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that i've dreamed of since i was your
age
yeah like the boy in the movie that's
close to the yeah
and what i want to do is i want to grab
that rig of balloons
and i want to go floating all the way up
into the sky
until i become a little dot in the sky
that you're going to see
i will see yeah you're going to be able
to watch me go all the way up
to the black dot and where am i going to
head towards
venus yeah but not that far of course
i hope so and this was all because of
you
i haven't done anything since you were
one years old
and i stopped fake things no just fake
like scary things
yeah and because of you i wanted to do
something
yeah but because of you i wanted to do
something beautiful but that's not
dangerous
no but this is the first one that i'm
doing that's beautiful and that's all
because of you
it's true thank you
ever since i was a kid i've dreamed of
flying i was five years old my mom took
me to see a movie about a boy that
floats away on a bunch of balloons
and inspired my love of levitation and
magic for sure
i've never forgotten that image and now
i'm going to make it a reality
by holding onto a bunch of balloons and
flying as high as i can possibly go
every single stunt that i've ever done
is about endurance and pushing past what
i thought would be possible
i can't imagine many people would ever
dream of doing them
my daughter was at the last one when she
was about two years old
it was so difficult and extreme that i
decided right then and there that i
would find something that would inspire
her
and not scare her even though this seems
like every kid's dream
ascension is the most ambitious
performance of my life
thanks to my team at youtube i've
assembled some of the best experts in
their fields
led by the elite skydiver and craziest
daredevil i've ever met
luke aikens i also have the world's
leading weather experts balloonists and
aerial engineers working on this
all of whom are critical in helping me
pull this off
we've never designed anything like this
before lighter than air outdoors etc so
this has been a
really wild and fun learning experience
for us in order to do this i've been
learning how to skydive
that was so good i also became a
commercial balloon pilot with the
ability to fly
helium filled balloons there are a lot
of critical
moments in this project that david has
to work on trying to figure out how i
can put the parachute on
once i'm up at 5 000 feet so that's the
switch
no no not this if he doesn't put on his
parachute he dies
if there's a catastrophic balloon
failure part way up david comes crashing
down to earth
and now we've moved ascension to page
arizona
i've never had to land on terrain that's
this difficult in my life
but at the same time i'm so excited to
pull this off
i can't believe today is finally here
i've been working on this and dreaming
about this for over a decade
this is by far the most exciting project
that i've ever put together in my life
and the best part is i've actually put
the most incredible team together to
help me do this
so i don't die this is different than
anything that i've ever done
and i want to introduce you to some of
my teams some of the best
experts in the world so come with me
luke hey so this is this is luke akins
who's taught me how to jump at a plane
safely how to land in any area safely
and actually put the entire stunt
together and he's the best in the world
the reason i found luke was because he
was that guy that jumped
25 000 feet out of an airplane without a
parachute
and landed into a tiny net that from up
there you can't even see it looks like a
tiny
dot so this is luke you excited man
yeah i mean i can't believe it's finally
gonna happen all this work i started
getting goosebumps the more we talk
about it man
i'm super pumped everybody's in position
weather's great
luke hasn't slept in about two months
it's been it's been a doozy but we're
here it's game day
it's all up to you now yeah
and the the best youtuber who
knows everything about tech that does
every single great video that explains
science and technology
marquez brownlee has decided to come
help us with it
and he's going to be the eyes for you
guys he's going to explain
every question that you may have and
thank you marquez
that's the plan there's a lot of tech
behind this and i feel like people won't
appreciate that until they see it
but i want to ask you something real
quick just because we're here now you've
been this is a child
childhood dream years and years of
training but we're here on the day now
how does that feel i won't believe
anything until my feet start lifting up
off the ground and keep
going it's amazing so how does this
differ from
your other your other projects this is
it's super different but what makes it
so different
this is the first project that i've ever
done and it's all thanks to youtube
yeah that i'm actually able
to put together the dream team that
yeah that's all around me and i i
couldn't ask for anything better so
even though the idea seems so simple
it's like i'm gonna hold a bunch of
balloons and become a little dot in the
sky there's actually a lot involved to
make it happen
safely and legally and it's been
research and development
up to this moment that's true and i've
witnessed it luke you've also been in
charge of
essentially a ton of the project and you
know what like the biggest
risk factors are what would you say are
the things to pay most attention to
i mean i got a list a mile long but
really in my head i got
four basics you know temperature it's
gonna be cold
i mean he's gonna be freezing 25 000
feet or tire um you got hypoxia lack of
oxygen he could be
arguing with me or you know you get
silly it's almost like you're impaired
okay okay i get extraordinarily drunk is
what happens
wow okay and then for me one of the
biggest
ones is i was talking to david he's like
i really have this beautiful look i
i don't want to wear a parachute i'm
like dude you got to wear a parachute
he's like is there anything we could do
yeah i'm like i don't think so
and then you accidentally said maybe we
could hide it in the balloons
i go yeah and he jumped on it he's like
let's do that that's what i'm doing
and i was like well wait a minute it
gets really cold
you got a lot of stuff going on and i
don't want to add another thing and i
started thinking about it
and we started to figure out how to do
it i took my eight-year-old kid and i
hung him in my hanger and i started
messing around
and i called david i go hey i think we
can do this
logan pulled it off first yeah so then
we got the parachute on
and then the absolute very important
thing the most important thing to me is
a safe landing
okay and we're out here it's sketch ball
around there you know there's some
beautiful landing spots
and some really bad ones but even the
beautiful ones for you were beautiful
but for me i'm at like 400
jumps so for me it's like ah i'm sure
from that height it's a lot to look at
but look i've talked to a lot of these
people and a lot of the experts
but wait i want to say one other thing
that we forgot and this is the truth
i've never gone up above a few hundred
feet basically
with the entire i've done a few flights
but i've never done this entire system
once
so the first time i put on the parachute
up in the air and the first time that i
go to these heights will be
live right here first time ever it's a
true flight test program
i mean you're doing it and that's the
truth when i first got here you were
practicing
just getting the parachute on but you
were 10 feet off the ground right so
this is a true
first of everything at once and also we
don't know what happens up there
we don't know what happens when it gets
freezing cold what if i can't feel my
fingers and
negative five degrees no no we're all
good we'll get to all of it but look i
talked to a lot of people responsible
all the experts behind the scenes that
put all this tech together so uh
let's check that out so these past
couple days i've been lucky enough to
basically witness this entire project
come together
in this place it started super simple
the idea is just it's david
it's the balloons he's floating away
disappearing into the sky
but everything that has to come together
around it is incredibly complex but in
order to make it
possible and safe and so what's resulted
is this incredible a-team of all the
best experts in aviation and ballooning
and skydiving and everything
all here so let's go ahead and meet that
team
dude so fun luke haikins he's a world
record setting aerial expert and leading
the team
all right so luke why are they fitting
you with all the tech right now for some
reason i wasn't being the test dummy but
no david's busy getting ready to
practice hanging and doing all that
stuff he just can't be in two places at
once
so right now i'm gonna just do a jump on
the test the equipment to make sure
everything's working right
so what's it like having this superhero
team the number one
skydiving expert the ballooning expert
the weather expert
does that feel like right best case
scenario yeah absolutely right because
everyone everyone has an answer and it's
about
understanding what the point on the
horizon we're driving toward is right
and that being this image of childlike
wonder of
even with all this tech here it's going
to look like david goes out there and
just grabs a bunch of balloons and
floats away right like that is if
it doesn't look good why'd we do it art
thompson he's produced major
breakthroughs in the aerospace industry
when we're doing test flights you know
everybody thinks we're training david
we're actually training the ground crew
because we're learning
how to work together teamwork always
important to have teamwork and science
bert pidel he's a third generation
balloon aviation expert
for the ballooning part what's the
biggest question mark for you so there's
a number of
little steps along the way before he
cuts himself loose
that i'll be breathing a sigh of relief
on
don day he is the weather expert
responsible for making the final call to
launch
so what's your prediction for our actual
launch window it's actually going to
cool off a little bit here in the desert
so things are looking very favorable
fingers are crossed fingers
it's looking good amazing hey luke can i
see you for a second yeah
and jim you're in charge of the payload
and the cluster we're looking at so i
want to chat with you okay first of all
there's a lot we're looking at but we're
a little while out for launch where are
we in this process and what's going on
right now yeah we're about an hour and a
half out from launch we got here about
six hours ago we were inflating balloons
for uh some other team members to start
installing the squibs on them
and then we waited for the wind to calm
down a little bit and we started
assembling the cluster
and you said this word squibs and i know
people are hearing the word but might
not know what it is what is a squib this
is is this a slip yeah we got a squib
right here perfect okay so these are a
little electronic match
it's taped to each balloon okay in
different orders like a bunch or a few
and this will actually vent the balloons
which means we pop the balloons
and it lets it come down it's a remote
control
balloon pop trigger exactly beautiful
okay couldn't have said it better myself
so you're in charge also of the
the sort of go no go checklist as you
mentioned
what kind of progress have we made on
that list so far um
it's a big list yeah we limit it down to
the team captains we've got weather
most important we've got atc clearance
can we
go up are we allowed to take off we got
safety team are they ready we got
parachute guys are they ready we got
weather it's
a massive list and uh we'll be ready
when it's done
okay and now i also want to touch on
this sort of
magical balloon that i can't help but
look at because i'm the tech guy but
inside this balloon cluster there's one
very special balloon that
makes all of this possible can you talk
about that yeah so we call it the
payload and it's what we're actually
starting to make disappear right now so
that when we go up
we don't have what looks like just a
tech catalog hanging above david we want
to keep that sense of childlike wonder
but inside of there is all the avionics
for all of the atc
clearance and all of the electronics to
get the camera signals and the audio
signals back to
for everybody to see it's a lot i've
seen inside of it and
it's like a pc inside a balloon
essentially
but a previous version of this that you
guys had actually overheated i mean it's
a million degrees out here in the desert
but
what precautions have you guys taken
with this new version to make sure that
doesn't happen a bunch of things first
of all there's an entire hvac system in
there it's basically an office building
full of hvac at this point nice uh we've
also
put more holes in the shell of the
balloon uh which allows for more airflow
and we
adjusted some of the design of some of
the plates that all that stuff is
mounted to for better heatsink between
the
heating up elements and the air around
it gotcha so
you guys have been in this for like two
years and can speak about every little
detail but we have a little piece for
everyone at home to get caught up
on what's gone down so check it out
this facility is really unbelievable
they build
every single flying rig for every show
every tour
they build all the cirque du soleil
stages and rigging
oh that looks awesome wow
in order to make this a legal aircraft
we had to create
a fiberglass balloon that has all the
equipment that we would need
it has a transponder it has oxygen that
you'll need to make this legal
it's also going to have my parachute and
it has everything that we need to
transmit
audio and video back down to
the ground it'll look just like a
balloon
and that will fit right inside of it
the entire point of this is to not have
it look like there's a whole rigging
catalog
hanging above david but that it looks
like he's walking up and grabbing a
bunch of balloons and taking off
into the air and have it work every
single time because obviously there's
only one david blaine and we're only
going to do this once
the payload right now it clocks in at
226 pounds
so most of the balloons are just to get
that payload to be neutrally buoyant
the rest of the balloons are to get
david to be neutrally buoyant
and then there's one or two balloons to
actually lift the payload is what we
would call the clue plate
in rigging which means all of the
balloons are connecting to it
and then david is hanging below that
this side here is what pays the bills
this is for uh the camera system
so it's going to take all of the cool
images that are being sent down and it's
going to relay them
up through an airplane that's circling
off in the distance and then relaying
that down live and somehow through some
sort of magic it goes across the
internet
while it's happening this is the device
that has
all of papa's safety stuff on it
these are what the real balloons are
gonna look like
yeah this is what all this stuff is
gonna go in
i have another free hand ready look
all these balloons are for papa wow
yeah it's a tent out of balloons
let's do a picture of us together hold
on ready
okay i love you
so i'm here with some of the expert team
that makes this possible and
each one of them has their own super
high level expertise but you sort of all
work together as a team i want to start
with you
art thompson now art is
essentially in charge of the payload and
aviation
engineering can you tell us about what's
inside
specifically that payload so inside we
have uh
c2 command and control radios a primary
backup same thing we use for
universities or
experimental flights or afrl air force
research lab
and what that does is it sends signals
for
ballasting dropping weight which gives
us lift
or venting balloons right popping
balloons
which allows us to descend so normally
we'd use
a valve which would vent in this case
we're using squibs that actually pop the
balloons
right and this is this is something i
didn't really think about until i
had got here and thought through the
whole thing david controls the balloons
on the way
up he jumps from them that payload's
still
floating exactly it needs to be it's
kind of like getting out of a car
without a driver in the driver's seat
right so this apparatus will help you
control it and eventually get it down
right and so we're sending signals a
dtmf
an encoded signal on a military channel
so there's a lot of redundancy
don really makes the call to understand
where those
jet streams are so we can fly it up to
get it away or bring it down
and so that's our way of controlling it
gotcha so i should talk to you don
let's talk let's talk weather i think
it's safe to say don day number one
weatherman in the world is that
is that a realistic title i love it um
but i think when we talk about balloons
the
the natural biggest concern with weather
is the wind right absolutely balloons
are super sensitive to wind and for
david's launch we need wind speeds of
five miles per hour or less
most people can't even feel five miles
an hour but we have to be less than that
or the balloons get uncontrollable
a good example is this weekend when we
tried to put you in the tether
it was eight miles an hour that was too
fast and too dangerous i remember that i
was i was trying to get up to
experience what he was going to
experience and we couldn't get in those
balloons and do it because
eight miles an hour of wind was whipping
them all over the place which is crazy
now i'm standing out here now and it's
feeling like hopefully we have good
conditions it's
it's early in the morning which from
what i can tell is good for wind
absolutely balloon operations are best
in the morning when it's cool the air is
stable
fortunately we had a cold front come
through northern arizona yesterday
it got really windy but it's like 10
degrees cooler this morning it feels
wonderful that's what we want a nice
cool morning feels good and you guys
sent up a test balloon this morning
and how did that go well we measured the
winds aloft and they are very slow
so as david ascends it will be nice and
slow service winds should be light and
variable and
it's not going to be until he gets
higher up as wind speeds increase with
height before he'll start to move very
much
gotcha and the last person i want to
introduce over here
is burt now bert again when you do these
balloon things you need
essentially the number one ballooning
expert in the world so happy you're here
as well
um and when we talk about i'm beyond
happy that he's
here you're leading me through
ballooning step by step and it is
amazing it's a great member of the team
to have and when you're looking at this
balloon cluster i've never seen anything
like this
fly before so i'm sure there's a lot of
variables but what's your biggest
concern looking at this stuff
uh it's surface winds we need nice calm
winds
and it looks like that's what we're
going to have this morning
if it were me sitting here right now i'd
want to be in the air right now
would you also want to jump at the end
i never have david that wasn't the
question
so he mentioned the payload's able to
pop balloons
and drop weight why are we doing that
how does that work
so with a gas balloon to go up
you release weight that allows the
balloon to go up
to pop balloons you're uh decreasing the
weight
uh each balloon weighs uh has a lift of
15 pounds so
you pop a balloon you're 15 pounds heavy
and
comes down and we have 60 pounds of sand
so if for some reason
i lose cont which i most likely will not
but if i do lose consciousness
he can basically first of all he can
bring me up which he wouldn't by dumping
the sand
the ballast or he can remote bring me
down as well
and the control that they'll have over
the balloon if i couldn't function
was they basically between him and don
can look at the wind because wind is
like a river
so the wind at different altitudes moves
you in different directions so they can
put me where they need to into a
different river of wind which is
a current that would take me where they
need me to be so you already know way
more about the ballooning than i do but
you're a great student david
excellent but we have a piece already to
show you guys have been in this
herculean effort for the last couple
years so we want to we want to put
together a piece of show
how that's gone for ballooning so take a
look
in order to pull this project off i
discovered that the balloons i'll be
flying need to be classified as an
experimental aircraft
and any aircraft requires a licensed
pilot to fly it so that's what i had to
become
there are two ways to fly up into the
sky with balloons
using either hot air to force it up or
gases such as helium or hydrogen which
rise
naturally most people learn how to fly
balloons using the hot air method
so that's where i started what time is
it
6 15.
going up and down in a balloon is pretty
simple
however intentionally flying it in a
given direction is much more complicated
and the best pilots in the world have a
touch in the finesse that's unrivaled
it was these pilots that i sought out to
instruct me and teach me what they know
so this will tell us a lot about what's
going to happen here
and i don't think i've had the vote i
wouldn't be surprised if it goes
straight up
exactly like you said
the first lesson was how to safely build
and inflate a balloon
and all of its rigging
okay check airworth in this registration
flight manual which we did
have a safe flight
next i had to learn how to fly both very
high
and very low
i had to land and planned
and unplanned locations
good job that was a precision landing
and bring it down in rough winds
so it was a high wind landing where the
basket completely flips over and we had
to pull the air out of the envelope
other than hitting power lines that's
kind of
that's as bad as it gets he did good
he did really good after i mastered the
art of flying with heat
i reached out to the most accomplished
gas balloon pilot in the world bert
bedell
bert helped me to get certified so i
could fly lighter than air balloons
while what you're doing down the road is
a little different this is good training
and i do think
it will come back and you'll think about
this
when you're doing it unlike hot air
which is noisy
gas ballooning is completely silent and
one of the most amazing experiences i've
ever had
you actually feel like you're part of
the wind as you move along
without any sound whatsoever
so still
wow
learning to fly balloons has exceeded
all of my wildest
expectations and now that i'm an
officially licensed balloon pilot
i can't wait to fly my new aircraft
all right so we're still about an hour
so from launch which
gives me enough time to selfishly ask
david blaine to give me one of his
favorite magic tricks is that cool i'm
gonna show you my favorite card trick
but marquez
and i'm gonna give this card to my
brother okay
cool my brother's obsessed with marquez
so
he was so excited when he saw marquez
was he was ah is that
um but here this is this is one of my
favorites so any card that you want you
can have
take one out okay
got it good and can you write your name
so everybody can see it
yeah i don't know anywhere yeah well big
and bold so it's visible so you can see
your name so it might be on the border
yeah good can you see that
great good card can you all see that now
look
do you see how the card really it looks
like i put
your card for real inside yes
yeah no i do this one move seeing it's
right on top
just like that can you see that no but
hold on that's just
simple magic right hold your hand palm
up
and here's what we do put your other
hand on top of it
flat yeah like that yeah yeah and i also
use this card so we use the deuce of
hearts
right now watch what i do with the two
you can all see if i take the two and i
place it above your hand don't let go of
your card and i do this
oh yeah see i have your card come on
and look in your hand what okay
what that's yeah see this is why people
don't like believe
all this stuff is like they're like oh
it's david blaine it's just gonna be
another
trick man but that's that's real magic
but you know i think that's kind of a
natural segue to
the whole physics thing because when
we're doing magic it's it's beautiful
and it's art but
despite this also being beautiful in art
there's so much math and physics that
have to go into making it
safe you know what i mean so like a
choice between
helium and hydrogen balloons for example
we have a piece
where you were talking to diana that
physics girl fellow youtuber and a good
friend of ours where you talk about a
lot of these choices you have to make so
let's roll that
what on here do you have that changes or
controls how much you're going up and
down
i have no idea now
so i brought some experiments that i
want to show you to talk about the
pressure
change because you're going up in the
atmosphere and the pressure
gets way lower i want to show you an
experiment to talk about
that about the fact that the air gets
thinner okay this is a vacuum chamber
and then i'm just gonna like i'm not
even gonna blow this balloon up
i'm just gonna tie it okay so i'm gonna
turn the vacuum pump on
that little balloon at the bottom is the
one that i didn't
blow up absolutely nothing too yeah and
it's starting to expand but these ones
already have so much gas
so cool
the reason i wanted to show you this is
because the first thing i thought about
when i saw
these massive balloons is the fact that
these will expand
they'll go from eight feet in diameter
to about 10 feet
because they do the same thing as these
balloons so there's more drag
on them there's so many things that go
on it'll look bigger but the issue is
if they start popping yeah that's a real
yeah if they're just closer together and
touching what happens in your blood
slightly different thing but we have an
experiment for that if you want to do
that one yeah okay
perfect i was curious when i heard you
were going up
how fast you're going and how high
you're going because that determines
whether you would get
decompression sickness there's a syringe
with some fluid in here
i'm gonna pull it back and you'll see
what happens i'm gonna have you guess
okay here we go
so you can see it continuing to bubble
i'm just holding it here
it's continuing to bubble it's like
carbonated water amazing is that what it
is yes
so that's exactly what it is so you pull
it back it
keeps bubbling from all over in the
fluid and then you let it go and it
stops
so this is exactly what what happens to
your blood more with divers is
decompression sickness because you go
down and the more
pressure you're under the more you can
get nitrogen dissolved into your blood
i mean this is like a really quick and
drastic pressure change so if that
happened to you
that's bad that would be bad yeah this
is 17 pounds of lift so
like if you feel this one feel it
they're so hard to pull
it's amazing right incredible so
basically if if i had
seven balloons you'd be you'd be good to
go seven or eight balloons
that's so cool so you're using helium
which is a great
gas for flying with balloons but
hydrogen gives you a bit more lift
because it's less
dense helium is
much more difficult to come by more
costly
i wanted to do a demonstration with you
and i wanted to show you
why you're using helium and not hydrogen
so we have some hand sanitizer wrapped
around a stick
well that is going test number one
helium
that's basically what we expected was
that one clap i heard over there
so now we are going to do the hydrogen
test
we did it so that's why you avoid
hydrogen
that is awesome that is awesome thank
you
all right luke so we're about how long
from launch you think
about an hour starting to get serious
now i mean we're in it
i want to go back over the the sort of
main risk factors you mentioned them
at the beginning which were hypoxia
temperature parachute and landing
now if i'm guessing at home i'm thinking
probably the most important immediate
thing is hypoxia
sounds pretty serious but you have
experience with it yeah i mean hypoxia
is a real deal
i had an experience when i was helping
felix baumgardner do that jump from the
edge of space
yeah i was filming him i fell off the
side of an airplane
um basically unconscious at 26 000 feet
and i woke up at about 10 000 feet in
free fall
and that's where the air starts to get
thicker the oxygen comes back your brain
starts working
i saw my altimeter i mean it was scary
stuff
so i take that very serious and i made
it on the outside seem jokey and funny
but
as we get closer this stuff gets real
serious now so when david's going up and
he's getting into the the thinner and
thinner atmosphere will you be able to
tell like if he's losing it a little bit
yeah i mean i feel that i can david did
a great thing he brought in some friends
that know him know his personality
and i'm gonna refer to them a little bit
just if they feel that he's acting
different than he is normally okay uh i
might take
their advice in and weigh that into my
decisions on
what he needs to do gotcha and so i'm
here
thinking david blaine might be the guy
who can train for
oxygen deprivation like if you can train
for this he can you know breath holding
techniques that type of thing is that
gonna work
i mean it drives me crazy because he
holds his breath so long and he's so
good at the oxygen part but i'm like
it's serious no one can overcome at
certain altitudes it's just
what happens but we rode up in an
airplane together
and we put pulse ox on our fingers
measuring our oxygen concentration in
our blood
we climbed up to 25 000 feet and he was
actually better than i was and i got 20
000 jumps i spent half my life in the
air
he processes oxygen a little bit better
there's me
i was pr i did it to prove to him that
it doesn't work
yeah and it actually worked a little bit
so now i'm going to be fighting that
today i think
i mean if he's in his own good hands and
he's trained for it that's good so
i mean i'm also thinking like if he does
get to
that height and it does become a problem
you have the remote control
as a last resort to maybe bring it lower
and and
sort of feel like he's getting back we
can i try to not even think about that
because
if it's me and i land and i'm okay i'm
pissed
yeah i'm coming to me and i'm yelling
you wrecked my stunt what are you doing
you're not my dad
all that um so it's a fine line between
what's safe
and what david's all about is doing
amazing
intense things gotcha well we have a
little piece on him
actually helping other people learn his
breath holding technique
and actually getting them better at it
and so if it works it works
so let's check that out all right
there's one technique that i started
when i was five years old
that i've spent the last four decades
learning how to do better and better
the technique that i've learned for
holding my breath during drowned alive
was essential
and even allowed me to break a world
record just by learning to control my
breathing and slow my heart rate
one of the possible threats on my next
stunt is a potentially fatal condition
called hypoxia
hypoxia is when you don't get enough
oxygen because you go too high and
you're not in a pressurized cabin like
an airplane so you're breathing the air
that has
less oxygen when you become hypoxic you
have no idea what you're doing so you're
completely foggy it's like you're drunk
but the breathing technique can actually
help me override hypoxia by keeping my
blood oxygen levels saturated and high
we did the first reading at tankoff
which is 200 feet
i was 98 02
and david was 97. so as we go up we'll
see what we get
as we ascended to higher altitudes
luke's oxygen levels began to drop
by using the same breathing techniques
that i've learned
i was able to keep my blood oxygen
levels normal more than three miles
above sea level
once we reached our peak altitude my
oxygen level was dropping as well
so i needed to breathe puro2 to recover
i'll need to improve my technique to
prevent hypoxia
there's no footage there's nothing of
someone going up to extreme altitudes
using this technique and being perfectly
fine
look at this
he's at 8502 level 98
when i'm shooting my specials people
always ask me if what i'm doing is real
or is it magic
one of the things i often demonstrate to
answer them
is teaching them how to hold their
breath longer than they realize is
possible
some of them even find it relevant to
what they do
winter's like right around the corner
and learning how to breathe
properly this is a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity
yeah i know it's gonna benefit me
surfing even if i can get to like
two minutes two and a half minutes i'll
be happy before we start we're gonna do
a test
i'm gonna say take a deep breath in
everybody hold hold your hand
up take a deep breath in and hold
the average of human breath holding is
about a minute
that was 141 very impressive
good it's a minute 45. most people don't
realize that they can hold their breath
for longer than a minute
and i've taught many people over the
years how to hold their breath for
three to four minutes don't try that on
your own but
so now i'm gonna explain the process to
you you're going to take a deep breath
in then we're going to hold for a second
and then we're going to exhale for about
10 seconds
it's going to flush the co2 out of your
bloodstream
you will get numb feelings in your lips
you might get tingly in your fingers
and imagine you're blowing a toy boat
over the surface of a pool and don't do
it to the point that you're blacking out
but push it enough
and then a huge breath in and hold
good feel tingly the air is overflowing
it feels like it's going to come out
just hold
just hold it relax
recover breath you purge so hard that
you blocked yourself out
james
hold on just keep recovering
it's like crazy back down in front of me
i think the last one when you were doing
the purging we're over
doing it it's so easy to black out on
that
we're gonna do just a few minutes of
this recovery breathing
and then we're going to get in the pool
if we get to 3 minutes and 30 seconds
we've passed houdini's lifelong record
if we get to 4 minutes we're at the
elite navy seal guys we're at the very
top
huge breath in
and go under when you're ready
just get as comfortable as you can give
me a signal if you're okay
give me a signal if you're okay
good three minutes is great
recovery
that's 425
cup three
445 is no joke that's that's serious for
your first time like
so that's completely changed how i surf
like sometimes before a big drop i'm
just like well just in case i don't
catch us
and then get the drop and then like in
the wave exhale
how was your little black out in the
chairs i felt like someone put a hat on
my head
you're like where am i or yeah you get
lost like i didn't know where i was
once we got past houdini i was like well
yeah
we got past the navy seals yeah yeah
yeah i'm happy with it
do not do this on your own when nobody's
looking because what happens is now that
you have the technique
if you do it to the point that he did
when we were practicing he blacked out
from pushing too hard
and if you black out underwater no one's
watching you
shallow water death is is very easy so
yeah this just got dark
tomorrow you guys will have like a
slight little bit of a headache but it
goes away fast
i i completely forgot to say that but
it's a co2 bullet but it goes away
i'll teach you how to do it yeah awesome
so
i i actually gave that a little bit of a
shot i wasn't underwater or anything but
i went from like a minute
to around two which i was pretty proud
of you further when we have time
amazing so the one thing i want to
re-emphasize is
it is very very dangerous to do that so
nobody try to do that when i do it once
again i have an incredible team around
me and i'm supervised and i learn all
the skills so there's no risk of a
shallow water death
by doing it on your couch i also don't
recommend
i think the training is the most
important piece but i think
i just want to go zoom out for a second
you are
going to grab a bunch of balloons float
up
into the sunrise over this majestic
landscape
until you're a tiny dot and then you're
going to let go of the balloons
with a parachute on and skydive down to
the ground
that is wild so i just i just like rough
you guys
we have a perfect weather window we need
to take advantage of
so we need to launch no later than 7 45.
so is everything okay
everything is okay but we don't want to
push mother nature we've got a great
opportunity so let's take it so
everything's shifted then
everything's shifted no later than 7 45.
okay cool
all right so thanks we're going to hurry
things along i i can tell the wind is
perfectly still so that's great
um we're good on that so i mean it's now
time like i mean
i love the cameras i love you guys all
watching it's time to get to work man
you gotta
get going you're gonna suit up yeah
exactly so take a minute
go get ready and then we'll meet you
over here five minutes and then we'll
start gearing up okay
all right thank you yeah sorry man i
know you got a show but we gotta get
going that's the importance of it and
that's why the training matters and
i just want to talk about that one extra
factor so we talked about
we talked about hypoxia and how that's a
big deal we talked about
the parachuting and the landing and
that's also super important but
temperature
is another little one you don't think
about too much when you're floating off
into the clouds
not only does the atmosphere gets
thinner with low oxygen
but it gets way colder i was told it's
about three and a half degrees celsius
or about
seven degrees fahrenheit colder for
every thousand feet you go
up so it's getting real cold up there
now i'm from new york david's from new
york we're used to cold weather hands
but if you're getting your parachute
down and putting it on and your hands
are too cold that can be a problem
so you got to get a little bit ready for
cold weather too it's going to be cold
let's check out how we train for the
cold
hopefully you're not claustrophobic i'll
go try to stay in there
for as long as i possibly can there's a
lot of pro athletes
that can't do it okay when you know
meaning they jump
out in like 30 seconds yeah 30 to 40
seconds they come out now the way this
helps in my next stunt
is when i'm going up on the balloons i'm
riding all the way up
basically every thousand feet you lose
three and a half degrees
on my first jump that i did from 25 000
feet i had a full face
mask on and the first breath that i took
the whole thing iced over so my skydive
when i was jumping down i had to like
look through this
little hole
immediately that's crazy
me and jake are gonna take our
temperature because once we go in the
cryogenic i wanna see if our
temperatures drop
so you'll be 98.3
that's lit we had one professional boxer
yesterday
tap out so he got knocked down in one
round
wow wow this is crazy right now one
two
you doing okay yup okay
you're halfway there
he's got 45 seconds left he's doing
great
he's starting to shake
all right good job oh
wow that's amazing
you said that was one level what's the
next level of that
more intense just crank it to the
highest from it
in the stunt i do have to learn
when i'm going up to these heights how
to stay completely coherent
and hypoxia kicks in much quicker when
you're in an extreme condition
how you doing in there bro it's
we'll good two in a row
now it's good
three this man
just tried to go again for three
you want to go for a third time yeah
okay
just wanted to triple check he's gonna
be there for nine minutes
dude
this is the long side i think anybody
would ever think about doing
you got about 25 seconds left bro
i do not know how
that was insane
wow that was good let's see if the
temperature drops
oh
you did it bro yeah you're gonna be good
so i guess one last uh important bit is
well we went over the image right he's
floating up on these balloons
and i love the art of it like it's just
a silhouette of a guy floating up over
the horizon
just with balloons right but in order to
do that he doesn't have a parachute on
yeah and so this was an idea you guys
went back and forth about
how when when does he get it on i almost
wish i hadn't brought it up he's like is
there a way and i'm like oh there's
always a way to do something we put a
man on the moon we could figure out how
to do this but
yeah then i was regretting it for quite
a while so we've been practicing putting
this parachute on
but for me it's it's the most critical
portion
i mean he could land and crash land with
his parachute out in a
bummer area and hurt his ankle break his
leg but if he doesn't get that parachute
on
and he has to come out of that thing in
a hurry like
there's no options i mean that is real
if he doesn't get that on in my
mind that's the equivalent of not making
it and so he's
he's pulling the parachute down he's
he's putting it on how long does that
take
yeah so the fastest we've been able to
do it is around two and a half minutes
so think he's climbing at 500 feet a
minute yeah and we're gonna start that
at roughly
four or five thousand feet above the
ground takes that long
he's getting colder less oxygen so i'm
gonna be hurrying him and pushing him to
do
um what i think is right but right um
he's the only one up there you know once
his feet leave the ground it's on him
and so then parachute gets on let's say
that goes great
yep then you guys got to land and you
guys went up and
looked at some sites and i mean there's
a lot to choose from out here i'm seeing
mesas and desert and stuff like that how
did that go
so um when he got here the other day i
came out did a site inspection i was
like oh we're going to the desert we're
not going to get to go to new york yet
and
we're going to be in the desert it's
going to be great and then i got here
and i started flying around and checking
it out
yeah and david got here a couple days
later and i said david do not get in the
helicopter
don't go look until we have time to look
at a map and talk about it
because it's really scary oh luke it's
no problem and i'm like man
don't get in the helicopter you would
know you went for a ride
and came down and then it got very real
for him yeah as real as it's been for me
the whole time
that i have all these gnarly spots and
where am i going to land luke i mean
i can land in the beautiful nice grass
but this is mountains and hills and
cliffs and
so we talked him off the fence a little
bit everything came around and now
he's uh nervously excited i think to
make this happen
okay well if anyone's good to train him
it's you you've done
how many launches you think i got over
20 000 skydives so i feel like i'd trust
you but
it takes a lot of training and
especially with skydiving a lot of
safety precautions so
that's what you guys have been doing we
got a little piece about how he's gotten
better at
getting out of a plane the day of
ascension
if i have to release from the balloons
i'll need to skydive down to save my
life
i want to get as close as possible to
500 jumps so i feel
safe landing over almost any area
all right nicely done
good job i've been learning how to
develop a skill that i've never had
and it is the most incredible skill to
learn
my first 100 jumps were done with scott
smith
who's a world champion freestyle
skydiver
and a great instructor i repetitiously
jumped sometimes 15 times a day so i
could have complete awareness of
everything around me
and then how to land safely in a
specific area
which actually turns out to be the
hardest part
i landed so far from everything like i'm
in the middle if i landed around a bunch
of trees
where you're supposed to land is where
that little white dot is right there
there's been a couple of really bad
landings that i have
yeah oh no oh and he ate it
hey whoa whoa whoa shut her down all the
way
whoa whoa whoa stop stop another time i
crashed into a fence
and my body flipped over these are my
little wounds
that's got my initials on it right there
that was okay but it could have been bad
like another
this much and it would have been shows
done
you know obviously the danger in
skydiving is the earth right it's coming
up at us
at a high rate of speed if you don't do
something you know it's going to kill
you for sure you know i've lost friends
and it's tough
in the last 40 years i've lost over 100
friends skydiving i wish i had 100
friends
right
skydivers sense of humor is like that
sorry
20 years ago i was here training for my
stunt vertigo where i stood on a pillar
for 36 hours and had to jump 100 feet
into cardboard boxes
and my coach was pat mcgowan who's in
this picture right here
in 2011 somebody collided right into him
and he passed away pat his example is
one he did nothing
and those are the ones that stick with
me the ones where i can't say oh i
wouldn't have done that i would have
done this i mean it can happen to them
it just
sets home it can happen to anybody
during the stunt i'll have no idea where
the winds are gonna take me
so i need to learn how to get to a spot
where i can land safely with my
parachute
money that's why i reached out to luke
akins
a man who jumped from 25 000 feet out of
an airplane with no parachute and landed
in a small
net there's no one that i would trust
more than luke to teach me how to
navigate through the sky and land safely
clear of buildings and power lines and
any other dangerous obstacle
yeah buddy my goal is to get him so that
anywhere he drops
he can land so in order to do that you
have to track your body through the air
tracking is a way of trying to get to a
specific location much
faster basically you're flying
luke has been teaching me how to track
and when you track you fly
really fast and it feels so good
it's like you're cutting through the air
and it's so amazing
this is the most exciting project that
i've ever worked on
learning to skydive from some of the
best coaches in the world has been
unlike anything i could have ever
imagined
i love skydiving and being able to do
this over and over and actually learn it
is amazing i have a better understanding
of the challenges i'll face for
ascension
and with all the preparation that we've
done i feel that i can actually enjoy
this one for the first time
the feeling of flying a balloon it's
like floating
and the feeling of jumping out of a
plane it's like flying
so between floating and flying these are
the two things that i've always dreamed
of as a kid
putting this together that surpasses any
of my dreams
all right status update time welcome
back jim how you doing
pretty good how's the cluster doing it's
doing really good all the balloons are
attached now
the cameras are installed they're
focused they're uh
they've been tested we've weighed off
the cluster we've made sure we have the
uplift that we're expecting
so we're we're in the final stages here
for sure
and basically all you have to do is get
david i mean he's putting his his
harness and everything on now
and once he's attached to it he's ready
to lift off basically
that's it we're going to do a little bit
of final adjustment with bert make sure
that we're going to go out at the speed
we want to initially
uh and then that that's it then the
helium wins nice
i got i got a bunch of uh youtube
questions there's some chat going and we
got some curious questions from people
about
what's going on first of all how many
balloons i'm looking at this thing it's
like 30 feet tall something like that
it's closer to 50 feet tall 50 feet tall
and there's 52 balloons
52 52 cards yeah that may have something
to do with it
i like that um and the balloons have
helium in them
how much if you just let those go how
much lift
i guess that's a math question how many
pounds of lift is 50
helium balloons right now yeah so an
8-foot balloon gives us about 15 pounds
of uplift most of this is an eight foot
diameter balloon
we also have five and a half and four
foot diameter balloons and the smaller
the balloon
the less the lift the more we can dial
it in gotcha and when you're popping
balloons are you only popping small ones
or big ones we're only popping big ones
actually so those those are for big
adjustment
gotcha um what is uh
are you will you be able to speak to
david in the air uh i will not
which i think david will be thrilled
about luke however will have a direct
line with him and i think dessa will as
well
okay oh that's awesome um where does
this go
when it's done so we have obviously
established we have controls
i like there's a plane here's a quick
anecdote anytime i'm on camera
worst possible noise conditions i just
bring the noise with me but we'll set an
airfield that's fine
um but once this thing is jumped from it
gets brought down
i guess somewhere in the desert is there
a location correct so the the flight
team will be watching its uh flight
pattern
and will be the same as david needs to
find a landing spot they're gonna find a
safe landing spot for this start venting
balloons
to get it to be negatively buoyant so it
starts coming down and as it gets to the
ground they're going to dump some remote
ballast
to slow its descent rate so it just
touches down gently and then we have a
recovery team to go pick it up
do you already know how many balloons
you have to pop to recover it well it's
going to depend on the flight and what
we have to do to keep david's speed
correct and all that kind of stuff but
those guys are excellent at
thinking on the spot and and with
situational awareness and making the
right decision
gotcha sometimes those balloons actually
sort of splay out a little bit like when
i was looking at
my eight mile an hour wind day when i
wanted to go up there and feel it
but i didn't they kind of just like
spread out a lot and that seemed like
either really good or really bad for
catching a lot of wind
what do these look like when they're
floating up in the air when they're
floating up in the air actually
the the cluster behaves as one big
object
so then they're not tethered to the
ground right so when the wind hits them
they just move with the wind as opposed
to your cluster when we tried to put you
up the other day was tethered to the
ground
and there weren't enough balloons to
make it one big object so the wind comes
through and
okay everything goes wild here's a maybe
a little weird question
what if a balloon pops unintentionally
like in some testing it's happened
before one of the balloons is popped
yeah absolutely what's what's going on
then that's why we have ballast right so
david's got a couple of bags on him that
he can work with
and then we also have a remote
deployable ballast
inside the payload so if the balloon
pops and that affects our lift and our
speed
the flight team can drop a little bit of
sand to get us to be
positively buoyant again i like it how
much how much
helium would you say is in all 52
balloons well we got that 18 wheeler
full of helium over there i don't know
we've been doing a real good job this
week of
sending them home empty that's so that's
hundreds thousands of gallons of helium
yeah it's measured in cubic feet and
it's a whole lot nice
that's amazing i mean there's a lot of
curious questions from the from the
youtube audience i'm sure but
i think generally it's more just about
like will it all come together there's
so much tech
so much you know preparation that's gone
into it so much teamwork
the weather i'm gonna just say i don't
wanna jinx it but it looks pretty
amazing right now i don't feel any wind
and this is a majestic site so i'm happy
i think this looks good it's it's going
to be great as
i've been we've been saying on this
project it's not a question of if it
will happen it's a question of what
we're going to go through to make it
happen
and we because we did it together here
we are and we're ready to go
okay you want to walk up here and check
out any absolutely we sure can
okay so these are the cameras right here
that are going to be
facing david as he's in the air correct
yeah and they're pretty wide so we
should be able to see
pretty much his whole self while he's
hanging there so this will give us a
real
idea of what he's looking at around
there yeah his perspective
his like it's probably just going to be
a lot of blue sky but some
yeah well hopefully some of this
beautiful background too below him at
least in the beginning
okay uh and then over here we've got uh
david's oxygen hanging here for later in
the flight to avoid the hypoxia
yeah uh and then this is how the lower
part of the cluster has come together
i don't think i've asked you what the
balloons are made of yet uh latex
okay is that biodegradable like when it
lands
if you pop a balloon yeah just just like
weather balloons they're designed to not
affect the environment
awesome how many of them do you like see
in other
weather like apparatus normally weather
balloons are just one
really long big balloon right because
the aesthetic is not
uh as important it's uh very uh uh
utilitarian
buster's clusters like this aren't a
very popular ballooning mechanism i
guess
for sure right well there's there's a
lot of points of failure here right
every balloon is a single point of
failure
got it i love the do you have a favorite
color balloon i have a favorite color oh
what's your favorite color
i'm gonna say this blue one right here
it's a it's a good blue it's a good
rigger blue we like the blue ones uh
there's a lot of red in here the yellow
ones also that matches the payload we
like those ones too
yeah so the plane is about to take off
now that's the king air yeah that one
goes up and it's an rf
platform meaning it sends these radio
signals it circles around david at about
five miles
and sends all these signals back down to
us so that's what's about to fly off i
just want to see if it affects the
balloons as he takes off at all yeah
let's hop down for a sec
i think that's kind of wild that this
entire project there's so much tech that
i've seen that i haven't even mentioned
like
he mentioned the plane that's going up
it's got all sorts of antennas in it
it's beaming
information down making sure connections
are secure making sure
this connection is secure and then art
also mentioned
the military channels that are used to
communicate with the squibs
that are encoded so nobody who gets the
radio signals can ever
pop one just by getting in there's so
much that goes into this so
i'm glad it's it's all about redundancy
right it's about it's about making sure
no one thing can take us down and put
david in danger
beautiful all right i'm gonna go back
over into the uh
the hanger and see what's going on have
fun thank you thank you
david right now
good
we got to do his patch antennas before
that goes
on his belly we got to do all that first
david
how much time do we have here where are
we how much time do we have to launch
right a little bit is that too tight
for the antenna um i mean you got like
10 minutes or so
how much takes about 20 months uh to
launch we have
30 minutes 35 out okay sorry we have 40
minutes i was robbing you
okay looks good wind's perfect don's
just launching a
high ball out there just to watch it go
up a little big balloon
um see where the track goes landing area
looks the same everything looks good on
all that
okay um right now they're putting on
batteries
leg radio are you guys looking for the
vhf radio no we're looking for the
this one no no we got that okay um
yeah everything's looking really good
out there okay this is the crazy part
right
we always knew this was gonna be the
busy with yeah everybody watching and
checking it out
and the camera's gonna hang
perfect so then shoot we won't be able
to attack the vest low
because he's got the camera folded down
low yeah
yeah so you know i can get the upper two
pick so yep get the upper two picks and
leave the bottom
there so uh when you're jumping you got
that cool
sweatshirt on and stuff you want to make
sure our one of our checks is that our
pockets are zipped up
come back here yeah you keep going so
that the pockets are zipped up
yeah because we don't want handles going
in that's on us but when you're in free
fall
worst thing would be that the sweatshirt
comes undone right yeah so then if you
have to use your handles
make sure you clear this one all right
so left leg is a radio that lets me
communicate to david when he's up in the
air the right leg is a battery pack
that powers this whole vest that not
only does
uh the image but also transmits the
image and
he wears this vest and actually gets
warm on your back i wore it the other
day and david said it got warm but
he was under playing it it was hot like
i mean it was super hot yeah anytime you
have it it's too much
we won't have that issue initiative
it'll be a warmer he doesn't need a heat
vest today that's true
because you got all that tech on your
back also my favorite anecdote i just
want to bring it up because i don't
think anyone's mentioned it yet
he's got two main antennas one of them
is in his
booth yeah one of them is going to be on
his
chest and they're going to switch based
on an accelerometer so as he's
riding the balloons up the closest
antenna can make
communicating with the ground is in the
shoe and then as he
skydives the closest antenna is going to
be in his chest and it'll switch
really yeah i knew there were two
antennas i thought they worked at the
same time they're going to just switch
dynamically based on which one is closer
to the ground the better signal changes
as soon as he leaves what happens if
he's tumbling
that's a great question for probably the
engineers maybe it'll keep switching but
it'll probably
hope that doesn't happen i mean i tried
to lighten the mood a little bit but
it's getting real now
yeah yeah whatever you guys are ready
for
it takes you see how many people it
takes it takes a village here right
that's the teamwork of it
yeah um and then david has specific
wants and images that he would like yeah
but then we have stuff that's required
for safety right
we're not going to let him go up he
asked me at one point do you think i can
um hang from there to 25 000 feet
just holding on and i was like
but that's like that's the david blaine
part of it is as much as you can make it
that magical
like surreal look the better right and i
think it's already incredible that like
this is a 50-foot cluster of balloons
and what kid hasn't thought about like
just
latching onto them and floating away you
know very first time i saw the balloons
i went to uh
tate's facility in pennsylvania we
walked out there and they had the
balloons going and it was all inflate
perfect morning
yeah and we hooked david up and his feet
got off the ground maybe two inches
and he giggled like a little kid yeah
and it was such a
funny you remember that david so cool he
giggled and then he looked at me and
luke
you're going to be so jealous on this
that was like that was when i had a
tether on wait
i know you let go yeah so that part
looks really fun and engaging and
exciting like
when you're low it's great but as he
starts to look through his feet
and we start to gain altitude i think
then it becomes a lot more real
yeah with all this stuff you know the
legs and the the whole harnessing system
and all that
uh somebody here i heard them say to him
well you're used to being uncomfortable
all your stunts
and he said uh those are uncomfortable
by choice not equipment
so he definitely is trying to be as
comfortable as he can but
there's no way you can hang around for
an hour and be like standing here on the
ground
yeah so i'll just re-establish exactly
where we're at right now i know how
youtube works people are just tuning in
at the climax right
so david's going to go up and you've all
maybe seen up or you've seen the huge
cluster of balloons by now the plan
is to have him unhooked from the ground
connected to a ton of helium-filled
balloons
he's gonna go floating up into the sky
over this beautiful desert landscape of
page arizona
into the sunrise and he's gonna just
keep going up and up
and up until he's like a little dot in
the sky i don't know if you've ever seen
skydivers from the ground
it's just a dot there's a classic
marquez moment
just a lot of noise happening so
that's the last part he gets up he
brings
a parachute down onto him puts it on
jumps from the balloons skydives to the
ground
lands and hopefully all goes well now
there's a whole bunch of safety and
and tech responsible for making this
happen there's the weather team we
talked to
winds are looking pretty good i think
we've got all the communication
from the payload inside the balloons
that's going to be talking to his radios
the camera signal so when he goes up
there we can still see him
and his view i mean there's a ton of
tech happening he's wearing batteries
right now to power all this stuff and a
vest covered in tech so
i think the whole thing so far so good
and
uh yeah that's where we're at right now
so when we're looking at that
we're looking at the lz's looking out
places to like this is where we talked
about for the landing it looks like your
trajectory is going to be in this
green area here remember you have high
tension power lines right i mean those
will kill you you cannot land in those
oh wait so hold
on what am i looking for so what you're
looking at right here
is this is the airport where i'm trying
to land this is the airport
right the green is your flight path yeah
it's okay
gonna carry you along where it turns to
white yeah that's where we should reach
25
000 feet i mean this is best guess
dawn's amazing but yeah yeah there's so
many variables
so where's the where's the so the lz's
right here it's straight back towards
the airport for a reference
but what am i looking for from when i'm
up there so when you're up there the
city ten thousand
you'll see the city out there okay when
you're looking down hold on but wait
go back out see if the city is here the
city is here okay so the city's here
where's the is that that where this is
the three towers
right here yep those are the three
towers okay so hold on so if i see
this that's where we are basically
that's right so we're taking off
okay and if i see this it's on my right
correct and i'm not gonna see this
anywhere else right right that's the
only
okay so i'm looking for this on my left
this on my right correct
okay then what am i looking for once i
come down so there's a
there's a beautiful road there's one
road that runs underneath it's a paved
road very often
a little esther these water ponds here
their irrigation ponds yeah they stand
out
terrific and there's no power lines no
anything but that this is what you're
looking for for a reference okay
okay that's easy to find easy to see
then you're gonna go
towards the airport right still on your
path towards the airport okay but wait
i'm going towards the airport or in this
direction in this direction or
towards the airport it's the same thing
but
this is north you're headed northbound
okay directly towards the airport
towards the airport yep okay and then
you're going to look out here there's
this big flat mesa
this stands out really good these water
ponds yeah stand out great so so you're
heading
towards the waterfall right towards the
water ponds and the airport
water ponds airport okay landing zone
but where is the landing zone right here
where right there right there so
this is that room but is it here or is
it no it's this green
everything that's green here is
beautiful but that's what we've looked
at on the map
so can i see it without the green or
sure possible i can see with anything
here
so here is roughly a spot that i've
looked at
that's crazy i've looked it here okay
it's very obvious
this edge the sip of water by the way
yeah exactly yeah this is where it gets
real huh
yeah it gets real for sure so remember
this changes every day we've looked at
all these areas but today it looks
perfect it couldn't be better you're
only obstacle on that whole flat
you jump off the balloons you head
towards the airport
once you have the airport like you're
headed that direction you're looking for
those two little water ponds
right you see those little water ponds
and then it's right it's really close
yeah it's in front of them
exactly it's in front of them okay and
the the landing zone this is the one
that we picked i'm also the worst
person with directions i know that's why
i'm trying to give you a better uh
reference so it's really this should be
very very easy to see
okay this is what i'm hoping um and it
looks right now that that's your best
landing spot
um behind but besides that you're going
to pick any of the little ravines the
sand ravines we've looked at out there
okay if you ended up in an emergency
situation um you're just gonna pick a
nice
sandy ravine and try to not land on like
a paved road or anything like that
because that's where the power lines are
gonna be right
yep our eyes are open i should be able
to talk to you but no comms could happen
yeah i mean then it gets sketched so
okay um
just yeah you're gonna exit we'll look
at it one more time out there i'll let
you finish getting ready but i just
wanted to give you a
current briefing on where we're at okay
we'll look at that again yeah for sure
okay all right
luke are you also going to do it luke
yeah you and
are also doing a complete eyeball
multiple times we've checked everything
so far right now is a good time
you know you feel these phillips oh wow
look where they are wow
yeah thank so what's going to happen is
it's going to come under there and the
tab is going to be under it make sure
you get this
bigger tab
hook up the legs
but yeah just feel those and get a good
idea of where they're at and what they
feel like in your hand
okay and then you don't got it this is
good yep this is great juvi
that's awesome when did you think of
that this morning
perfect okay next should i sit for this
yeah sit down david i'm gonna double
check everything
yeah okay great that's good that's good
that's good
all right let's have a seat okay
all right laurence you have all
altimeters
right foot
give me a countdown so give me like 30
minutes to
msl and launch
all right yeah i'm just gonna keep these
so scott scott you're going to find me
i will okay
what color red or what color you're
going to
see some white okay okay great
i expected that um david starts
questioning landing where we're looking
embodied directions you know
it's common there's a lot going on here
and then the whole world's watching him
at the same time so you have that
he i noticed that last time that he was
able to ignore the cameras and we got
into the meat of what
he needs to do to be okay yeah so we're
talking about the landing areas we're
going to talk about them again
they're gearing them up safety checking
i got stan over there
scott smith everybody's keeping an eye
everyone has their jobs
yeah um my job is just to make sure that
the whole team is doing what they need
to do and then or whatever double check
it but um it's getting real right now
yeah and you're talking about altimeters
too just making sure they're all
zeroed out right now he wants to wear a
whole bunch of altimeters
right um we're up here at page arizona
yeah we're 4 hundred feet above the
ocean
sea level okay aviation cares about sea
level everything you hear talks about
sea level mountain heights all that
yeah skydivers only care about ground
level right
so we call that ago above ground level
okay so i only want him
to know his altitude above the ground
makes sense
he would like to have both yeah because
he wants to know
for hypoxia yeah so like there he's
worried about the hypoxia part but i'm
like let me help you with that
i'm worried that he
the terrain is all different so there's
no there's no ground it's not like what
i've been practicing where everything is
level
it doesn't exist so the ground level is
inaccurate no matter what
i have opinions every single one of us
but
um i think that we're on the right page
so he has
i actually prefer if he ended up an
emergency situation
to land on the top of one of those you
know there's no houses
fence power lines there's nothing up
there yeah we'll figure out how to get
them down later
right i would choose one of those if i
ended up in a bad spot
gotcha and we also didn't even mention
the helicopter which is
in addition to the plane that's going
around at a high altitude
we have a camera on a helicopter that's
that sort of a middle altitude that's
going to be tracking him but also has a
lot of communication
as he's on the way up yeah he passes the
helicopter's max altitude
and then starts talking with the plane
and then comes back down correct
and the helicopter is going to get
amazing shots it serves two purposes
captures these beautiful images but also
has safety and eyes on him all the time
so if we lost comms we have community to
communicate um
and the helicopter pilot aaron
fitzgerald long time friend of mine
he's one of the few guys i trust to get
in there tight
and not affect the balloons but get
great shots but
it's almost uncomfortable how close it
gets you can see the white of his eyes
in there
that's crazy it's another another top
piece of that team is getting the
helicopter in the right spot
there's so many moving parts yeah and i
expect between us i expect it to get
even a little more intense as we get
closer to go outside
tighten it back up yeah i can make it
tighter yeah that's yeah
i got a pick for you right here though
here i can put you in here yeah you put
that same one right
yeah this one
what this has to go over the ear though
doesn't it yes it does yeah
so not to add more pressure but uh
dawn says we definitely keep moving yeah
and we are all right what's our time i
know you guys need it
our time is as soon as you're ready but
really yep
what time is it now right now it's uh 7
20.
um we'd like to you know we got a lot of
stuff to do still out there
okay so we're uh i'm gonna go check the
parachutes everything safety wise
um and then as soon as you guys are
ready and comfortable let's get moving
okay this is i think this is in noodles
is that fine
let me see yeah let me just put this in
i think it's fine all right it will be
i don't know where you want that i'll
put a little piece of it there
so this came up and then we just hooked
it to this
face more and so tucked in
you're ready to go this is tight this is
tight
this is tight yeah it's safe
that's tight that's tight yep so you're
good on a
like a stamped hair goes over everything
we need to keep going
what's this here this is
just take it out i think we'll put it
back in right
take it out we'll put it back in we've
got another side up here
just take it out and we'll put it back
in we'll switch we'll get this out in a
second okay
perfect now we're ready for the shirt
or length first i know of this do we
need to check length
at all it's the same length perfect so
we're all good there it's all been okay
yeah
yes it is luke yeah let me just plug up
that
arm up one more time david you gonna
test his length where is
yeah he's he's got it right now you got
that
yeah as loud as possible
left arm right on
yeah it's funny
and as you go over the top
david we're still going we're still
going with the weather we just let it
high bulb up
it was really calm for the first 2000
feet
so we're still good on time we're good
we're good you're sure
we're sure we don't want to go any
longer than we need to but right now
you want to have them go up because
right now we're looking pretty good on
time yeah right now we're looking pretty
good on time the weather weather's
holding we have a really stable
thick column of calm winds in fact i
just let a pie ball balloon go
yeah and for the first thousand feet the
balloon barely moved it just went
straight up which is exactly what we
want to see
just like a little test balloon just a
little test balloon but as the
ground warms up we're at an airport
location with all this asphalt and
concrete
right that's going to start to warm up
the air and the air is going to want to
start to move
so the later we go in the morning the
more the winds could pick up but right
now
we're right on where we exactly where we
want to be in terms of timing and i
think the winds will hold
okay what happens if we do need extra
time and we're after
the window we want okay so what we we're
in that situation where we hope mother
nature cooperates
and these nice calm winds stay
manageable again i'll bring back that
five miles per hour wind
right so as long as we stand under that
five miles per hour everything is
manageable we can have david have a safe
launch
safe ascent safe landing we start
getting about five or six miles an hour
that's when we're going to be concerned
right okay got it
when you guys walk david out we're going
to walk him as far east on the asphalt
as we can go yeah just do it one time
towards the plateau the one thing that
may happen
is get a feel of what this feels like
because if you grab this one then you're
going to pull and pull and pull yeah
that's perfect yep you know what i mean
should i sit again
well these guys are still working on you
back here yep we're almost done almost
done but we gotta get the shoe on before
we power yep
okay so what's the shoes yeah do you
want to sit down david to do that
i got this david this is
there we go
and i need the cutter as well but we'll
get that one
uh you're going to get that on the deck
from the client
he's going to put that in here a little
bit
i hear you because you're here we've
been playing with these things what's
but what's going on
hold on i hear it's low yes again hold
on
wait oh okay i'm in talk again
i heard you say it's low
i got you in my left ear now but i have
two things
yeah i hear you on my right now
tell them they haven't powered the vest
yet and i can't do that until he stands
up
all right we got a couple more stuff
going on right now they're putting on
the best powering it up with all the
antennas and radios and getting
the boot on which has the antenna that
we talked about i'll go through a couple
more youtube questions and
i'm gonna do my best to see if i can
answer them based on the time i've spent
around these experts and we'll see how
it goes i might have to call one of them
over
so uh we went over where the balloons go
what's the maximum height he will get to
i think that might be a question for
luke but we're looking at over ten
fifteen thousand feet again he's trying
to be a dodge
in the sky it's pretty high
again anytime i talk to camera
what are some of the variable things
that can change while david is up in the
air that we're looking for
so basically don's in charge of weather
and he's always going to have an eye on
what winds are doing at different
heights so as he ascends into different
wind bands
that's the thing that can change wind
can pick up and we can't see it until he
gets to it looking good man
uh yeah so this happens radio on and
then uh how will he detach from the
balloons
loud enough so he's got a series of
hooks but he's he's hanging on and he's
attached to the balloons
when he gets the parachute down and
attaches that then he's got a special
sequence of instructions
to unhook and just basically let go of
the balloons
which is kind of wild but that's what
i've seen
uh what are the main challenges of
parachuting
i've never parachuted but i'm gonna
guess it's landing
i'm gonna guess it's coming down picking
your spot and we have luke who's done
i think he said 20 000 jumps which is
amazing so he comes down super fast
picks a spot
and just hits it but from what i hear as
you're coming down you sort of lock your
eyes on a spot on the horizon and you
have a couple rules of thumb
to try to hit that spot you don't want
to come down too steep or too shallow
just as you land we've seen a lot of
good landings on youtube and you can
watch those but generally i think it's
the landing
uh what will happen if some balloons pop
someone wants to know
so there is always that risk and i think
the number one thing we have
is the control center which can
counteract that by dropping weight
so they can already decide to pop a
balloon if they want him to rise slower
or descend if a balloon pops by accident
and they starts to go down they can drop
some of that weight which they call
ballast and he'll start to
even out and go back up that's my
understanding i don't think they'll pop
by accident at least i hope not
uh maybe one more how close is the
chopper to david
great question it looks it looks really
close and we've done
like test runs flying the helicopter
around and they've got that sweet camera
on the front by the way
the red camera in there it's got a sweet
long lens and they get pretty close and
you'll see
when he gets up there how close the
helicopter gets
getting the last couple layers on he's
got this camera
that can either twist around to face him
or face
his view like the ground and there's
also going to be cameras up in the
balloons that face him from super far
away so
i'm a pretty good view as he's actually
rising up attached to those balloons
of what he's seeing and how high he gets
and how close that helicopter is
okay do you have a picture time
hey noodles do you have a picture how
much of that mean so you can pull it out
yeah i got this now
so we've already double checked the
whole harness everything that's all the
way up and we're going to check it on
there as well
i'm talking about everything that's
covered up right now we've double
checked this goes in
this thing right
here okay so it'll be flopping when i
jump
this or no this is good everything's
good so just leave it like this
speak like this right where's the button
that's it you hear it clicking
that's it that's the button hello can
you hear me that's the i don't have that
right
hello did you hear me yeah this is well
this is the aviation radio yeah
this is your back effect yeah that was
the backup backup this is the one
yeah this is the one you're talking
about this is here yeah got it
yeah it doesn't have to be zipped all
the way okay we should tack this here
too
oh it's because the the things are
flickering
yeah but they just they just vested him
so it's covering the lids
it'll come out as soon as parachutes on
goes on
is
you're hearing nothing from me huh
should i take the other one out the one
that's for the show yeah just leave it
for right this second because that's the
only way we can
talk to you at the center
let me go in the shape okay you're
getting the shade i'm gonna go up and uh
get him in the shade here
we're good we're good you're all good
all the great one is that
backup radio that's this one that's the
one
thank you sir
bert so we are we skipping the hand off
i just give a kiss and go
i just give a kiss and go yeah yeah
i don't have something to hand off
though right i'm gonna give you a five
pound
basketball unfortunately i wonder if we
can just
put it david they just weighed you that
means we're pretty close they got the
exact calibration
for everything going how do you feel
right now
yeah now it's starting to get crazy
coming together yeah now it's starting
to become real
yeah do you feel like this pre-show
thing feels different from other other
stuff you've done yeah i've never done
anything like this in my life by far
every single thing that i've ever done
every endurance thing every stunt
add all those together combine those
this thing feels
way crazier by a long shot yeah this
thing feels insane
it sure is i think we're a minute you
know what it is it's normally i
feel like i have control over everything
this one i have no control of anything
we're going to have everyone i will
though
as great as possible i think we'll
have pretty soon thank you marquez
marquez this one feels crazy yeah looks
crazy
okay so these things are going to be
here okay
so once it's under here and then here
you go the small ones and those are the
ones that we
will do that on the deck though yeah but
just a little bit yeah
yeah so hey noodles right here
yeah i hear you luke i hear you in both
ears now yeah perfect
yeah take the uh
little one to the tv
perfect um could i have a small sip of
water maybe
i feel good that sounds good
oh yeah we need those hold on
yeah he heard me out here
yeah it's loud which is good yeah okay
this one i'll put
right here yep that's right he's gonna
hold a balloon and then this one i'm
gonna put above it
just it can't hurt no
yeah it can't hurt unless it you catch
it on your arm as you're trying to reach
back to put that through the rig
and the rig catches which is what's
going to happen
you know i don't want to do too much on
your wrist
you know what i mean when you put your
right arm through and then you put your
left arm you reach it back like this
and you're trying to hook it just be
conscious that this could hook on it
okay
that's all okay i'll keep it under my
sleeve
yeah it's great just to confirm it
so this one i could keep in my pocket or
something um if you think the other
one's not working sure in your pocket
okay and it's just in case you think the
other one's not working okay there you
go and let's say that
let's say all the altimeters didn't work
you're in free fall okay
what are you going to do open open at
12.5 eyeballing it open estimate high
perfect i love it so one more look this
is about what i expect you to see when
you open
okay you're looking back yep see the
city
the sea stands out okay and the towers
okay the city the tower this is about
where you open
and your head and you see these phones
so i'm trying to land where
right where this thing is here so for
some reason i'm here i'm still going
towards these
this way yep but if i'm but if i see
this and this i'm probably good
you're great yeah you'll see this this
tower this little pond right here
and you're landing right up on the rise
that's about you flying in okay just
like that yep
right in set a pattern and land yeah i
mean that's the plan
don't over think it yep just you got the
skills just
make it happen we have 10 minutes to
launch don't worry do you have the pulse
ox with you
i have it in my mind you have the full
socks yeah same pocky just put the
altitudes yeah let's switch that so you
only have to fumble with one thing
what about gloves we have left one's in
this left closet
right there all right yeah put that in
there okay
yep so you can talk to me and i'll tell
you everything is great
all right so are you guys confident i'll
give you something okay so you guys hang
out here everybody else give them a
minute we're ready you guys good
yeah yeah all right so you guys hang out
for a second i'll call you out there
stay in the shade and we're
getting close let's get ready to do this
yeah everybody out there is ready all
right buddy
make sure you cinch up your glasses good
call
do that not too tight because the thing
will pull out
because they're loose how's that i think
that's great maybe a little more
yeah that's it right there yeah oh and i
need a balloon that's right yeah do you
want me to get you one
i need one balloon you want the orange
right there
so grace could i have a balloon to hold
what this is
the orange no or that little blue one
that's a
little blue one
so david the only thing
yeah when you grab that line for the
parachute
yep you hold on to that line and
don't let go yeah because if anything if
it goes
you have to hold on to it okay you know
what i mean so just be conscious yeah
like when you pull it down
you've got a grip every single stroke
all the way down
okay yep and we'll remind you but that's
he's been doing that yeah
yeah yep any other notes that's it just
but you'll be in my ear as well for sure
we'll just wait till we call this
great announcement yeah
wait oh perfect
oh like an hour and then staying with us
we should go soon because those balloons
are heating up
okay i know is it okay
let's go luke the balloons are heating
up
oh no it's okay wait hold on i can't
help you thank you
that's good
okay
yeah i hope so yep of course they are
you
thank you whoa
can you tell us again how to say it yeah
okay
look how beautiful it is
holy people of the father sky and of the
universe
holy people of the earth on the surface
of mother earth
we ask
for the protection of our brother
david blaine as he makes this ascension
and we know that he will complete this
in beauty
where beauty is in him and beauty is all
around him
and so we pray
that with your help there will always be
joy
happiness confidence and peace before
him
joy happiness confidence and peace
behind him
joy happiness confidence and peace below
him
joy happiness confidence and peace above
him
may he do this ascension
in beauty that he will be able to
have it completed and finished
in beauty and in joy and happiness and
confidence and peace
all around him and in him
all as well all as well
okay ahead yes
okay
attention feels more ambitious than all
of my other stunts combined
i want to grab a bunch of balloons and
fly as high as a jet
it might seem simple but in reality
there are some serious risks
if there's a balloon failure before i
put on my parachute i can go crashing to
the ground
if he doesn't put on his parachute he
dies so that's the switch
no no and for me the most dangerous part
of this is landing safely
shut her down all the way no whoa whoa
whoa
i've never had to land on terrain that's
this difficult in my life
but at the same time i'm so excited to
pull this off
what are we doing here
i had to shove it way deep
yeah you might have to always mess with
a little bit but
i can hear every word you say you don't
have to hit anything or anything
how about that is that any better any
better
okay less is more perfect
you feeling good up here
right not tangled it's ready
dawn are we you're you're gonna be good
for the way off
and then remember this is a comfort fit
also all right let me just find
one hold on wait what's this thing
that's the
that's the real one it's the release and
the other is all fine you can't do it
until later
later great
with the bags
or i can get them hanging if you want
yeah let's go ahead
let's get them hanging all right here we
i'm gonna have to put one right here
you will
he's gonna pull it out can we get a five
pounder on
five pound balloon yeah let me all right
wait i can hold this hold on
yeah all right hold on to that that's
all half hands off is this
this is slight hands off we need a five
pound weight on there
at least at least yeah maybe two right
here
yeah listen to me
i'll redo it down there too
shoulders in the spot when we get there
mike you're ready
you're happy with it no no i want it's
the wind i think
i think you're right i think we need one
more five pounder you want a five and a
half
thank you you're saying oh you're saying
oh yes oh god
you no no i'm sorry you misunderstood
all right david i got to bring you back
let me know where you guys were going to
bring david back in
come on in
david looks great man stop right there
please stop thank you
that's not in the way of the parachutes
on this side we're going to put it on
this side should be going right over
there
put it right there that's one sip of
water
let me get it one sip of water
water all right just a little bit
where's your buddies
can we take the weight off yeah i'm
ready okay yes
all right going out dave you're gonna go
up there
a little more down one yeah i got him
he's
he's okay very good let's uh you like
that bert yeah
yeah let's we're good all right
and you suck them back in a little bit
all right let me do one
checker where is that
aviation oh this side aviation is
where's the mic
mike's right there okay good mic check
mic check
i want you to carry this just in case
you got it it's just pulling this right
here that's it
should be all right you hold him down
where he is right now you like what
you're at
and then uh what i need to do you don't
have a free hand so i'm gonna key this
okay here goes a backup radio backup
radio check
backup radio check if you guys want we
can take these off for the walk
okay we good go ahead hold on so don't
unhook it no
we're not good no keep looking one more
one all right keep going because i got
to get both the caps
all right okay so we're going to do you
guys
you're happy with what you got yeah all
right all right so yeah
go no go for al with the tv
3g we start with 3g you guys good more
oh you're great dude you're good aaron's
out here
got it all right
command and control you good fix this a
little bit
jim you guys are good at tate one last
check with dawn
whether it's a go we're good that means
go now right
okay we're gonna pause we got a
inconvenient airplane just hanging at
the end of the runway he's about to go
as soon as he clears it's on us don how
are we doing
we're doing great okay eyeball click
straight up
okay you're gonna go basically straight
up david
okay should we let's start walking down
the stairs now though
let's get down the stairs first atc
we're clear you guys got me okay
yep they're just gonna hold him right
here
he's rolling you're happy with what you
got now i am so happy
you're happy with what you got yeah most
importantly
are you happy with what you got yeah it
looks great
where is nessa putting the balloon she's
gonna get a white string
we're gonna put it on this side yeah
we're going to put it on this side
you'll show her where to clip yeah
thank you all right we're clear to walk
let's walk
through the walkway clear to walk how
you feel
and david i know you can hear me in your
ear dawn says we're
golden beautiful
yep yep we'll do it out here
hey remember we're going all the way
across
sorry bruce we still want it on the
other side yep
so i don't need to release salads until
we're up and at it right
will you guys push me so i can see what
i'm going to do yeah just like that
yep
parachutes clear okay
triple check it keep going
i'm just gonna unzip your switcher just
a little bit yeah we're blocking no one
can hear you as good okay
just get you a little bit more how about
that whatever you think all right
how we doing on that
all right you excited yeah
if i wasn't seeing it i think it wasn't
happening
this is like i am going to have the most
amazing views
ever in on these balloons
this is amazing
okay
oh there we go i see that's probably way
better for you guys
is that better out
straighten up their shoe where's time
day
good we're good okay
all right so we're good with everything
with everything
all right
when my altimeter says about 8 000
that's that's what i'm putting it on msl
one says eight thousand ground one says
four thousand okay okay yeah
eight thousand whatever all right i
think it's on you guys
all right i'd like to do one more way
off yeah okay
wow i'm basically perfectly floating and
i have this so i'll be
okay wow here wait do you wanna try it
with this out
yeah and you're gonna give me an extra
little bit of lift come on
yeah i'm letting go
good job perfect nicely done and i get
one kiss
here we go we're not letting him go yet
guys
should be mcclain i'll see you soon yep
thank you
mike of course all right david we're
gonna hold for just a second
they're running out to check some on
your microphone but still here please
stay here you're ready stay here
they're gonna check a couple things you
feel comfortable
you want to come down a little bit i
think we're fine
and then i'm going to give you something
they're running to check something on
the mic
i don't know
let's go though because we're here let's
let's get it going
okay let's go we're going are we ready
yep
everybody's good to go we're good is
everybody good
yep are we good to go
love you that's going to take me up
will you spin me
nobody underneath them
yeah i'm looking for dessa
yeah yeah i understand all that
so we're heading in a different
direction than we anticipated for now
correct
i'm gonna just go nice and slow like
this and enjoy the ride for a little bit
wow wow that is amazing
it is so beautiful
i drop one now drop one now
the um the thing came off on the glasses
so we're gonna lose the glasses on the
jump but that's fine
yeah yeah
what's my altitude
what's so 4 500 right now
and you will come back this way dawn's
confident
great
it looks crazy i do
this is the fun part and then it's going
to get real here at some point
got it when he comes back whenever he's
clear
to drop that you'll just keep me posted
on that
what's my rate of ascent
checking rate of ascent
you're still going up you're 4 600.
yeah i have exactly 4 600 as well
i'm right here you want him to drop one
safe spot which it looks to me take a
good look down
and bert would like you to drop one more
weight
okay i'll wait for him over this
all right alex here we go david
he's just about to when he clears he'll
drop another one weight's coming down is
it clear one weight
looks clear clear to drop clear to drop
they got eyes on it
you coffee i got you on 48 4 900 feet
david
tell me when to release the next one
okay don't drop any more david we have
yet 4 900 feet and uh
why are you dropping those weights
fade again um explain to us why you're
dropping those weights what are you
doing
i'm dropping the weight so i can get
more ascent rate going up so i'm
dropping the
so basically i become lighter so the
balloons can bring me up higher
you know i mean when he's over the
airport i want to get rid of all that
when he's here
and now we're flying exactly as dawn
predicted
this is going right over this most
unbelievable view
what's that in the world dude it doesn't
even look like i'm on earth
it's amazing and i think it's not ready
to drop another one so we're making sure
we're in a safe area we can go pick
those up
i'm at 51.50 you're ready
okay david it's on you to balance one
more
when you're ready yeah i'm here
now a good time now's a great time for
us
okay releasing one more
okay so uh don and bert
i'm gonna want him to get those off
fairly soon because then we're gonna
hook up a safety and start doing other
stuff okay
so you tell me when it's on you guys
okay what you want it's four thousand
agl right yeah okay
white hour five thousand what for fifty
three hundred
done no i think so we if we need to get
him to
five to six hundred i think we need to
do it right
so damon you look like you're in a great
safe spot and we can recover all these
weights if you uh don't mind dropping
one more
yeah your dad's doing great yeah can i
speak to that
uh sure one second put this on
and then when you talk for us to avoid
hey
amazing it's so beautiful and it gets
like magic
feels like i'm floating yeah
like for real without the balloons yeah
it just feels like i'm floating in the
air
oh great it's amazing yeah
do you remember we had your nickname
when you were little
oh yeah yeah for real
yeah all right luke wants to get back to
sing
them shut them
all right so just confirming that you've
dropped all those weights at this point
you sub one
no i have one more bert says you have
one left you're doing great
okay but there's a truck under me so i'm
not going to drop it yet
yeah do not drop it do not drop it yet
no
asking what your climb of rate your rate
of climb is on your
uh health wall it's summit it's about
i'll just read it to you 5980 59.90
6000 6010.
seeing the real 6030 okay
me 40. we got you at about 400 feet a
minute right now
and we have you at uh just under just
over 6 000.
should i drop this next one while we're
in a good area
okay the debate the brain trust here
burt and dawn
say if you're in a safe spot you should
drop the one more and that'll put you at
about 500 feet a minute
really well then should i wait on that
or just do it just do it
okay yeah you should do it because
you're in a great safe spot right now
what altitude am i at
agl standby
about 2000 correct that's correct
on the nose
just a minute 63 90
64. 20. drop that
say it again we want to confirm you
dropped that correct
yeah that's gone perfect they're happy
you liking it i'm at 65.
so we're right at 500 feet a minute
we're right in the sweet spot
right now um and hang out for a second
okay david um it's time to start getting
down to business a little bit what we
need to do is uh unzip your vest
pull that camera out and then hook up
your safety
okay so first is safety before camera
correct
sure that's great is that correct first
is safety correct correct okay
okay and just pull this out right
correct pull this out dude you're on it
yep
pull that out dropping safety yeah
okay that is now hanging up here but
that's
there we go good that's that
okay we got eyes on the v on the sleeve
we'll be able to grab that
okay are we good everything looks great
right now
why don't you uh unzip to get that chest
camera out
okay hold on we just don't want to let
go of the parachute yet
so can we put the parachute on before or
is this
put this on first yeah pull the camera
out set the camera i don't want to mess
with that parachute yet
okay like this yeah that's like this
right like this and then zip this up
right a little bit
like that to the bottom of it you got
okay okay
without the food are we at right now we
got you at about 7 200 feet
can i put the parachute on now or is it
a little early
um it it's time burt says it's time
we're in my house
it might lower but you're good okay no
then then okay so i can start and i'll
go slow
yes that sounds yes yes okay
parachute coming down paris is coming
down
wow tight
okay all right
oh there you go no lower no okay
right there okay am i clear to drop the
bag
it's clear no one's underneath me for
this it's fine
correct it's a great time okay right at
the airport i'm holding parachute firmly
bag is going down okay
bag is down perfect
okay now i'm inspecting the parachute
crazy okay you should see it from this
angle
take your time man nice deep breath okay
so first i'm gonna pull one and hold
parachute firmly
okay now i'm carefully grabbing
parachute
checking it we're good arm one is in
his arms arm two is in
that's that okay now
i'm gonna connect chest strap
test strap on that's great chestnuts
over the camera arm strap on good
chest strap over camera armor yep just
strap over camera
good next is leg strap number one
take your time man nice and slow slow as
fast
oh okay leg strap number one
i have it can i get an altitude on him
right now
you're doing great david lots of time 8
200 feet
so we're uh we're doing great okay 1 000
above the ground
number two leg strap number two
yeah okay hold on
leg strap two is connected got it
we're good with that i'm gonna tuck it
in
okay leg strap is
okay i'm not gonna connect that but i'm
going to pull this
down here comes the next leg strap
number two
ah okay leg strap
this one
okay
there you go nice
leg strap number two is now
officially connected i'm gonna check
we're good
we're good we're good i'm gonna remove
the safety
right now it's okay safety
is now off i'm going to check
one two
check three that's worth that we only
missed the number two
release the right shoulder from the
snapchat
that was holding it yep
here we go there we go
okay david nice job
we're good now right
parachute go up really high and then you
gotta find a place to land so i mean you
got a parachute on now i'll say that
okay okay so wait
so hold on i pull this first a second
and that's it correct correct and you
would be skydiving so you're climbing up
at 500 feet a minute burt and dawn we're
happy
everything's great right there i've got
no altimeter working by the way
but okay
now i got one i guarantee if you pull
that one out of your right pocket david
and put it on your right wrist now yep
yeah
then yeah hold on okay
altimeter okay good this says
agl 5000 this other one says msl
almost ten thousand is that accurate
that is accurate you are correct
can you um show me your altimeter hold
it in front of the camera yeah
well it's hard to turn it can you see
oh wait i can extend this out
okay can you see it like that
yes we can and then then you see this
one
that one's a little bit tougher but all
your optimal
we're on we're connected now we're good
right you're correct
and that's for you from now on david
look at your altimeter on your right
wrist then i'm gonna the one you just
put on yeah
okay
hold on now we can't do that yet he's
busy
okay 10 000 msl
okay
okay i'm ready to speed the ascent rate
when you guys want
so david we want to hang on for one
second what i want you to do is do your
checks of threes just double check your
leg strap
chest okay i'm hard to hear you but hold
on
chest strap good chest strap connected
chest strap is good leg strap connected
and tight
okay over the
correct let's uh obviously not do that
yet but if you're looking at the lake
straight behind you right now you're
about to start
looking at the i don't know i'm not
looking i think i'm looking the other
way luke
correct i'm watching what you're looking
at i'm just telling you you're now
starting to move backwards from the
direction you're looking
which is great and to your right that's
taking you to the
south we're all we're also getting
boiling hot on that back thing by the
way
yeah shocker for you and me huh hold on
wait let me just connect these really
quick hold on
now's the time to do anything that you
need um you got lots of time you're
safe at the moment everything looks good
yeah
okay
i feel like i'm there with him
ah
monica msr
perfect
i see planes below that's all fine yeah
everything's great here
um if you wouldn't mind because we are
at only about 11
000 feet i would love to get a pulse ox
reading on you now
uh before it starts to get thin up there
if you have time
pulse oximeter coming on
once you get a reading if you could hold
it in front of the camera lens um
if it's if you're able to
yes
oxygen started low but now it's climbing
heart rate at 145 pulse oximeter at 93
and climbing
i'm not going to talk for a minute just
to get it up
so this is where david's doing his
breathing technique to try to adjust his
oxygen
it was low when he put it on and then
brought it back up but he's on
about 12 000 feet
you're right luke about breathing is
definitely more difficult
with this on but when i find the right
position it seems to help
so david why don't you look down and to
your right a little bit
you should start to see the landing area
that we talked about
can you see it it's upside down though
yeah keep holding it there i'm trying to
get an angle on it's really difficult in
the sun but
me seeing it that looks pretty good
you're going 13 miles an hour across the
ground and you're going up at 500 feet a
minute
okay okay
so david can you do me a favor and look
down and to your right you should start
to see
the area yeah i see i see i see page
and in front of me i see some fields the
two baseball fields
straight in front of you if you look
straight in front of you out in front of
you on the left you see that little mesa
that
parallels the road yep yep
you got it right right next to that busy
area correct in front of the two ponds
correct exactly you're looking right at
it that's where we're saying that's what
we're aiming for that's what we're
aiming for correct
correct we're still aiming okay okay
that's good because i can see that
perfectly
hey don can you tell me the distance
laughing by the way so let me not talk
for a minute
yeah it's on you man um you do whatever
you need
o2 climbing
climbing big time
went from 83 to 91. yeah you did that to
me in the airplane too
could you read me out it's still
perfectly coherent
how's the temperature i'm at 13 000
correct
affirmative o2 climbing
whenever i talk it goes down so can you
see it
can you see it it's at 95. can you see
it
somebody tell me where just tell me
where to put it and i can do it
okay that's great just like that oh two
climbing at 96.
it's upside down but
95. and i don't need that exact on just
close
make yourself comfortable make sure you
move around a little bit and
yeah how's the temperature
you know you're saying this ascent rate
is good don and burt we're good with
this
affirmative bert sitting next to me he
said yes okay
how's the temperature i wish it got
colder
asked noodles why
oh it'll get colder i just we still have
your gloves
um but there's no need for that until
you no yeah we don't need them yet
see look at my oxygen right now can you
see it because i was talking do you see
what it says
90 and dropping can you see it yes
certainly
fast can you see it 88 don't you see it
now watch i'm going to start breathing
watch what happens ready and this is at
almost 14 000 feet ready
starting my purging now can you can we
see that
sorta
rotate it don't talk but just rotate it
a little bit more so there's no
reflection so more straight up and down
so david at this altitude it's about 60
percent of the oxygen you have on the
ground
see it climbing 95. can you see what's
that
donk can you see
2.1 perfect short right can you see
uh yeah it's small in my monitor but um
yeah there you go
close as you can almost
all right that looks good for us david
this is for you now and then um you're
climbing 5 600 feet a minute
you're at 14 000 feet everything's
looking can you see
can you see the o2 can you see that
no i don't think that we're going to be
able to reflect
can you do it now i'll block here like
this
that's better if you block the sun the
best you can there you go right
there close there you go
as much sun as you can block yeah
wow i gotta i'm gonna take a break again
but i got it up to 96.
oh yeah we don't need any more of the
pulse ox looks good we don't need to see
that
how are you feeling how are you feeling
right now i feel great
i feel great and my team by the way
all of you down there you couldn't have
done a better job across the board
this is the most secure and confident
that i've ever felt on anything that
i've ever done
in my life so thank you guys for 100
not just my team all of you guys youtube
my christian everybody that helped me
it's
you guys this this is a dream and it's
i i can't believe this
looks good man just try to relax and uh
look
at the opportunity i'll show you what
i'm serious here again show you what i
see
so i'm gonna try to does this camera
work like that
yeah we got great images nice and slow
we see everything
see that good oh that's great
i'm gonna put this back on right
here lower this a little bit
if dasa wants to talk to him this is the
time clear if she wants to if not it's
okay
so david before it starts to get any
higher and stuff um i
just looked over if des is available do
you have a second to talk to her when
she comes over
or not because otherwise it's going to
get serious here
when we get a little higher okay so
should i
put the gloves on now uh it's up to you
temperature wise why don't you turn the
camera around so we see your face and
then des will be able to see your face
good yeah she's coming over she's not
here i'll tell you
you can put gloves on if you'd like
whatever you need
camera looks great
so you're all fine everything's safe i'm
gonna turn you over to dessa
and then uh i'll come back to you when
it's time to start doing oxygen
yep so here you go put this on and then
when he talks you'll hear him but to
talk to him you have to hold this button
down to talk
have a seat right here thank you thank
you hey
hmm how are you
guys yeah great
okay you talk only press it when you
talk then how do you feel
um yeah i'm good
i'm really really good oh great
and i'll be seeing you pretty soon yeah
what do you think
like in what uh how many
i think we're gonna go up really high
now and then i think i'm gonna
find a spot and jump down and be brought
right to you
um we're gonna go high now this is where
we start to go high
where it starts to get nice and cold but
remember we went to
the arctic circle and we had new year's
eve and
freezing cold temperatures well that was
helping to prepare for this
so we're gonna be good yep so
this is this is gonna be the same
do you remember we slept in the ice
hotel in finland where it was
where it was minus freezing temperatures
below freezing
i was up the whole night touching you to
make sure you were okay
i was so worried and you were fine
how many facts do you think you're gonna
go up
um we're at 16 000
now
and we're probably going to go up
to where the airplanes go that means i'm
going into a class
a airspace where the jet planes fly
we don't know how high yet
we will see
i gotta focus now so that's it family
time sorry
let's take it push the button say
goodbye
thank you all right
so david just don't talk hang out take
your time how are you feeling
i'm done with talking great so we're at
about 15
000 feet this is where i would like to
see you uh pull that oxygen down and
take some
breaths of o2 here i'm still good
i'm still perfect you know that's the
first symptom of hypoxia right
confidence no no no i'm 100 perfect like
we were in the plane
one hundred percent you can ask ask adam
if you want
all right we're okay then right now good
three miles an hour and a half but an
easy
or past it right here when i need it
perfect perfect
so 1.2 past is where i want to start
thinking about ending
did we lose a helicopter yet
wow don were exactly where you predicted
this is crazy
remember you can unhook that
okay
i just want to make sure it says we keep
going up i want we're we can jump
that's what i see too okay
okay oxygen clear
looks good and david you don't have to
answer anything i say just informing you
that we're about 17 000
we passed the helicopter limitations the
helicopter can't hang with you anymore
so we got a little distance camera on
you we can see with the long one
and uh every camera around you including
your chest cameras showing your face
work great
point four oh wow so we're
we're almost in the class a let me know
when we get to 18 please
and we're good are we at 13 agl and 17
6 msl correct and i've just been
informed you're cleared into class a
airspace
i'm good i'm good to go into class a
you're good to go into class a which is
crazy
thank you jim sue wayne and kurt carlos
you guys worked hard with the faa and
you've been amazing as well
how are you feeling with your breathing
are you feeling still coherent
coherent perfect if i talk to i'm not
though
so um when you're up there and you're uh
you're dripping you're starting to pick
up ground speed which is great
but now you look down you're probably
almost straight over the top of the lz
i see it perfectly i call it lz whatever
it's the desert the spot we picked out
there
so we're in a class a right now
yeah perfect so uh yeah we're in the
class a you're gonna keep rolling and
then
i'll keep you posted on altitude
yep i'm not going to take that off
so uh can you uh i'm trying to check
your coherency what's the class a
airspace what's that mean
class a's at 18 000. we're at 18 2
perfectly coherent
can i just fly into 18 000 foot air
space with my
talking to anybody i could hear you
can i just go up there and fly around at
18 no it is not allowed when you hit
12-5 as a pilot you need to go on
and i'm going to go on but with o2
levels being at 98 it's
not okay but if 15 is a requirement
and i'm about to go on it i just want to
be comfortable when i put it on so i'm
okay
clearing my release so i just want to
wait until i feel comfortable
and as soon as i feel the slight bit not
comfortable this will go on
yeah it looks it looks great i'm i'm
fine with you with doing what you're
doing dave it looks great you're
obviously talking clear
you have about half the oxygen you do
here on the ground
up there above 18.
and dawn you're going to tell me when we
get to like
one mile pass
okay so then we probably need to start
telling without the today's deal am i
opening the parachute um
5 000 feet we're going to open up 5 000
feet agl
agl the altimeter on your right excuse
me your left wrist the one you just
switched
so we're about five minutes we're at 19
000 feet
feeling great good copy david
i wish we could dump just a little more
ballast to get it punch that up a little
bit don
i i don't know it's up to you guys i
mean i just
yeah what's that
did you want to hurry
yeah let me see hey david um
because we're moving across the ground a
little bit i would like to
uh have them dump like a five pound shot
of that shot
then let me let me wait and let me go
let me go on the o2 before we do that
yeah and we don't so the sand doesn't
dump on it
but if we want to reach your target
altitude safe landing zone we need to
increase the camera
19-4 they're looking good i'm getting
worried i want you to think about
putting that o2 on
come on
okay we're losing the distance like they
do when you're in the
i know you're trying to cross that
20-foot line i think you should put that
on
um your buddies next to me let me cross
let me cross 20
20 and it goes on we're at 19 7.
okay my advice is ask me a few questions
ask me a few complicated questions
he wants to ask a complicated question
you got a story or something
but he needs to i mean it's getting real
now
yeah we're at 19 8.
my o2 level is definitely at 96.97
every time i hold my breath on stage
i've done over a thousand breath holds
at 10 minutes apiece
i have hyperventilated on puro too
nobody should ever try this it's very
dangerous
and i know exactly how i feel when i get
tingly i know every single fine
okay david you're one mile past the lz
so if we want to hit that target
altitude
we need to dump some ballast so you need
to put the o2 on
okay o2 is going on great
give me a thumbs up when you're ready to
and you cross through 20
give me a thumbs up when you're ready
for ballast don't let it get in your
eyes please
are you doing five or ten i'd like to
get them up quick
and we're good on you so they're getting
ready to dump ballast david
it's on you whenever you're ready
here comes ballast in about five seconds
give me a thumbs up if you feel you're
getting good o2 flow
the o2 flows terrible up here push on
the back button on the regulator and
blast it into your
mouth that's way better right
did we get a drop of ballast
let's take me up a little bit five
minutes got it we're trying
it should have been a five minute call i
would say
what are we are we going up yeah we i
would say we're i'm gonna get him as
quick as we can
can i get this line cleared for sight
so david we're good about you're
breathing great just keep spraying that
in your face if you want
um at some point i'm going to have you
turn your camera around not yet because
i like to see what i'm seeing
and then when you turn your camera
around uh i'm going to then have you do
one more
check on your handles and uh once the
camera is tight to your body but not
yet but i'll give you time but we're
probably two minutes to drop
and uh how are we on distance
how are we on distance let's dump some
ballast
got it they're trying right this second
they're trying to second they're trying
right
okay how high are we right now 21. so
david we're through
21 000 feet um if they don't dump
ballast
soon i'm going to uh i want you to look
down now and see if you can see your uh
a potential landing area if you can give
me a thumbs up
perfectly i got it perfectly i got it i
see it
great looks good how high are we right
now
no way to dump ballots at this point
right how what are we
at altitude right now
over 21 21 200 feet everything's good on
my end give me a thumbs up if you're
still comfortable
as comfortable as you can be up there
is is there a way to know roughly how
far away he is right now
from that from the potential landing
zone
we're getting closer too i don't want to
exceed like two and a half
he says he sees it perfect and the winds
are light so he'll get back no problem
but for sure not over three we're
jumping before three no matter what
everything's looking good i'm not
talking just give you a little time
we're working out some details here
look i see another good landing area for
my right
another one of these plateaus how does
it look to you that one to my right i'm
gonna point the camera down
okay let's check it out yeah that
that is sort of it i would head back
towards the the ponds
those little yeah the two pawns in the
airport and then you'll see the nice
spot
i can't hear you so
that is affirmative in between we are
going to okay
you're going to go back towards the
airport you're still looking good you're
only two miles from that lz right this
second
i heard sand i heard he heard sand
confirmed you heard sand
he heard sand i heard something but
nothing fell
yet how high are we
22 100 feet
did you guys give a two minute call stan
yeah okay great
if the set rate is going up david you
might not have seen the same
but uh bert and don are saying that your
set rate is going up now faster so it's
all worked
why don't you pull that camera back up
so it's looking straight out in front of
you if you can
and in tight to your body you don't have
to answer me just push the whole thing
in tight to your body so it's not
sticking out there
there you go looks great what's that
so you're about 30 seconds from being at
23
000 feet
if you can pull that out and just let me
know that you see the landing area
great sounds good i can hear you
so you guys uh hey are you guys good
for him to i'm not saying jump right
this second but you're good for him to
jump at any moment
okay and you guys are ready to pop
balloons
atc you guys are ready if he's good you
speed the ascent rate up more
yes i am okay is it david
you're breathing in that stuff your uh
leg straps
your stirrups are still tight um so if
you can loosen them loosen them
you don't have to talk to me you're
either gonna get them loose or you're
not
remember when you open your parachute
you'll be able to get at them too
stand up on your right leg
maybe that'll help that one
23 500 feet there you go look good there
i got lick strap one now i'm gonna try
two
okay and make sure you're spraying that
thing you're purging that thing into
your face because i don't think the
flow's enough
this tab is gonna be a little higher
than the other one because that's the
side you're hanging from
and i need you to jump as whenever
you're comfortable put through
you know we're getting farther and
farther away farther and farther away
24 000 feet i would quit worrying about
that right now
and uh releasing that look i gotta get
it loose
luke i gotta get it loose let me get it
loose please i see the landing
remember under parachute you're able to
do it also
how far away are we from that spot three
yep
okay david so um it's gonna be on you
but i would like you instead of
five thousand feet opening i'd like you
to open at seven thousand feet
seven thousand feet so you can make it
back to the spot
you did a handle check so you're good
release the safety whenever you're ready
and it's on you we're all quiet here
you're safe
you guys ready monica
ready cameras are ready
he's gonna hook up this oxygen to the
thing it's gonna put it up
he's obviously coherent because that is
i would have left that thing
all right david it looks good man it's
all you we're gonna shut up and let you
do your thing open at 7 000 feet
here it goes guys
come on buddy here we go
let's do it he's clean he's clear
it's on you a couple good hits 24.
24 weight 200 more feet wait 200 more
feet
on the tv
hey david if you can hear me at all and
you're comfortable and
feel good turn your camera to your face
can you hear me i need something
yeah i can hear you i can hear you david
okay david this is luke on the backup
radio can you hear me
david if you can hear me at all we can
hear you if you talk i hear wind noise
i got you great i hear you that's
awesome you got me
great job buddy how do you look and you
see the landing area
yeah can i reach it it's far
it's far let me let me check it's far
it's far it's very far
okay then what we need you to do is
start looking for a nice flat spot out
there without
any power lines um a nice flat open spot
don't worry about coming back
just worry about a nice spot to land
okay yeah we're at 4 400.
4 400 feet that's what we have also
looks great
and you're gonna there's very light wind
so it doesn't matter when direction
which way is the wind going though
land facing the airport
the wind is going to the airport
no land with you looking at the airport
is the direction you want to land
i want to land towards the airport
correct
so i'm not going to turn i'm just going
to keep going straight
sounds good but make sure you pick a
nice spot you know if you have to turn
and pick somewhere farther away that's
better
do that are there power lines next to
this road
there is a skinny set right alongside
the road
but you'll see it you'll see it when you
get lower if you land
parallel with the road and offline
we're at 2 800 feet and we're right over
all this stuff
so you need to start looking picking a
spot pick a nice sandy spot there
okay and remember you don't have to get
away from this thing
correct you don't have to be on near a
road wherever you pick to land we got
you
is there power lines in front of me on
this little road
it's hard they're so small in your
camera for me to see i can't see that
okay i'm at 2 000 feet
okay looking good just make sure you're
picking a spot you're not just flying
along
can i land next to those two ponds on
that road right next to it
correct there's a nice sandy ravine a
sandy ravine right by those two pawns
would be a great spot
i don't the answer is don't pass
it okay right there's no power lines
there
no
david there's a nice ravine down in the
bottom of that canyon just land
in that ravine going with the ravine
uh wait right right next to the ponds or
up
up or next to the pond if you can make
yourself
right ahead of you say it again listen
up to scott
radio up to the listen to the left of
those
things or not no to the right of them
yep he's in the wash looks great david
just pick that open wash there and
you're good to go
david i'm on the backup radio we can't
hear you just land
a nice big flare into that open ravine
flare flare flare flare flare flare
flare yeah
is he there
david you're talking into backup radio
backup radio you're talking yeah
wow that was
awesome yeah wow
put this on talk to your daddy's safe
right here you see him
that was great it's great
wow
you did it
wow
yeah this is all for you
thank you you did it
okay
thank you
mike
i can walk
oh
wow how high did i go
well that's exactly where we jump from
so it's exactly what we were heard
when we did six jobs what do you guys
think we got
good thing i undid those things
that was amazing i can't hear you wow
that was amazing
take this
can i take a sip of that water
sorry oh yeah thank you
that was actually beautiful from top to
bottom
excuse me
oh so aaron is flying
upside down
oh shoot
you