Skydiver Max Manow became the first person to fly a wingsuit in close proximity to a plane as it nosedived into a canyon, attaching himself to a special hook on the plane to be able to fly safely up and out of the canyon, before letting himself go and continuing to skydive. To do this he recruited pilot Luke Aikins and his specially adapted Cessna 182 aircraft which featured an experimental airbrake and handlebar for Max to hold onto whilst the plane regains altitude.
Additionally helped by fellow Red Bull Skydive Team member Marco Fürst, Max achieved his dream of pushing the boundaries of human flight. He calls it an "endless skydive" which opens up new possibilities for wingsuit flying, especially in unique and challenging locations such as Hell Hole Bend Canyon in Arizona 🏜️
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Additionally helped by fellow Red Bull Skydive Team member Marco Fürst, Max achieved his dream of pushing the boundaries of human flight. He calls it an "endless skydive" which opens up new possibilities for wingsuit flying, especially in unique and challenging locations such as Hell Hole Bend Canyon in Arizona 🏜️
#RedBull #GivesYouWiiings
_________________________________________________
Experience the world of Red Bull like you have never seen it before with the best action sports clips on the web, original series and livestreams.
Get the FREE Red Bull TV apps for all your devices: http://win.gs/RedBullTVApps
Subscribe to Red Bull on Youtube: http://win.gs/SubToRedBull
Check out Red Bull on TikTok: https://win.gs/TikTok
Red Bull on Facebook: http://win.gs/redbullfb
Red Bull on Instagram: http://win.gs/RedBullInstagram
Red Bull on Twitter: http://win.gs/redbulltwitter
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NewsTranscript
00:00I'm going to attempt a world first, by skydiving into that canyon and attaching myself to that plane.
00:08Okay, max 4,500 feet. Spots looking good.
00:143,500.
00:17Once I'm attached, the plane will tow me out of the canyon.
00:21No, are you good?
00:31Yeah, he's below you.
00:33Okay, copy.
00:35I see one canopy.
00:37Okay, let's reset. We'll try again.
00:40If I didn't have to land and could be towed up on our plane, this would open up a whole lot of new opportunities.
00:47When Max asked if I could tow him on a plane, I thought he might be a little crazy.
00:51Max wanted to attach a hook to the bottom of the airplane.
00:55If I could physically endure the climb out of the canyon and back to a high enough altitude, I could unclip myself and skydive again.
01:03In theory, I could repeat this over and over. An endless skydive.
01:07The first time I did this, I was so nervous. I missed the handle twice.
01:13I was like, do I really want to do this?
01:16Approaching the plane was so hard. There's so many things to look out for.
01:20The first time I was able to attach to the handle, it was so difficult.
01:24The airflow was very different. It was throwing me around. I had to learn a lot of different ways of flying.
01:30What I can practice here is how I fly with a plane, underneath a plane, how I have the ability to move around without getting unstable.
01:40Working on my transitions, belly to back, they're going to be pretty important for the project.
01:44Asymmetric flying, so I free up my hands to grab the handle and connect myself.
01:49Overall, just building skill and feeling comfortable.
01:53There's a lot of things I cannot control. A lot of things that are difficult to predict.
01:58It's a lot about the collaboration between the pilot, Luke, and myself.
02:04You were in Sweden just the other day, right?
02:06Yeah, two days ago.
02:09We're here in Page, Arizona. We're going to do some testing today to see if it all works out the way we want it.
02:15You'll be able to fly up and grab it or clip in, however you want to do it. I'm really interested to see.
02:21This project has brought a bunch of unique challenges. There's a lot going on.
02:25We're flying into a canyon. There's a lot of risks that you don't have when you're normally flying.
02:29We're doing something that hasn't necessarily been done before.
02:31First time trying it, so let's see what happens.
02:35Until we do one, we don't really know.
02:38There are multiple challenges for me, but the very first challenge is to get together with Luke, so to actually meet him in the sky.
02:46It's all about trust. It's really important for me that Luke talks to me all the time.
02:51A little bit steeper.
02:53And then I have to turn on my back without losing any altitude.
02:56Spot's looking great. You're 5,000 above the ground.
02:59And then I have to fly close to the handle, position myself, and then grab it.
03:03Oh, I guess you're going to hang on.
03:07All right, I'm going to pull up a little bit. Check it out.
03:15Oh, all right. See ya.
03:20The next step will be to go up again, and then I'm actually going to connect myself so I have a hook so I can hook up to him.
03:27Yeah, Luke.
03:28I was like, I guess he's going to grab on.
03:31That handle is awesome. Cool, man. Thank you.
03:34The handle worked good?
03:35Yeah, it was really nice. I'll be curious to see what it's like if I'm hooked up, because it'll sit much lower.
03:40Lower, yeah.
03:41Jump two. I added the hook, so potentially I'm going to hook myself up to the plane with Luke.
03:47The wingsuit performs more or less the same on the belly than it does on the back,
03:51but everything that I do with my body changes the way the wingsuit flies,
03:54and the closer I get, the more I have to anticipate grabbing the handle.
03:58Once I was hooked in, it was good, and then I was also happy that I could release it.
04:05Nice, huh?
04:06It's not like you could just test it one time and it worked.
04:08We need to be able to repeat this over and over again,
04:10and then we can start adjusting our altitudes and bringing it down
04:13and start focusing on our narrow flight path that we're going to do.
04:16We just need to get smooth and consistent so it becomes second nature for Max and me and muscle memory for all the parts.
04:22So then when we raise the risk level by going down closer to the ground, we are comfortable with it.
04:28I'll do this all night to train.
04:29This is the brake that deploys down, and it allows us to go the same speed as the wingsuit in the vertical dive.
04:35When you hooked on, I felt it. It felt much faster to me.
04:38I did a bit of a rush attempt and couldn't hold on.
04:41If Max hooks on, but his parachute starts to open and puts the plane into an uncontrollable position,
04:46I would need to be able to get out.
04:47I would hit this button right here that would drop Max off,
04:50it would cut his handle away, and then I'd be out right behind him.
04:53We're about to do something that I don't know that anybody's ever done before.
04:56I mean, we're going to fly below the earth with a wingsuit and an airplane?
05:00We always thought about this idea, but we didn't really know what to do with it.
05:04Then we saw this canyon.
05:06The idea was to fly together with the plane into the canyon.
05:10I turn on my back, connect myself to the plane, and get pulled out of the canyon.
05:22Two miles, we're about 27.
05:26It would be best if he could get in there,
05:29at about this height,
05:31and at the deepest point,
05:34possibly at the tightest spot.
05:38With super narrow walls closing in on each side,
05:42Max only has about five seconds to hook in, or he won't be able to land safely.
05:46It's extremely difficult to kind of get a feel for how much altitude we have,
05:52what is the distance across.
05:54If we didn't have a laser, we'd probably think,
05:57this is all too low, but we know the numbers.
06:01It's 332 meters.
06:03I'm a little nervous.
06:04Yeah, me too.
06:05Because there's not a lot of room for error.
06:09Oh my God.
06:11Here's hoping the engine starts when I give it to it.
06:24Wow.
06:30I think from here, it looks like he's going to crash into the back wall,
06:33but I know that he's in the center.
06:35It's going to be exciting, fellas.
06:37That was pretty exciting already, man.
06:39I'm going to basically do that same thing, and you're just going to wingsuit with me, right?
06:43Exactly.
06:50This canyon is super narrow.
06:52Attaching myself to Luke's plane and flying back out will be incredibly difficult.
07:01Ten seconds.
07:03Okay, now I'm going to hold this position.
07:05Five, four, three, two, one, break.
07:10Max is away.
07:12Marco's away.
07:23Okay, Max, 4,500 feet.
07:25Spot's looking good.
07:343,500.
07:49Go, Max.
07:50Go, Max.
07:53Go, Max.
07:57That was a pretty wild one.
07:58Let's go again.
08:00So close, man.
08:01We almost got it.
08:13Hooking onto the plane is difficult enough,
08:15but being towed out of a canyon to a height where I can skydive again safely is an unknown.
08:21I don't know how physically hard it will be.
08:23It should take two, let's say three minutes.
08:26We could possibly have to hang out there.
08:29We've never come close to that.
08:31You'd be okay?
08:32Had to?
08:3620 seconds.
08:44Okay, I am entering the canyon now.
08:51Jumper's away. Jumper's away.
08:53Copy that.
08:574,000 feet, Max. We're looking good.
09:03Alright, I'm looking good here.
09:053,000.
09:22I'm on. I'm on. I'm on. On. On. On. On.
09:26Hooked on. Brake coming up.
09:29Pulling up. Pulling up now.
09:34Yes, boy!
09:35It's fun up there!
09:401,000 feet. Pulling up.
09:41That's a crazy perspective from here.
09:44We're going to get to 2,500 feet now before you have enough altitude to safely open your parachute.
09:52Good altitude. We're over the middle of the canyon.
09:58We are climbing.
10:00Lots of altitude here. 2,000 feet above the bottom.
10:04Making a right-hand turn. You're left.
10:09Climbing hard.
10:11So you are 2,500 feet against the bottom.
10:13On the bottom.
10:20Yeah!
10:24Max is open.
10:25Yeah!
10:27I don't really know what this will bring into the future of the sport, but the idea was to create an endless skydive.
10:34Who knows where that takes us.
10:36Shit, man.