Aerial Silks at 12,000 feet
It began with a plan to visit Southern California for urban BASE jumping and the man sphere freefly (Skydiving) project. After a long excited conversation planning the trip, the last thing Matt Blank said to me before we hung up was, “Bring your silks!”
I drove down the pacific coast highway late in the afternoon enjoying one of my favorite drives in the US, the sun slowly dipped lower and lower on the horizon and eventually kissed the Pacific Ocean. My timing was perfectly planned to arrive in down town LA at just past midnight to sneak onto a building down town for an urban BASE jump. Standing on the end, with the cities lights glittering below us, I remember breathing in the crisp nights air. I stood there for a long period of time, my heart pounding in my chest with exhilaration and adrenaline, pilot chute in my hand. Matt stood silently next to me letting me be lost in my thoughts, he was enjoying the energy coming off me. We jumped. It was Magic.
The next day we went to Skydive Perris Valley to start the human sphere freely project, the jumps were amazingly engineered and also hilarious! Spirits were high, Matt and I jumped another building in Orange County that night.
After a few days on the Sphere Project, we got the shot! Matt and I started mulling over our Aerial Silks Skydive Project.
A little history of Matt and I: Back in 2015 when we did the silks project Matt and I were both fully rated skydiving tandem instructors with thousands of instructor jumps. We were both avid climbers with a solid knowledge of ropes, rigging, and me personally aerial silks. Both of us had multiple stunts in our arsenal and we worked very well together.
The rigging and execution was relatively simple but we consulted with Skydive Perris’ master rigger, Marty Jones, at the time to check our work. We rigged the aerial silks from a medium sling attached to Matt’s D rings so that the rescue 8 was hanging low on his thighs. there was also a single point cutaway system for the silks. I would exit with him as a mister bill (skydiving term) with my own parachute system.
The exit went as planned and Matts parachute opened perfectly. The silks were deployed and blew behind us in the 20+mph relative wind. The most challenging part of this stunt was working with the material of the silks in the strong relative wind. I had visions of grander that I would be able to do many positions but once I got both feet locked in I really only worked with that orientation. Of course the splits being the most ascetically pleasing.
I have preformed aerial silks in many out of the ordinary places. I have rigged them to a slackfline 400 ft above a Moab canyon with a safety line and harness. Dangling from a crane 1000ft up the Kula Limpur Tower with a BASE jumping rig. But by far the most challenging was this skydive. Although I anticipated that the relative wind would be an issue, I had no idea the force of the drag on my legs and body would be so strong. Luckily Matt and I improvised in the moment, he used his legs and feet on the upper portion of the tails to keep me from spinning. Getting off the silks proved a challenge as well, in untying my foot locks I lost a tail which was impossible to get back. I was exiting the silks anyway but it was a good lesson for next time.
All in all it was a great success and one of my most memorable skydives.
