There you sit in the middle of the "landing field", unloaded parachute laying limp beside you, your friends all there to catch the spectacle. Have you just finished an incredible jump from the sky? Not quite.

Suddendly, you are hoisted up and heaved backward. Winds pushes into the parachute and the blooming fabric pulls you from your shoulders into the air. Moments later the parachute retracts into your pack, and all that can be seen is a terrified soul bieng rushed upwards of 100 miles an hour into the sky. High above the ground, some can see an airplane streaking above the horizon. This is your destination. As you are pulled closer and closer to the plane, a group of attendants help sweep you from the rushing air into the plane. What a rush!

How it's done:
Very strong and flexible cord is attached to you and the plane. It is slack at first, and as the plane flies by it is quickly reeled in to pull you through the sky. The parachute trick is done with a few well-timed, very powerful turbines on the ground.

As a bonus, you can then switch into a real parachute and jump back out. You could theoretically repeat the process over and over, if there were ample landing fields and such, but that's kinda crazy to think about.
-- daseva, Apr 03 2007

(??) Fulton's skyhook http://www.rccaract...skyhook/skyhook.asp
baked (almost), minus the parachute. [Freefall, Apr 03 2007]

Fulton's Skyhook at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia...air_recovery_system
(This link works...) [neutrinos_shadow, Nov 29 2009]

I'm thinking you might want to use base-jumping sites rather than actual airplanes.
-- DrCurry, Apr 03 2007


I guess that would then be base diving. Yeah, good insight!

[Freefall], excellent link. Looks like fun.
-- daseva, Apr 04 2007


Sort of plane-launched bungee jumping? Bags-I first go [+]
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 04 2007


You go, I'll watch. (+)
-- Galbinus_Caeli, Apr 04 2007


All of my best experiences have started with those words.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 04 2007


After you get into the plane, do you start mumbling "I can't do this, please don't make me do this, I can't do it..."
-- phundug, Apr 04 2007


I saw a brilliant video of someone skydiving out of one aircraft and into another. The pilot of the catch plane looked like he was about to fly the wings off it, but I suppose the dive speed couldn't have been far from a skydiver's terminal velocity of 120ish mph. Cracking video; probably on YouTube. The first person to suggest I was watching James Bond (I wasn't) gets flung out without a chute.
-- david_scothern, Apr 05 2007


// After you get into the plane, do you start mumbling "I can't do this, please don't make me do this, I can't do it..."

or maybe "...ti od t'nac I, siht od em ekam t'nod esaelp, siht od t'nac I"
-- TheLightsAreOnBut, Apr 05 2007


We could put a fake cockpit on the nose of the plane, and have a fake nose on the cockpit, to boot.
-- daseva, Apr 05 2007


Instead of sitting on the tarmac unprotected you could be waiting inside a coffin that is shot skyward. That way, if things don't go well, you're all set.
-- JSand, Apr 08 2007


Dibs on second.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 29 2009



random, halfbakery