David Blaine Ascension

this is what i've been telling you about 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] recovery that's 425 cup three [Laughter] 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 [Laughter] 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 [Music] how you doing in there bro it's [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Applause] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] oh no it's okay wait hold on i can't help you thank you that's good okay [Applause] 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 [Music] or i can get them hanging if you want yeah let's go ahead let's get them hanging all right here we [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Applause] 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 [Music] [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Applause] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Applause] 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 [Applause] climbing big time [Applause] 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 [Music] 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 [Applause] 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 [Applause] 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 [Applause] 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 [Applause] can i get this line cleared for sight [Applause] 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 [Applause] 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 [Applause] right [Applause] 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 [Applause] 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 [Applause] 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 [Applause] 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 [Applause] 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 [Applause] remember when you open your parachute you'll be able to get at them too [Applause] stand up on your right leg maybe that'll help that one 23 500 feet there you go look good there [Applause] 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 [Applause] this tab is gonna be a little higher than the other one because that's the side you're hanging from [Applause] 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 [Applause] remember under parachute you're able to do it also [Music] 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 [Applause] 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 [Music] [Applause] feet [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] 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 [Music] 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 [Applause] 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 [Music] okay thank you mike [Applause] i can walk [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] oh [Applause] 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 [Music] oh so aaron is flying upside down [Music] oh shoot you

Channel: David Blaine

Views: 22,713,119

Rating: 4.8335533 out of 5

Keywords: David Blaine, David Blane, David Blain, street magic, card tricks, magic show

Id: QwzvNAAqH3g

Length: 178min 29sec (10709 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 02 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/btr781]

He just landed safely

[u/MiamiFootball]

he's not dead, what a fuckin miracle of science.

seems like there was some significance at getting to 25,100 and he jumped at 24,900 so I wonder what that was about

[u/seanv2]

I'm sorry but this is cool.

[u/nzolo]

dude hes gonna pass out talking so much

[u/cosmic-schmuck]

Anyone else hear that fart?

[u/alex10653]

bro this shit was crazy i live in page and walked out of my house this morning, looked up and there he was just floating

[u/insane_playzYT]

UPDATE: Blaine has successfully landed

[u/StockholmDenver]

That little girl in Taiwan already did this.

[u/Collected1]

For what it was advertised as I think it worked well and it was nice to see him abandon some of the smoke and mirrors that are usually involved with his stunts. This one felt a lot more real to me.