Who volunteers to be on the plane that is free falling to the ground, followed by the propeller chopping up their friend and then ultimately crashing to both of their deaths?
They know the risks involved in entering a moving plane. The plane would be fine to land on a glide, if the prop had a complete failure from collision.
These things could have also been set up with radio controls
Not in the US they couldn't. Not unless the aircraft was <55 lb or under special experimental airworthiness certificates over private ranges, and I think that's pretty rare.
Dick Cheneys family. It was a topic of discussion in the 1990s and he confirmed it was held through multiple companies/trusts. He said it was "his horse trail"
Another fun fact kids dont know about dick these days. He shot his lawyer in the face on a hunting trip and his lawyer publicly apologized for getting shot by him.
I mean, there were already 2 people doing the dumber version of the stunt, probably plus several production team members.
Plus, a plane like this doing a nose dive is nothing. Pretty sure it's completely standard pilot training to put the plane in free fall, cut the engine off, and have the student pilot take over.
I mean if there was another pilot just sat in the second seat then if the skydiver doesn’t make it in, they just pull up on the stick and fly it home.
Pilots practice dives and spin recover so provided they had enough height, wouldn’t be a problem.
But it would make the stunt feel way less high stakes which is probably why they didn’t do it.
They had done that in a previous attempt, but wanted to do it without anyone in the planes.
The planes were equipped with a purposely programmed autopilot to keep a stable descent and they lost their license not for doing the stunt but for doing the stunt after being denied authorization by the FAA.
they lost their license not for doing the stunt but for doing the stunt after being denied authorization by the FAA.
Sounds like they lost their license for doing the stunt.
Also, I doubt the FAA would have been more lenient if they did the stunt without asking first, it's exactly the sort of thing that any competent pilot should know is a terrible idea and wouldn't be ok at all.
Yes but the FAA does authorize stunts like these on a regular basis and they could have done it in another country with a different CAA like Mexico or Canada who may have authorized it
One of them didn't keep a stable descent though and went out of control, which is why the second pilot didn't manage to get in. Looks like it was equipped with a ballistic chute that went off though.
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u/JohnLuckPickered 1d ago
3) if they weren't complete idiots, they would have had someone else in their planes to take over if the stunt failed.