Good article. Great stuff to get into when you're young and your imagination is focused by thoughts of immortality! My eldest son enjoys doing this; his chute failed on his first jump -- no problem, just got rid of the main and opened the reserve. He'd done the 8 hours training before getting off the ground. Very cool headed.

Jumping out of an airplane with no chute is pretty risky. How many backup jumpers did he have chasing him with a chute?

I'm guessing this must have been prior to the advent of computer generated effects? Why else would anyone take this risk today save for a daredevil?

No, Joe jumped just recently with no rig, and will be doing it again soon as part of a stunt event. He has two (that I'm aware of) crew that carry a rig for him.
It's all a stunt, not for movie reasons. He also does things like shoot his canopy with a flare gun and ride it until it's totally burned out, and then cuts it away.
He pioneered many high-risk image acquisition tactics, and is a strong lobby for Xtreme videographers/photographers to be treated identically to talent in productions, because they're out there on a limb so to speak, as much as the stuntman or actor is.
If you wanna see some truly inspirational works, www.joejennings.com is a great website, but warning...you might be stuck there for a while.

DSE, are you making skydiving a new business adventure? Or just a fun thing?

A new business adventure IS a fun thing!

It's mostly a fun thing, but since I also am pretty deep into the production world and I'm qualified to fly a camera, the two cross a fair amount, moreso lately because a few opportunities have come up to shoot some fairly significant events. The "Most Jumps 2006" event for instance, will likely set a world record for all time, and no way in the world would I miss the opp to shoot that. ;-)
But, it's mostly a fun thing. Jumping out of an aircraft at 14,000 feet and flying through the air at speeds of up to 220 mph is like a CTRL+ALT+DELETE for my brain.

Yes, I regularly watch people doing that. Flying? It's a matter of the coordinate system. What seems like flying in sky-diver coordinates is straight plummeting in earth coordinates! But have fun and, Spot, don't do it without a parachute.

seems like flying in sky-diver coordinates is straight plummeting in earth coordinates!

Oh! Not so! Tracking without a wingsuit and a good body position means about .5 miles of horizontal movement. A wingsuit like a Birdman or Vampire means you've got miles of horizontal movement, and if you have a thermal, you can actually gain altitude in a wingsuit (although very little)

This is one place that shooting with a camera is weird, because you can't see the viewfinder, and rely on a small eyepiece to know if you're framing the shot. here is a short 3-cam shoot from day before yesterday. You can see the horizontal movement.
This is a Sony promotional shot for the A1U and Xtreme sports. You can see the A1U mounted on the helmet in the foreground of the shot.

Way cool, Spot. I'm afraid I'd have to wear a diaper for that, though.

OK Spot, I know. I was talking about how it looks from the ground. Half a mile isn't much of a deviation from plummet! However the bit with the wing-shute looks like fun and I'm rather attracted to the taking off from the ground sort of activity. And of course my son would agree absolutely with you.

Sky Diving, not a priority for me in my life. Now this link points to what "IS" on my list of things to do before I die...

ZeroG

>It's mostly a fun thing, but since I also am pretty deep into the production world and I'm qualified to fly a camera, the two cross a fair amount, moreso lately because a few opportunities have come up to shoot some fairly significant events. The "Most Jumps 2006" event for instance, will likely set a world record for all time, and no way in the world would I miss the opp to shoot that. ;-)
But, it's mostly a fun thing. Jumping out of an aircraft at 14,000 feet and flying through the air at speeds of up to 220 mph is like a CTRL+ALT+DELETE for my brain.
<

Go Douglas! I can imagine. I had one small slice for comparison and then the earlier motivation.

I only did it only once but it definately does put you in a new place for a few hours (at least the first time) after you touch down. I did it in the early 70's and I think it was largely because I was suffering from adrenalin withdrawl after being back from Vietnam for a couple years. I jumped from a small field in Michigan and the story of that day is filled with strange an wierd incidents. If I tell the story with any level of detail it takes a long time. It made the experience more interesting and exciting, but if the group had been more professional, I might have jumped again.

Life is interesting sometimes. Do you want to live in interesting times?

Thanks for sharing an interesting, enjoyable read. Next time I work with a difficult client, will recall his "Things I don't like" list and my gripes will pale in comparison! Great vid too:-)

When you say "only guy in the world to jump in his underwear", are you differentiating from guys who jump totally nude? Many years back, they did a nude 4-way at a small DZ in southern Ontario when the owner/pilot (who would never have allowed it) was far away, jumping at Z-hills . Still have the slides from pics I took that day!

Lili,
By "jumping in his underwear" Joe jumped out of the plane with no rig. He wore underwear to demonstrate in video that he had no rig hidden beneath his clothes. Nude skydiving is quite common, actually, but those guys still wear rigs.