:06.540 Yeah.

00:19:06.900 And so Mike Gervais, such a cool dude.

00:19:09.060 He helped off Felix Baumgartner, jumped from the edge of space.

00:19:12.040 He was there helping get over some mental claustrophobia, some stuff like that.

00:19:15.360 And Mike, I knew him then he came in to just, you know, put a little sanity in this thing, right?

00:19:20.380 You're jumping out and playing without a parachute.

00:19:22.040 And he had a couple of good points.

00:19:23.660 He asked me, I'm a big sports guy.

00:19:25.320 He said, Luke, I've worked with a couple of big NFL teams and done this stuff.

00:19:28.440 How are you going to approach this jump?

00:19:30.460 Is this the biggest jump of your life or is this just another jump?

00:19:34.640 He said, neither one of them is wrong way to approach it.

00:19:37.500 It's just a different mindset.

00:19:39.160 Is this the biggest thing you're ever going to do?

00:19:41.060 Or is this the, the, just another day.

00:19:44.540 And I told him in that moment, right.

00:19:46.280 Then I said, Mike, this is the biggest jump I'm ever going to do.

00:19:49.380 He thought for me, he goes, okay.

00:19:50.920 And we started to approach it like that.

00:19:52.800 That night I went to sleep and I called him back the next day.

00:19:56.440 I called Mike and I said, you know what?

00:19:58.420 This is just another jump.

00:19:59.920 I need to treat this just like another jump.

00:20:02.140 And he said, that's great.

00:20:03.380 That's the way he figured I would be thinking.

00:20:06.480 But so Mike worked with me with that.

00:20:08.480 And he said to me, at some point, you're going to have these thoughts about, Hey, what, what

00:20:13.320 are you, what are you doing?

00:20:14.060 Why would you do this?

00:20:14.860 You know, those kinds of things.

00:20:16.100 He said it usually, he thought it would happen before two weeks.

00:20:19.020 Um, and really I didn't have that moment until I was about halfway up on the airplane on

00:20:24.060 game day, right?

00:20:25.280 I'm riding up in the plane about halfway up.

00:20:27.160 You have an oxygen mask on and you just hear yourself breathing like Darth Vader, right?

00:20:31.840 There's, you're all alone.

00:20:33.240 You can't talk because everyone has the oxygen on.

00:20:36.340 And I started thinking I had flashbacks of my son and my wife and like, Hey, why am I

00:20:40.920 doing this?

00:20:41.560 You know what I mean?

00:20:42.100 Like, yeah, I think I got this.

00:20:43.740 I think everything's going to work out great, but what if it doesn't?

00:20:46.380 And why would I want to do something like this?

00:20:48.060 Um, put all of this at risk.

00:20:49.960 I've built this life for myself.

00:20:51.560 And why would you risk that?

00:20:53.440 And in that moment in the plane, my cousin, Andy was jumping with me.

00:20:57.180 He was one of the guys wearing a camera.

00:20:58.480 He was also taking the oxygen system from me.

00:21:00.440 Andy reaches over and he gives me a Charlie horse on my right thigh, punches my leg, points

00:21:06.920 to his altimeter and goes like this, like, calm down.

00:21:09.620 You got a second.

00:21:10.660 It's that nonverbal communication that we had.

00:21:13.020 He's got 5,000 jumps with me in that moment.

00:21:15.560 It shook it off.

00:21:16.680 And I only thought about the jump from that moment on moving forward.

00:21:20.220 That was that moment in my mind.

00:21:22.420 And Mike thought it would happen way before, way before I was about to jump.

00:21:26.720 But, but I had that, that feeling for sure.

00:21:29.460 That's, that's great to have somebody like that prepare you with it.

00:21:32.200 This is going to be the biggest event of your life, or it's going to be one of the events.

00:21:35.900 Did he explain to you why either matter in preparation?

00:21:39.440 Did he break that down or no?

00:21:41.680 A little bit.

00:21:42.980 What he, he didn't want to direct me.

00:21:45.260 He's very, very, Mike is top, I mean, he's world-class.

00:21:48.880 He doesn't really tell you what, like, I always want to answer a guy like that, a psychiatrist.

00:21:53.280 I want to answer correctly, right?

00:21:54.640 I'm looking for the right answer.

00:21:55.860 Like he says, Hey, what are you?

00:21:57.180 I want him to tell me what I should be feeling.

00:21:59.400 Right.

00:21:59.680 And he's pretty good at keeping you, you know, making those decisions.

00:22:02.360 Um, and I will say that when we started talking about the biggest jump of my life, I think

00:22:07.560 that's a different preparation.

00:22:08.740 You're like, this is the biggest, it psychs you up.

00:22:10.960 You know, you have to get to a different energy level, right?

00:22:13.620 Super bowl.

00:22:14.340 You're coming out charging.

00:22:15.480 Yeah.

00:22:15.600 Um, or do you want to be my personal peak performance is not at a 10.

00:22:20.780 It's about a seven or a five and a half to a seven is where I personally can focus.

00:22:25.980 You're not over amped on the world and all these outside forces you could focus, but you

00:22:30.640 are jacked up for the moment.

00:22:31.820 So there is a difference in how you would prepare for something like this.

00:22:35.500 There's a reason why he is who he is.

00:22:37.120 So I wonder, you know, why he felt, uh, said that whether it's the biggest or not, uh, if

00:22:42.700 it was a method for him to, uh, alleviate some of the pressure of you, but going back

00:22:47.720 to the jump.

00:22:48.160 So your, your, uh, your friend, I think you said your cousin or somebody who's got 5,000

00:22:52.700 jumps with you.

00:22:53.360 He punches you, gives you a charley horse and you're about to jump.

00:22:56.920 So then you jump out.

00:22:58.080 Okay.

00:22:58.840 When you jump out, the jump is what?

00:23:00.760 Two minutes and 39 seconds.

00:23:02.060 I don't know if it's two minutes and 30 seconds.

00:23:04.020 It's something like that.

00:23:04.860 It's about two minutes and six seconds till I hit the net.

00:23:08.120 Oh, till you hit the net.

00:23:08.840 Okay.

00:23:09.200 So it's two minutes and six seconds when you're hitting the net.

00:23:11.700 So you're going down when you're all the way at the top and you jump.

00:23:15.400 I saw the video.

00:23:17.120 I can't, I can't even tell where you're landing.

00:23:20.040 It's tiny.

00:23:20.980 It was so small.

00:23:22.520 It's, uh, you can see the area.

00:23:24.580 You can't see the net, but you see the area you're headed.

00:23:27.820 So you can start heading that direction.

00:23:29.800 Uh, and then about halfway down, you really start to pick out the pieces, but it's no joke.

00:23:33.860 I mean, when I jumped out, you couldn't make out the net.

00:23:36.800 You can make out the area where the net was.

00:23:38.760 You knew you're in the right area, but you really can't see it.

00:23:41.780 And, and while you're going to, I'm assuming that when you do this 20,000 times, you kind

00:23:45.300 of have a way of a moving your body and maneuvering.

00:23:48.200 So you kind of know how to center yourself.

00:23:49.680 How hard is that to do with all the wind, with movements, everything going on?

00:23:54.360 So that was the second biggest thing, right?

00:23:56.000 We figured out how to make the net.

00:23:57.220 We knew the net would work.

00:23:58.080 We dropped these dummies in there, measured the G forces.

00:24:00.640 Jim Churchman had dialed in.

00:24:01.880 And we knew if I hit the net, I'm good.

00:24:03.620 But the biggest thing about this is hitting that net.

00:24:06.380 Imagine being in a river or out in the ocean, you go out in the ocean and you hit the tide

00:24:10.040 and it starts to slide you down the beach a little bit, right?

00:24:13.020 If you want to always stay in the same spot on the beach, you have to swim forward.

00:24:16.300 The tide gets stronger.

00:24:17.440 You have to swim faster, less you swim slower.

00:24:19.880 Same with the wind, but the wind's coming from all different directions.

00:24:23.120 As you jump out, you have to start maneuvering your body forward.

00:24:26.700 Sometimes you're in this big forward movement, but that's because the wind is going 40 miles

00:24:31.060 an hour.

00:24:31.840 So that means you have to go 40 miles an hour forward to be able to go straight down.

00:24:36.780 So you have to manipulate that all the way down.

00:24:39.220 I had some lights that helped guide me in, but you're fighting that all the way down,

00:24:43.460 right?

00:24:43.680 Fighting the wind and working your way in and getting closer and closer.

00:24:47.160 And that took a lot of jumps.

00:24:48.980 I did, I mean, I have over 20,000 jumps.

00:24:51.240 I did about 350 jumps getting ready for this.

00:24:54.540 And I did 70, uh, my wife and I deal 75 jumps in a row, opening my parachute below 1000 feet

00:25:01.920 right above the top of the net.

00:25:03.380 So that's scary about itself opening below a thousand feet.

00:25:06.220 So I did 75 in a row, opening my parachute directly over the center.

00:25:10.880 And from a thousand feet to the net would it be about three seconds by the time you would fall

00:25:15.100 and nothing's going to grab you and throw you off for three seconds.

00:25:18.560 So we did that over and over.

00:25:20.120 By the time we did the real jump, which was my worst approach, by the way, the real deal,

00:25:24.780 um, ended up, I did 82 times in a row by the time we did it for real.

00:25:28.920 You can't throw a piece of garbage in a trash can 82 times in a row.

00:25:32.820 82 times in a row.

00:25:34.660 Yeah.

00:25:36.160 So, so you land, I saw when you landed, you didn't move for about eight seconds, nine seconds.

00:25:41.640 And then you started kicking, you know, you were all excited when you're kicking and then

00:25:45.660 you're on the ground, you give the high five, your wife gives you a hug.

00:25:48.400 Everybody's coming, celebrating with you.

00:25:50.120 How are you feeling at that moment?

00:25:51.700 So when I hit the net, like, and that's another thing that Mike told me, he's like, when,

00:25:55.860 when you land and this is all good, take a minute, take a second and just take it in.

00:26:00.540 And in that moment, I'm not an emotional guy.

00:26:02.740 I'm not into the touchy feely nonsense.

00:26:05.280 Uh, I'm more tough it out, rub some dirt on it and get going.

00:26:08.000 Um, in that moment, I put my hands over my head like this and it was just kind of overwhelming,

00:26:13.700 all that work, all that preparation.

00:26:15.920 And I did it, you know, and it just took a second.

00:26:18.500 Then I started celebrating.

00:26:19.460 And the best thing is that high five you see when I first hit the net, that was my medical

00:26:23.520 exam.

00:26:24.100 That was the doc.

00:26:26.340 I told him, I'm like, Hey, I'm either going to be okay, or it's not going to matter, you

00:26:30.420 know?

00:26:30.880 But that was my medical exam with a high five.

00:26:33.060 I mean, what's he going to do if you don't make it right?

00:26:36.300 I mean, that was kind of my point, but the, uh, I was honestly felt this like vibrating,

00:26:42.080 like feeling of the whole thing.

00:26:44.080 And I got to say, I wasn't so much, I liked Mike Trouvet as a dude, like a really great

00:26:49.480 guy.

00:26:49.700 I didn't really get in the beginning, the value that someone like that brings to someone

00:26:54.280 like me.

00:26:55.220 Um, I didn't really, I'm like, I'm well adjusted, uh, blah, blah.

00:26:58.240 But the stuff by the time up until about two weeks prior to the jump, I could visualize

00:27:03.920 myself hitting the net, making contact with the net, but nothing after that.

00:27:08.480 Right.

00:27:08.800 I couldn't see past that.

00:27:10.280 And about two weeks prior, I started thinking that I could see times like this, right?

00:27:14.320 I was visualizing, talking to people about it and moving on.

00:27:17.300 And those kinds of things help their little steps that I didn't think I needed, but in

00:27:22.200 the end were huge, right?

00:27:23.560 Very interesting.

00:27:26.400 Yeah.

00:27:26.560 For me, I'm like, I'm not meditating.

00:27:28.760 I'm not whatever.

00:27:29.460 And then Mike says, I got news for you.

00:27:31.520 You are meditating.

00:27:32.580 You just don't know it.

00:27:33.620 You know, the way I'm, the way I think about things is on the ride up in the plane, I'm

00:27:37.840 dirt diving into my head or I'm visualizing the jump down and the flip.

00:27:41.580 And I do it three or four times on the way up.

00:27:43.180 He's like, every time you do that, that is meditation.

00:27:45.640 That is focus.

00:27:46.780 I just don't sit there in a quiet room by myself and make um noises.

00:27:52.200 But it's all the same.

00:27:53.700 And that preparation was huge to be able to make me feel comfortable in the moment.

00:27:57.640 Luke, who's the craziest person that you least expected that you hadn't spoken for a while

00:28:02.960 that contacted you to say, congratulations.

00:28:05.700 Did you hear from a high school teacher or a friend from, was there anybody that's like,

00:28:10.660 I cannot believe you made this jump?

00:28:12.500 Yeah, I mean, tons of high school kids, you know, friends call you up and hit you up.

00:28:18.480 But for me, there were a few of the skydivers in the world that were like my idols when I grew up as a kid, right?

00:28:25.360 That like Craig Gerard, he was one of like the world famous skydiver for me.

00:28:28.840 Golden Knight was world champion, umpteen times over.

00:28:31.980 He made his way out to watch this jump in person that day.

00:28:34.920 And like, that was such a cool thing for me to feel like that I had made that, that jump, you know,

00:28:41.860 somebody that I looked up to as a skydiving, you know, type of hero.

00:28:45.480 And they're there and they acknowledged and appreciated what I did.

00:28:49.440 That's huge.

00:28:50.260 That's cool.

00:28:51.040 Somebody you admire that comes now watching you perform and do something like this.

00:28:54.680 That's got to be a great feeling.

00:28:55.880 You know, they say the biggest fear men have is public speaking.

00:29:02.200 You know, a lot of people are frightened of getting on stage and speaking to an audience.

00:29:05.740 But historically, I don't think anyone's died from speaking from stage.

00:29:09.760 I don't think that's ever happened.

00:29:11.260 Now, there's different stories with people that decide to jump out of a plane.

00:29:14.840 And then there's stories of people that want to jump without a parachute, which is a guy like you that wants to jump out.

00:29:20.580 If you don't have the level of, you know, fear that people have because you don't 20,000 jumps.

00:29:26.240 What do you fear?

00:29:27.380 And how do you look at public speaking yourself when you're up there speaking to an audience of 1,000, 5,000 people?

00:29:33.200 So when this thing started after this jump, I went and gave some talks.

00:29:36.800 And I used to start my talks.

00:29:39.300 Now I'm a little more comfortable.

00:29:40.320 But I used to start my talks out by saying, hey, thank you for having me.

00:29:43.320 But I would much rather jump out of an airplane without a parachute than stand up in front of you guys and talk to you.

00:29:47.760 It was that kind of feeling.

00:29:50.300 But for me, I always have this mindset now that I think of what's the worst thing that can happen, right?

00:29:55.900 I try and tell my eight-year-old son, whether it's water skiing on the lake or whatever, what's the worst that can happen?

00:30:00.400 Not the worst thing you could possibly imagine, but what's realistically the worst that can happen?

00:30:05.060 You're going to fall and get wet.

00:30:06.280 I'm going to sit up there.

00:30:07.180 I'm going to stumble my words.

00:30:08.340 Those 5,000 people are going to think I'm an idiot.

00:30:10.400 And I'm going to move on with my life.

00:30:11.640 But it's really not going to have an effect on me.

00:30:14.100 So those are the ways that I was able to deal with those kind of fears.

00:30:17.540 And I try to relate that to everything else.

00:30:19.920 And now if I'm doing a jump that seems a little bit hairball, whether it's jumping into a soccer stadium or NFL game and it's windy or the conditions aren't right, I would look back on what I just did.

00:30:29.720 You know, hey, I jumped out of a plane without a parachute.

00:30:31.320 This is a piece of cake.

00:30:32.540 You know, no big deal.

00:30:34.000 That's cool.

00:30:34.380 That's kind of how my bracket has changed, right?

00:30:38.500 It used to be small, and now it's huge.

00:30:41.020 Yeah, I mean, not everybody has a story to tell like you, Si, but when you're getting up there telling a story, people are going crazy wanting to hear specific details of what happened.

00:30:48.340 So when you worked on Iron Man, which Iron Man was it?

00:30:52.140 So Iron Man 3, where Iron Man Air Force One blows up and Iron Man starts scooping everybody up.

00:30:58.600 The barrel of monkeys scene.

00:30:59.740 So I was the last guy to get rescued.

00:31:01.560 And as they're coming in, Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. is like, hey, here comes the chunky monkey.

00:31:06.260 We got to catch him last.

00:31:07.440 And they fly down and, you know, grab your arm.

00:31:09.800 And that was a really cool scene.

00:31:11.460 And that was happening.

00:31:12.660 That was before this jump.

00:31:14.840 But that was really cool to be part of the Hollywood stunt scene.

00:31:18.820 And since then, I've done quite a few other little projects along the way.

00:31:21.560 Did you have interactions with Robert Downey or no?

00:31:24.560 No, no, no, no.

00:31:25.180 Second unit stunt stuff, you don't.

00:31:26.980 Oh, I got it.

00:31:27.680 Okay.

00:31:27.940 Yeah, because, you know, for the last four weeks, we go through a series with my kids.

00:31:33.540 And I have to watch Avengers 1, 2, 3.

00:31:36.360 I think we just finished the Infinity War.

00:31:39.840 I think, I don't know what it's called, where Thanos is getting all the five rings.

00:31:42.840 And we now have to go to the end game to watch it again with these kids because they love this stuff.

00:31:46.940 But when you said Iron Man, I watched Black Widow.

00:31:51.140 I coordinated a sequence in Black Widow that's going to come out with Scarlett Johansson, I guess, skydiving scene where there's some fighting going on.

00:31:58.740 So you got to check that one out.

00:31:59.740 You're in that one as well.

00:32:00.800 I coordinated that one.

00:32:02.060 Oh, that's cool.

00:32:03.020 That is cool.

00:32:03.880 I'm looking forward to that.

00:32:05.020 So how was it working with David Blaine?

00:32:06.420 How was that experience?

00:32:08.280 David's quite the character, man.

00:32:09.940 I hear.

00:32:10.800 Yeah, he called me up.

00:32:12.020 He's a cool cat.

00:32:13.420 He has this idea and this vision of what he wanted to do.

00:32:16.940 And he came to me and he's like, Luke, you know, you did the craziest thing ever.

00:32:20.440 These other guys are the craziest thing ever.

00:32:21.820 I don't want to do the craziest thing ever.

00:32:23.380 I want to do something beautiful and amazing.

00:32:25.960 And I've dreamed about this since a little kid.

00:32:27.760 Can you imagine grabbing some balloons, helium balloons and floating away?

00:32:32.540 I said, yeah, I think every kid's imagined it.

00:32:35.040 He's like, I want to do it.

00:32:36.040 I want to do it for real.

00:32:37.220 I want to try and do it over New York.

00:32:38.560 And I was like, dude, I'm in.

00:32:40.020 Let's figure it out.

00:32:40.860 And so I got to spend, I helped teach him some skydiving.

00:32:45.260 We worked on some techniques.

00:32:46.180 He'd come stay here at the house.

00:32:47.380 I would come in the living room.

00:32:48.700 He'd be teaching my eight-year-old magic tricks on the couch.

00:32:51.780 And my eight-year-old could do David Blaine magic tricks that I don't know.

00:32:55.740 That's cool.

00:32:56.900 Yeah.

00:32:57.560 Such a cool dude.

00:32:59.000 But he definitely, working with artists is interesting.

00:33:01.620 I'm more of a practical guy.

00:33:03.280 This, this, this.

00:33:04.080 And I get A plus B plus C equals D or whatever.

00:33:07.360 He has a vision, right?

00:33:08.740 And he's not willing to compromise.

00:33:10.280 I'm like, man, it'd be way easier if we could do it like this.

00:33:12.260 He's like, no, this is what I want.

00:33:14.340 And pretty cool to work with different personalities like that, that know what they want.

00:33:18.820 There's no compromise.

00:33:20.160 He's going after it.

00:33:21.740 Would you put him as a qualified crazy that wants to push the envelope and do stuff that

00:33:26.440 seems unbelievable to the rest of us?

00:33:29.340 I would totally put him in that category.

00:33:31.260 The stuff that he does and that he's done, it blows my mind.

00:33:35.500 And like, when I'm talking, I'm like, hey, when you were in the ice and we did this, like

00:33:39.220 where I was trying to, what was the gag?

00:33:40.840 What was the trick?

00:33:41.640 He's like, well, I was in the ice.

00:33:44.060 There's no trick.

00:33:45.120 It's like straight up being miserable that amount of time.

00:33:48.580 And it's crazy to me, the things that he's done.

00:33:51.760 And what's really neat to me about all of those things is the world's full of craziness

00:33:56.140 and all this nonsense going on.

00:33:58.300 And it's so fun to take a few minutes away from that and just enjoy something like floating

00:34:03.380 with balloons.

00:34:04.160 I mean, which one of us couldn't think of it?

00:34:05.780 I want to get helium and float my kid in the yard with balloons.

00:34:08.800 Did you do any of it when he was, did you try some as well or no?

00:34:11.860 Was it mainly him?

00:34:12.820 I played with it all, but this was about him, about David doing his thing.

00:34:16.760 My job was there to support him and help make it as safe as possible.

00:34:19.660 So I ended up project managing it and running it.

00:34:22.020 And I thought it was awesome.

00:34:22.920 A company like YouTube steps up and, you know, back something like that.

00:34:27.000 I mean, who, I don't know how they make money on that, but the fact they were in there to

00:34:30.400 help make that happen was awesome.

00:34:32.340 And by the way, for your jump, the 25,000 jump without a parachute, how long did it take

00:34:37.640 from ideation, the day you have to sign the NDA to the actual date, July 30th, execution

00:34:43.940 in 2016?

00:34:44.780 What's the timeline?

00:34:46.060 I think it was about a year and a half to two years on that one.

00:34:49.140 I mean, they had to find the sponsor.

00:34:51.740 You know, I'm sponsored by Red Bull, have been for most of my career.

00:34:54.620 Red Bull didn't do that one.

00:34:56.580 Red Bull stepped back from that particular one.

00:34:58.780 We pitched it to Red Bull.

00:35:00.020 I went in there and I've been with Red Bull since 2005 and helped Felix with his jump,

00:35:04.780 done a bunch of stuff.

00:35:05.500 I went into the headquarters and just prior, a wingsuit person had passed away, a Red Bull

00:35:11.360 sponsored wingsuit person.

00:35:12.460 And articles came out, is Red Bull pushing athletes?

00:35:14.780 Are they, you know, making us do these things?

00:35:17.460 These are all the things I'm out there doing no matter what, with or without.

00:35:21.620 So Red Bull said, you know what, we'd like to, we're going to pass on this one.

00:35:25.560 And I think at that moment, they might've thought it was over.

00:35:28.180 And then some of these guys behind this, Jimmy and Chris, went out and found Stride Gum,

00:35:32.860 a gum, Stride Gum, Mondelez, Stride Gum, sponsored that whole thing.

00:35:37.440 And then somehow they convinced Fox to let it go live on TV, like a seven second delay.

00:35:43.260 I'm jumping out of a plane without a parachute.

00:35:45.140 If something happens, I don't know, does the screen go black?

00:35:48.080 Like what happens at that point when you're live?

00:35:50.320 It's crazy to think about that.

00:35:52.120 Fox said yes.

00:35:53.120 And a gum company sponsored the whole thing.

00:35:56.240 The trust that they had in me, it's like, I can never repay them enough.

00:36:01.580 I mean, Stride stepping up and Fox behind them saying, hey, we trust your ability.

00:36:06.780 We don't think anything's going to happen.

00:36:08.400 It was never, hey, what happens if it happens?

00:36:10.560 I never got those talks.

00:36:11.860 They just never came that way.

00:36:12.960 It was all full speed ahead, which is incredible.

00:36:15.600 That tells you how much they trust you.

00:36:16.660 By the way, Luke, any next projects coming up with you?

00:36:19.440 Are you working on anything big?

00:36:20.820 Anything you want to share with the audience?

00:36:22.380 Yeah, man, I've been trying for a bunch of years.

00:36:25.120 Since before I did the no parachute jump, I had this idea.

00:36:28.160 And it's a spin on something I saw when I was a kid.

00:36:30.300 But now since the no parachute jump, people answer my phone calls when I call up.

00:36:33.960 You get a little more, you got a little more clocked in the David Blaine thing and all

00:36:37.940 these, you know, they answer your phone calls.

00:36:40.200 You're not a crazy guy anymore.

00:36:41.820 I have this idea where I want to fly one airplane.

00:36:44.240 My cousin Andy, who was on the big jump with me, fly another one.

00:36:47.460 Nobody else in them.

00:36:48.500 Fly these planes up to 13, 14,000 feet in the air all by ourselves.

00:36:52.380 Nobody else in formation.

00:36:53.880 Put them in a dive straight at the ground.

00:36:56.640 Jump out of each airplane.

00:36:58.120 So ghost ride the airplanes, leave them empty and switch planes.

00:37:01.820 I'll go get in his plane.

00:37:03.220 He'll go get in mine, pull them up and bring them back down and land them.

00:37:06.360 Come on.

00:37:07.360 Yeah, man.

00:37:08.100 That's what I'm working on.

00:37:11.540 What's the timeline on this?

00:37:14.060 The timeline is finishing selling it off to sponsors.

00:37:16.620 I mean, I got the planes.

00:37:18.160 We're pretty much ready to go with the airplanes.

00:37:19.820 And it takes a lot of research and development and FAA.

00:37:22.900 And what's cool about something like this, it involves our flying.

00:37:26.220 I mean, I got seven, 8,000 hours flying airplanes and 20,000 skydives.

00:37:30.500 It kind of brings every part of my life since I was a little kid into one stunt,

00:37:36.160 which is very cool for me to be able to showcase aviation to the world.

00:37:40.100 Well, buddy, that is crazy.

00:37:41.460 The fact that you're doing that and courageous.

00:37:43.720 Let me again, I want to remind of those two C's, man.

00:37:45.940 I don't want to leave one without the other.

00:37:48.200 Say that again?

00:37:49.440 I like the second C.

00:37:50.640 Yeah.

00:37:50.840 Yeah, I know you do.

00:37:51.520 I know you like the second one.

00:37:53.120 The first one, I can't help myself.

00:37:54.820 Keeps coming out.

00:37:55.540 I got to tell you.

00:37:56.500 Hey, you got to be a little crazy to do this stuff.

00:37:58.460 I'm not going to shy away from that.

00:37:59.780 I mean, that's why people tune in.

00:38:02.440 Yeah.

00:38:02.640 I mean, when you're the only person that's ever done something, you are in a league of

00:38:07.480 your own.

00:38:07.920 There is no, you know, there's like 58 of you.

00:38:10.420 There's one person that's done this.

00:38:12.520 And brother, thank you so much for coming out and being a guest and just talking to us

00:38:17.160 openly, whether it was the conversation with your wife on the beach when Logan was sleeping

00:38:21.840 into your experience with Blaine and what you're getting ready to work here.

00:38:26.000 We have a, we'll be rooting you on when that day happens.

00:38:28.620 And we'll remember this conversation that we had here together on Valuetainment.

00:38:31.540 All right.

00:38:31.940 Thanks, man.

00:38:32.360 Thanks for having me.

00:38:33.180 Thanks for being a guest, man.

00:38:34.020 Take care.

00:38:34.400 Bye-bye.

00:38:34.640 So you just heard a man that jumped out of a plane at 25,000 feet without a parachute

00:38:38.880 on and landed on a net, which is crazy.

00:38:42.800 What's the craziest thing you've ever done?

00:38:44.160 Comment below.

00:38:45.320 I thought his story was fascinating, heartfelt.

00:38:48.240 And at the same time, if you enjoyed this interview, I think you would also enjoy the

00:38:50.860 interview I did with Nick Wallanda, who walks on wire rope.

00:38:54.420 And he's a seven-generation wire rope walker, which is pretty intense when you watch this

00:39:00.340 interview.

00:39:00.640 If you've not seen it, click over here to watch it.

00:39:02.300 And if you've not subscribed to the channel, please do so.

00:39:05.120 Take care, everybody.

00:39:05.780 Bye-bye.

Skydiving with No Parachute at 25,000 Feet

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