BootsnAll Travel Community

http://www.aerialadventures.net/skydive/freefall.wmv

Well, without one strapped on anyway!

Oh my god!

That looks so stupid!

And one day, we'll see on the news..how he lost his grip and let go of his chute...

Yeah, he is pushing the limits with that, especially when he was hanging upside down by his feet.

Dumb Shit!

He is definatly pushing it but my hats off to him, I could not do it.

when you get deep into a sport you need to explore it or you get board. Its just like when your in scuba class at the pool and you take your BCD off underwater....right

It's total insanity. Period. Still,it must feel great!

I hope no one feels like I spoiled the magic trick here...

The guy in the video is Greg Gasson. He's done this stunt or very similar a few times and I know he was wearing a harness under his clothes and running up one sleeve for at least some of them (a mate of mine built it). Without the strength given by the harness, he would not have been able to hold onto the legstrap through the parachute opening, and especially not with one hand.

To give you an idea of how much force is applied during a parachute opening, average freefall is about 120mph and most parachute decent rates is closer to 5mph without taking the parachute's angle of attack into consideration. If you consider that a normal parachute opening takes between 3 and 6 seconds, you can get a sense of how much force you are dealing with. Another way to consider it is to think about what would happen if you had to break suddenly on the highway while going 120mph. You can imagine how much force you would feel on your body.

It got to see this force at work. For fun, some mates of mine decided to do a jump (wearing parachutes per usual), but holding onto the legstraps of a third parachute container. They had someone deploy the third parachute as they exited the aircraft so that the opening shock would be less than a terminal opening. They got video of the whole thing. Towards the end of the parachute's opening sequence, they both came off the legstrap they were holding onto with BOTH arms. The opening shock was too great for them to keep their grip.

Honestly, Greg's stunt is not something I would ever do (actually nor would most skydivers I know), but it also wasn't as stupid as it looks. He actually designs his stunts and takes precautions before he does some freaky stuff AND he's REALLY good at what he does.

My parade has been thoroughly rained on...

quote:

Originally posted by Rocknrod:
My parade has been thoroughly rained on...

Glad I could help...

gee, I thought you might have been talking about this when I read the subject line.