Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. News

Yes, the upcoming Plane Swap stunt is as insane as it sounds

By

There are some pitches that are hard to ignore because they’re so, well, mad, and the latest from Red Bull Air Force is one of them. On April 24 two pilots will take two specially modified Cessna 182 aircraft to 14,000 feet, put them into a nosedive, jump out and skydive to the other plane, restart the engine and retake control. The impossible-sounding feat is called Plane Swap, and all the above action needs to take place before any sudden connection with the ground.

Red Bull Plane Swap Cesna aircraft in flight.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Unsurprisingly, this will be a world first, and the concept comes from Red Bull Air Force pilot Luke Aikins, a daredevil who will be well known to anyone familiar with death-defying aerial feats over the past years. He was the first to jump out of a plane and skydive without a parachute (intentionally, of course) on live television, and was part of the consulting team on Felix Baumgartner’s historic Red Bull Stratos mission. He’s joined by Andy Farrington, who has racked up more than 27,000 skydives, and is Aikins’ cousin.

Recommended Videos

Using standard Cessna aircraft is not an option, and the pair have teamed up with aeronautical engineer Dr. Paulo Iscold to modify the planes so they’re suitable for the unbelievable event. Like Aikins and Farrington, Iscold is no stranger to crazy airborne feats, having co-developed among other aircraft, the Anequim, a record-breaking single-seater capable of 323 mph.

Red Bull Air Force members Luke Aikins and Andy Farrington practicing for the Plane Swap stunt.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

For Plane Swap, he has worked to reverse engineer the autopilot as normally it would attempt to bring the plane out of a nosedive, which isn’t what’s wanted here. The anti-autopilot system is joined by a special airbrake to ensure the aircraft remain not only at the required speed of 140 mph but also maintain stability as they plummet towards the ground.

Ambitious, technically complex, and in all honesty, downright crazy, Plane Swap is sure to be quite a spectacle. The stunt will take place on Sunday, April 24 when it’s exclusively live-streamed on Hulu in the U.S. at 7 p.m. ET or 4 p.m. PT. For the rest of the world, you’ll be able to watch the pair swap planes on Red Bull TV at the same time.

Topics
Andy Boxall
Andy Boxall
Senior Mobile Writer
Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…
The war between PC and console is about to heat up again
Intel NUC 12 Enthusiast sitting on a desk.

There's no question that consoles are increasingly becoming more like PCs, but thanks to Nvidia, it appears that the opposite may be taking place too.

According to a new report by Wccftech, Nvidia is working with its partners to create a new ecosystem for gaming on small form factor (SFF) PCs. When it comes to Nvidia, many of us think of some of the best graphics cards that are as powerful as they are massive, like the RTX 4090. However, Nvidia is planning to flip that narrative and set its sights on an unexpected target.

Read more
Buying a Steam Deck has never been cheaper
Steam Deck over a pink background.

Valve is serving up huge price cuts on the Steam Deck, but there's a catch -- the consoles are refurbished. Part of the Certified Refurbished Steam Deck program, these handhelds have been fixed up by Valve to reportedly run like new -- and they're significantly cheaper. You can save up to $90, but is this too good to be true? It doesn't have to be.

Buying refurbished devices and hardware can be scary, but when the goodies come directly from the manufacturer, it becomes less risky. This is the case with Valve, which is now selling all three models of the LCD Steam Deck, refurbished and at a price cut. If this sounds good, you can now grab the base model for $279 instead of $349 ($70 savings), while the 256GB NVMe model costs $319 instead of $399 when purchased new. Lastly, the top handheld in the lineup with 512GB of storage costs just $359 instead of $449, which is $90 in savings.

Read more
AMD’s upcoming APUs might destroy your GPU
AMD CEO Lisa Su holding an APU chip.

The spec sheets for AMD's upcoming APU lineups, dubbed Strix Point and Strix Halo, have just been leaked, and it's safe to say that they're looking pretty impressive. Equipped with Zen 5 cores, the new APUs will find their way to laptops that are meant to be on the thinner side, but their performance might rival that of some of the best budget graphics cards -- and that's without having a discrete GPU.

While AMD hasn't unveiled Strix Point (STX) and Strix Halo (STX Halo) specs just yet, they were leaked by HKEPC and then shared by VideoCardz. The sheet goes over the maximum specs for each APU lineup, the first of which, Strix Point, is rumored to launch this year. Strix Halo, said to be significantly more powerful, is currently slated for a 2025 release.

Read more