LOS ANGELES — A 42-year-old skydiver with more than 18,000 jumps made history when he became the first person to leap without a parachute and land in a net instead.
After a two-minute freefall, Luke Aikins landed dead center in the 100-by-100-foot net Saturday at the Big Sky movie ranch on the outskirts of Simi Valley.
As cheers erupted, Aikins quickly climbed out, walked over and hugged his wife, Monica, who had been watching from the ground with their 4-year-old son, Logan, and other family members.
“I’m almost levitating, it’s incredible,” the jubilant skydiver said, raising his hands over his head as his wife held their son, who dozed in her arms.
“This thing just happened! I can’t even get the words out of my mouth,” he added as he thanked the dozens of crew members who spent two years helping him prepare for the jump, including those who assembled the fishing trawler-like net and made sure it really worked.
The stunt, broadcast live on the Fox network for the TV special “Stride Gum Presents Heaven Sent,” nearly didn’t come off as planned when Aikins revealed just before climbing into his plane that the Screen Actors Guild had ordered him to wear a parachute to ensure his safety.
Aikins didn’t say what prompted the original restriction, and representatives for the show and the Screen Actors Guild did not immediately respond to phone and email messages.
Aikins said he considered pulling out at that point because having the parachute canister on his back would make his landing in the net far more dangerous. If he had to wear it he said he wouldn’t bother to pull the ripcord anyway.
“I’m going all the way to the net, no question about it,” he said from the plane. “I’ll just have to deal with the consequences when I land of wearing the parachute on my back and what it’s going to do to my body.”
A few minutes before the jump one of the show’s hosts said the requirement had been lifted. Aikins left the plane without the chute.
He jumped with three other skydivers, each wearing parachutes. One had a camera, another trailed smoke so people on the ground could follow his descent and the third took an oxygen canister he handed off after they got to an altitude where it was no longer needed.
Then the others opened their parachutes and left him on his own.
Aikins admitted before the jump he was nervous and his mother said she was one family member who wouldn’t watch.
When his friend Chris Talley came up with the idea two years ago, Aikins acknowledged he turned it down cold.
“I kind of laugh and I say, ‘Ok, that’s great. I’ll help you find somebody to do it,’” he told The Associated Press as he trained for the jump last week.
It’s an idea so new that at first it felt impossible. Even those who have been involved since its inception are amazed to see it come to fruition.
We spoke to some of the collaborators on the project to find out more about how this first-of-its-kind exhibition came to be.
Ideation: Degrees of Perfect
What does perfect feel like for you?
It’s not the same for everyone. But, in reflecting on the question, the team involved with the project noticed one important similarity across their unique visions of perfect: balance.
For Fluke, president at ASHOP CREW and the lead creative producer on the project, perfect is a balance that allows for creative productivity. He describes it as “having the perfect environment and the perfect elements around you in order to be creative and to be able to express yourself…. It’s the perfect lighting, the perfect sound.”
“It’s the air that is the perfect temperature; it’s not too hot and not too cold,” answered Kyle Mitchell, associate creative director at GSD&M. “It’s a world where all these things come together to create something brand new.”
With this in mind, the team set out to create something that would communicate theDegrees of Perfect idea. To do this, the creative team looked to two seemingly opposite worlds and worked to bring them together in harmony.
“It’s a balance between engineering and the piece of art,” Fluke explains. “We have two completely separate universes that come together to create something unique and present it in the format of an exhibition.”
The team had a lofty vision for that exhibition: paintings that used air as a medium.
At first, the idea felt almost too lofty. “One of the biggest challenges for me was the fact that this was just a huge theory. The idea of having a color-changing art piece, forget having a color-changing mural, it was just a big theory that Kyle and me were kicking around.”
The science
Any traces of doubt were erased as the dedicated team of specialists got to work, solving one puzzle at a time.
The paint, designed to react to changing temperatures, was the first part and, surprisingly, the easiest. “It’s super simple. The paint itself is designed to disappear at a certain temperature, and it’s programmed in laboratories. It’s really designed that way chemically. The problem is that it’s not a precise science, so it changes at different temperatures.” Fluke explains.
IMAGE: LENNOX
In order for this paint to detect the temperature change two things had to be engineered: a heat-detecting canvas and a unique HVAC system.
“First I asked Fluke what temperatures he needed, that was the most important thing.”Alain Savard, Founder and Owner of Climatisation – premier Lennox dealer, explains, “I took those two temperatures, and we calculated how much time it is going to take to make the panel react.”
From there, the team tested numerous frames and canvases—small at first, then progressively larger. “We put aluminum in the front and really good insulation in the front’ Alain explains. “We played with it a lot. I don’t know how many [we made].”
Creating the perfect air was the next challenge. Lennox systems are designed to do exactly this, so the team knew it was possible, but the project called for a completely unique HVAC system.
“The genius behind this,” Fluke explains, “was that Alain was able to give us a closed circuit, so we’re not wasting any energy. We’re actually recycling the same air over and over again, which is something I had not thought of. That’s where his expertise really came into place, he said, ‘We can’t waste this hot air or cold air; let’s recycle it.’"
The art
With the paint, canvas and perfect air in order, the team set out to find artists who were up to the challenge.
IMAGE: LENNOX
“One of the things that was remarkable was to see the reactions that the [artists] were having when we expressed to them that they were able to add an extra layer to their work.” Fluke tells us.
“[As artists] we’re essentially telling a story, visually, and one of the main challenges of the visual artist, as a painter, as a muralist, is that you’re trying to tell a story, you’re trying to share an emotion, but you only have one layer.”
He continues, “There hasn’t been a traditional painting form where you can add a second layer, an animation, so we essentially gave the artist’s 50% more opportunity to express themselves.” Fluke explains.
That said, ASHOP CREW and Lennox wanted the crème de la crème: the people who could master this new medium of thermal art and use that second layer to help creatively communicate the Degrees of Perfect idea.
“We chose very talented people from different areas. We have artists from Montreal, Toronto and a local from L.A.” Fluke explained. “The one thing they have in common is that they’re street artists, they know one surface to a certain extent, which is murals. They’ve all painted live scale murals and they’ve done so much work in the public eye. We wanted to give them an opportunity to take something they’re already doing and bring it to another level, another degree.”
With the air and the thermal art sorted, there was just one final layer: sound. The team chose recording artist and producer Toro y Moi and starRo to DJ on the night. Not only is Toro y Moi extremely talented and enthusiastic about the project, he is a graphic designer, artist and illustrator himself, so he has a deep understanding of the work that’s gone into the project.
The result
On Friday, June 24, at 8:00 p.m., the results of this incredible project will be showcased at The Container Yard in Downtown L.A. If you’re in the area, register with DoLA to see this sure-to-be incredible exhibition.
For more, follow along with the hashtag #lennoxartproject and here:
UPDATED (7:05 p.m. PT):Updated to reflect police chief's statement on originally reported intent of suspect.
Santa Monica's police chief says she was incorrect when she said a heavily armed Indiana man told investigators he was headed to a gay pride parade in order to do harm
James Wesley Howell, 20, of Indiana was arrested about 5 a.m. after neighbors reported suspicious behavior on the street where he was parked the wrong way in a white sedan, Santa Monica police said in a statement.
In the car, officers found three assault rifles, high capacity magazines and ammunition and a five-gallon bucket with chemicals that could be used to make an explosive device, police said.
Santa Monica police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks originally tweeted that Howell told officers after he was arrested that he wanted to harm the gay pride event in West Hollywood that was taking place about seven miles away later Sunday. Hundreds of thousands of people attend the annual event.
But later Sunday, Seabrooks deleted that tweet and issued a correction.
The chief said Howell had only told police that he was going to the event known as LA Pride, and he did not say what he intended to do there.
His arrest came as the mass shooting that killed 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, was still unfolding.
Police would answer no further questions on Howell or his motives, deferring to the FBI, which has taken over the investigation.
At the scene, police searched a white four-door Acura sedan parked facing the wrong direction on a busy thoroughfare in a mostly residential area of the seaside city west of Los Angeles. There was a red plastic gas can near the car and items laid out on a white sheet next to it.
Heriberto Gomez, a lifelong resident who says he watches over the neighborhood, stepped outside at 3 a.m. Sunday and saw the white Acura sedan in the street.
Gomez said the man ran across the street and hid in bushes and overhanging trees. It appeared the man was looking back at him.
"I was looking at him for a minute, for a long minute," Gomez said. "He didn't want to come my way because he seen me standing right here."
The organizers of the Pride event said in a statement before the parade that "we are heartbroken that so many of our brothers, sisters and allies were lost in this tragic attack." Organizers said the tragedy made them all the more determined to continue with plans.
"Our brave founders made this happen to show the world who we are," the statement said. "We will be loud. We will be proud, and we will celebrate in honor of all those lost."
Three structures donated to homeless residents and once set to be dismantled or destroyed by the city of Los Angeles were returned to the man who built them Friday.
The tiny homes, which were impounded for obstructing city streets in February, were returned to Elvis Summers on the condition they be kept on private property, Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation spokesperson Elena Stern confirmed to Mashable.
"If they are put out on LA City public sidewalks or streets they will be tagged and removed again," Stern said.
Summers, who used to be homeless himself, built the tiny houses to provide free shelter for those in need.
"They paid their ticket," Summers said, of homeless veterans kicked out of their tiny houses. "They shouldn’t be homeless."
He has raised more than $100,000 in donations in the past year to build the structures and plans to continue his work.
The structures were delivered to the Faith Community Church in Compton, but cannot be lived in until a more permanent location is found, Summers wrote on Facebook.
The city had tagged seven additional structures to to be impounded in February, but they had all been moved by Summers to private property by the time the Bureau of Sanitation returned. Stern said the city has not encountered any other structures since.
The Bureau of Sanitation, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and other city officials have argued that the structures, which under a city ordinance are not considered homes and do not require notice of eviction, pose a health and safety risk. Local residents have also petitioned for their removal, arguing the structures have encouraged drug use, prostitution and gang activity in their neighborhoods.
The homes, which are about the size of a parking spot, had been situated mostly on freeway overpasses between Inglewood and Van Nuys. Summers has built and placed more than 30 structures around Los Angeles County, and told Mashable in February the homes tagged for removal by the city were the most visible of the lot.
"These ones were kind of high profile," Summers said. "They haven't found my others ones, and they're not going to."
Summers has argued his homes, which each cost $1,200 a piece to build, are an economical solution to Los Angeles' homelessness crisis, which the city has estimated will require at least $1.8 billion in funding to address over the next decade.
Los Angeles County has seen its homeless population increase for the past four years straight, with nearly two-thirds of the county's homeless — more than 28,000 people — residing in the city of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority announced this week.
Three structures donated to homeless residents and once set to be dismantled or destroyed by the city of Los Angeles were returned to the man who built them Friday.
The tiny homes, which were impounded for obstructing city streets in February, were returned to Elvis Summers on the condition they be kept on private property, Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation spokesperson Elena Stern confirmed to Mashable.
"If they are put out on LA City public sidewalks or streets they will be tagged and removed again," Stern said.
Summers, who used to be homeless himself, built the tiny houses to provide free shelter for those in need.
"They paid their ticket," Summers said, of homeless veterans kicked out of their tiny houses. "They shouldn’t be homeless."
He has raised more than $100,000 in donations in the past year to build the structures and plans to continue his work.
The structures were delivered to the Faith Community Church in Compton, but cannot be lived in until a more permanent location is found, Summers wrote on Facebook.
The city had tagged seven additional structures to to be impounded in February, but they had all been moved by Summers to private property by the time the Bureau of Sanitation returned. Stern said the city has not encountered any other structures since.
The Bureau of Sanitation, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and other city officials have argued that the structures, which under a city ordinance are not considered homes and do not require notice of eviction, pose a health and safety risk. Local residents have also petitioned for their removal, arguing the structures have encouraged drug use, prostitution and gang activity in their neighborhoods.
The homes, which are about the size of a parking spot, had been situated mostly on freeway overpasses between Inglewood and Van Nuys. Summers has built and placed more than 30 structures around Los Angeles County, and told Mashable in February the homes tagged for removal by the city were the most visible of the lot.
"These ones were kind of high profile," Summers said. "They haven't found my others ones, and they're not going to."
Summers has argued his homes, which each cost $1,200 a piece to build, are an economical solution to Los Angeles' homelessness crisis, which the city has estimated will require at least $1.8 billion in funding to address over the next decade.
Los Angeles County has seen its homeless population increase for the past four years straight, with nearly two-thirds of the county's homeless — more than 28,000 people — residing in the city of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority announced this week.
Popular
Tags
Videos