Aerones pulls off first high-altitude BASE jump by drone
Imagine being dragged by a 28-propeller drone 1,000 feet in the sky, then letting go on purpose to plummet toward Earth.
A Latvian drone company that introduced the world to a phenomenon known as “droneboarding” in January is back at it again with another mind-bending feat: completing the first-ever human BASE jump at a high altitude from a drone.
Aerones, which makes high-power industrial-sized drones that have been used for sports, construction projects and rescue missions, tested its heavy-duty drone on May 12 by lifting experienced skydiver Ingus Augstkalns off a communications antenna in a rural region of Latvia to an altitude of 330 meters (1,083 feet). After two seconds, he let go and deployed his parachute, gliding safely back down to the ground in front of rolling cameras.
The company said the stunt showed the reliability and lifting-ability of its drone technology, which it says can lift up to 100 kilograms (220 pounds). Recently, Aerones has displayed a number of ways its drones might be deployed for entertainment, sports and commercial purposes, including putting out fires by carrying a firehose up to 400 meters (1,300 feet).
The drone jump was Aerones’ third stunt in action sports. In January, the drone pulled four snowboarders simultaneously down a mountain as they clutched to tight ropes. In September 2016, it pulled a wakeboarder along a river in Latvia for 2.6 kilometers (1.6 miles) over five-and-a-half minutes, reaching speeds up to 70 kilometers per hour (43 mph) and depleting just half the drone’s battery capacity.
Augstkalns, who came up with the BASE-jumping idea and is a co-founder of a company called Aerodium Technologies that makes indoor skydiving wind tunnels, said the experiment also opens up new opportunities for the skydiving and BASE-jumping communities, which consistently push the boundaries in terms of finding new ways to get altitude for jumps.
“It is obvious that we will experience an increasingly important use of drone in our everyday life,” he said in a statement. “My friends –skydivers all over the world– will be excited about these new opportunities.”
