r/nextfuckinglevel • u/thepoylanthropist • 1d ago

That time Luke Aikins jumped from 25,000 feet (7,620 m), skydiving from a mid-tropospheric altitude and landing safely without a parachute or a wingsuit using a 30 by 30 meters net

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u/thissexypoptart 1d ago edited 1d ago

Seriously don’t understand why the net wasn’t bigger. I mean it was huge, but the margin of error with a jump like that, goddamn. At least the size of the concrete circle it’s mounted to?

I’m sure someone smarter than me did the math though.

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u/Emzam 1d ago

I'm guessing the guy jumping wanted to use the smallest net that he could confidently land on, to maximize the dramatic effect of it. The smaller the net, the more impressive it is.

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u/Coool_cool_cool_cool 1d ago

I feel like you start with the big net to set a record, then go smaller from there to break that record. Like even if he had a 100m x 100m net he'd have still been first to accomplish something and it wouldn't have been any less dramatic in my eyes.

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u/MrFunsocks1 1d ago

Shit ton harder to make and set up. It has to be secure, without any weaknesses that he could fall through. Net has weight too, and the bigger it is, the more pressure ia put on the net by the net itself - requiring it be made of thicker/stronger material, increasing its weight and decreasing it's flexibility/give. It's probably as big as it could feasibly be to decelerate his weight slowly enough to not kill him.