Crazy Stunts Take Planning | God's World News

Crazy Stunts Take Planning

09/06/2016
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    Luke Aikins jumping from a helicopter during training and his target in Simi Valley, California. (AP)
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    Evel Knievel sits in the steam-powered rocket motorcycle in 1974. (AP)
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    Felix Baumgartner, in pressurized suit, prepares to enter the balloon capsule for his space jump in 2012. (AP)
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    Philippe Petit walks a tightrope suspended between the World Trade Center's Twin Towers in 1974. (AP)
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    The famed Wallenda circus performers walk a high wire in Michigan in 1962. (AP)
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Did you see the amazing stunt Luke Aikins pulled off this summer? The American daredevil jumped from a plane—without a parachute. Aikins is an accomplished skydiver. He’s jumped more than 18,000 times. Even he admits his latest stunt was crazy. But was it as wild as it looked?

Before the jump Aikins said, “If I wasn’t nervous, I would be stupid.” Most stunts take some smarts—careful calculation, engineering, preparation, and practice.

The first time someone asked Aikins to jump from 25,000 feet without a chute, he declined. “I thought it was a bad idea,” he confesses. But he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He felt challenged to figure out how to make the stunt safe—well, as safe as possible.

To reduce risk, stunt performers like Aikins plan ahead. They often use wires, ropes, harnesses, and safety nets. They study weather and landscape. They read about the successes and failures of similar tricks. They train physically and mentally.

Aikins had a team of planners. They created a giant net specifically for this jump. Jumpers with parachutes flew with him. Beeps in Aikins’ helmet told him how far he was from the net. In the end Aikins plopped down safely.

Even with the best planning, stunts are dangerous and physically trying. There is often unforeseen strain and injury to the body.

In each of the following famous stunts, careful planning—or lack of it—made the stunt succeed or fail. Here are some of the wildest stunts ever. DO NOT TRY THESE AT HOME.

—Evel Knievel’s Snake River Canyon Jump: After years of jumping motorcycles over buses, trucks, and fountains—and breaking bones in the process—Knievel tried to ride a rocket-powered cycle across a nearly mile-wide chasm in Utah in 1974. High winds and a jumpsuit malfunction foiled the attempt. Thankfully, his escape chute deployed prematurely, and he survived.

—Felix Baumgartner’s Stratosphere Jump: Baumgartner is the first skydiver to break the speed of sound. He jumped from a small capsule 24 miles above Earth in 2012. He landed safely on the ground in New Mexico nine minutes later. (BTW, Aikins helped train Baumgartner.)

—The Trade Towers Walk: Philippe Petit planned his high-wire walk between New York City’s World Trade Center Towers for six years. He built a replica of the towers, took aerial photographs, and studied the engineering of the buildings and structure of steel cable. In 1974, Pettit successfully danced, strutted, and clowned around for 45 minutes, 110 stories above the street.

—The Flying Wallendas: The patriarch of the famous German high-wire-walking family plunged to his death in 1978, while attempting to cross a wire strung between hotel towers in Puerto Rico. A wind gust knocked him off the wire. In 2012, his great-grandson, Nik Wallenda, became the first person to tight-rope walk across Niagara Falls. A year later he tight-roped across a gorge near the Grand Canyon.

—Mad Mike Hughes’ Steam-Powered Rocket Jump: Using a rocket powered by the same technology as Knievel’s Snake River motorcycle, Hughes soared 1,374 feet across the Arizona desert in January 2014, staggering out of the contraption after landing.

Every day involves some risk. Insurance companies estimate there are 10 million auto accidents every year. You will probably experience three or four in your life. But risk-taking can become foolishness. That’s true for daredevils with multi-million dollar contracts. It’s also true of kids with skateboards. So the next time you hear the words, “I dare you,” you might just walk away . . . and be thankful you can.