We Catapulted Red Bull Skydivers off a Mountain (Again but bigger)

This is the strongest human catapult we've ever built and we'll use it to launch a Red Bull skydiver further than ever before. That's because this catapult is double the length of the ordinary one and it can also reach an exit speed double of the ordinary one. But why are we even doing this? See, a while ago we pitched Red Bull the greatest project of our lives. We do have a crazy idea for you guys. You know, I'm a bit scared already. We can't tell you what the project is just yet, but we'll explain more about it soon. The important thing is that they were up for it immediately. What? What? What are you talking about? Is that even possible? Maybe not immediately, but we have agreed to take a couple of checks first before carrying on. I think we're gonna first double the size of it. I would like to have a bit of a... So, let's tackle one problem at a time. First we have to assemble a double length catapult and test it if it works the same as we imagined. The point of today's test is to see if double length cannon even holds up and the second thing is to see if theory matches reality. So we did multiple tests progressively increasing the speed up to our goal which was at 80 kilometers an hour and to our relief everything went just fine. We're gonna fly. Next we have to solve the problem of the backrest. In the previous tests, we've noticed how jumping off of our feet we sometimes get bananaed backwards, which at higher angle could turn out pretty bad. So we came up with a solution. In order to avoid flipping back, we put a back to it. Can I go in? Yeah. Trust fall! Whoa! It looks good. I mean, Mirzi was in and he was giving very positive feedback. Whenever he's really positive about the design, usually it's really good. But we only know if it works once we try it out. The back part helps, helps a lot. Makes you feel more comfortable going straight up. Helps if you don't do something right and go backwards. Three, two, one. Whoa! It was so fun! I thought I'm gonna have a stronger push from the cannon and it's pretty chill. It'd be fun to like step it up and go like higher up. Out here? What? You mean we should go to a different location? No, that's a stupid idea. Keepin' it tight. Now that the cannon is standing, the trajectory looks brutal. Airtime. It's gonna be like jumping off 80 meter cliff. Up, up, up, till we can't no more. A very important part of this test was setting up the scaffolding construction. Usually our catapult is supported by two legs, but with double length we need more stability, especially if we plan to set it up on the edge of a mountain. Turns out that assembling scaffolding is kind of like big boy Legos. We got the hang of it pretty quickly and after a couple of hours we were done. Do you prefer this over the usual seat? No. No. I'm nervous but I think it should be fine. God and this is the POV. Oh it's pretty. It goes way up there. I don't know what to say. I mean another one of our stupid devices Main objectives for the day are learn how to set up scaffolding, which we already did, make sure the catapult still works fine when upright, and try to push it to our limits, which we estimate should be about 25 meters. Three, two, one. Yeah, I don't you don't feel this is not This is not a ramp, this is the whole runway. That looked extremely high! Not high enough yet, so we very soon ramped up the power. We increased the power of the cannon going from somewhere between 17 and 19 to 21 to 23 meters. Two, one. Whoa! What's so hard? I actually got launched 23 meters high, which was nuts, but we figured we can go just a tiny bit further. Yeah, we're losing the light. We have the last setting, which is close to 25 meters. This is gonna be insane airtime. Okay, let's go into position. This is the most important part of the day. Only if I can hold three g's of acceleration and make it to water safely, we can move on with the project And five, four, three, two, one. Whoa! WHAAAAAAAA It was a great relief once I made it to water safely. It's emotional roller coaster. You're floating, it kinda, you stop up there, it just takes so much time to understand that you're really high up. Do you think we can 10X this ----? Let's ******* 10X this ----. But before we can actually 10X our catapult, we must complete the final check. Red Bull athletes have to try this setup from the edge of a mountain and we knew just the place. We have once again found ourselves on Sass Pordoi which is a mountain in Italian Dolomites with an altitude of 2950 meters and a clean cut of ledge with 800 meter of a drop making it one of the most scenic base jumping spots in the Alps. First we need to find the location because this one is good here but it's really Difficult to set up for the cannon. And I think we found it. Yeah? So first step is to get two tons of gear up to the top station and then piece by piece to this spot and then we're gonna assemble a tower here and then cannon. Well that sounds simple enough. We first unloaded the van and put all of our equipment into the gondola. After a scenic trip to the top we've emptied the gondola onto the hallway And began with a long trip down to our spot. We have just two tons of materials we need to bring all down. Yeah, let's go. This 100 meter trail with about 10 meters of height difference might not look like much. But you have to account for the fact that we are at 3000 meter altitude, which means oxygen levels are lower. And that combined with the slushy snow makes everything about twice as hard. But it wasn't all that bad. It beats any office work ever. I don't care how fancy your office is, this is a better office. So far it's going good, like I don't wanna... With our spirits high, the work generally went by pretty fast, and both the tower and catapult were coming together very nicely. Putting the catapult in its place marked the end of the build. Now, before the athletes arrive, let's clarify why is this test so important. For the big mysterious project, the athletes will have to push their boundaries when it comes to handling acceleration. We measure acceleration using G's, which means one Earth's gravity. That is how you feel your body weight. If you were to step into an elevator that would accelerate upwards with acceleration of 10 meters per square second, that feels like yet another Earth's gravity. Meaning you feel like you weight twice as much. We will now hopefully manage to expose athletes to a total of 4 g's of acceleration. Which they will have with Stan standing up. And that will feel like for a brief moment they weight about 300 kilos. Now let's see what they think of our setup. This time you can see it from here. I'm curious. The holy cannon. Speak of the devil. Speak of the devil. The day after the build finished, the crew pulled up. Music, Gab and I were absent during the build, as we were performing in a nearby town with our megatramp. So this is our and the athlete's genuine first impression of the setup. Yeah, it looks terrible. It's like you need to get it back. Double excited, double excited. I'm sorry. And from up there it looked like okay, but when we come closer it just grew. This is massive. Easier to fly a parachute than to build this ----, that's for sure. I mean, I don't know about you, but we honestly thought this build was sick. Double-length catapult, fully branded, standing on the edge of a mountain. I still love it to this day. You know Fred? I'm quite jealous. Yes. You wanna do it, huh? Yeah, I would do it so much. You can use my rig if you want. I brought three parachutes. Three? Who's going first? We flip a coin. We have not yet introduced these two fellas, right? They are Danny Roman and Fred Fugen and both of them are Red Bull BASE jumping athletes. They're amongst absolutely the best in the game. You might know Fred from the chairlift skydive or landing in the plane midair, which is nuts by the way. And Dani is one of the most precise wingsuit flyers, doing some of the craziest gaps ever. And if you're regular on the channel, then you probably know that we've actually already been here with Fred and Danny for a video we've posted a year ago. where we set up three catapults the main difference however is that today the catapult is two times longer and we're aiming to launch four times further At the winner goes. At the winner goes. a At the winner goes. really ple as an ejection At the winner goes. One, two, three. At the winner goes. At the winner goes. At the winner goes. At the winner goes. At the winner goes. At the winner goes. At the winner goes. At the winner goes. At the winner goes. At the winner goes. At the winner goes. At the winner goes. At the winner goes. At the winner goes. At the winner goes. At the winner goes. At the winner goes. At the winner goes. At the winner goes. At the winner goes. So the last time you jumped the exit speed At the winner goes. was like 40 kilometers per hour and now we're gonna go with 66 for the first jump and you're gonna launch 17 meters high above the ground. 17? 17, yeah. The game plan is to put one of the guys inside, pull the trigger. Let them feel the G-forces, put more tension inside, we're going to increase the power every time. And we're going to stop when the guys feel like they're ready for the big end goal. Okay, then we're going to need a bunny and a... Alex, are you nervous for the first launch? Of course I'm nervous, man. What kind of person wouldn't be nervous for this ----? I'm waiting in the landing zone for Dani who is going first. Thank you so much guys. Thank you. Good flight buddy. Thank you. Enjoy the flight. There are two important things we have to achieve with these jumps. With the slow first one we must confirm that launching out of a double-length catapult still feels safe and then we'll step it up to 80 kilometers an hour exit which will hopefully give us a green light to go for the craziest project of our lives. So we have a lot at stake. Even though it seems completely safe, and we wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't, every time there's new variables and stuff that you don't know could go wrong. So in moments like this, we're honestly nervous as hell. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye. All right, this is the big moment. The first of the big moments. Moment. Danny's ready. Safety pin out. And five, four. Three, two, one. Oh, this was ******* amazing. **** yeah. Awesome. That helmet must be too small for his big smile. Ha ha ha! That was good. That was nice, huh? We got shot into the sky. Yeah brother! The push was really smooth. Like, that was really nice. Cool man, I think you're great. Safe to say the first stage went good and well, but are the boys up for the biggest jump so far? A question for you guys, can we move to the next level with more power and a bit more tension? We can increase the power. I love you guys. The next jump is what determines the fate of this project. Fred and Dani are going to experience the strongest push yet and we can only carry on if they end up giving us a green light to move forward. Yeah if this goes well we go to the bigger scale. The first one was really good the guys gave us really very hyped feedback. The impact wasn't that bad and now we put in like 20% more The g-force is going to go up 20% as well. What is the prediction for the exit speed? I think right now it's going to be around 80 km per hour. First test was really successful. Dani and Fran both happy with the settings. So we increased the power and let's go second one. You know, very smooth jump. Thank you guys. Amazing. Thank you. There's a lot happening. One and a half second, you know. We're in the van! Okay, let's get it done. Okay, we're going in half a minute. Ready? Ready. Are you ready? Ready. Okay, Dan is ready. And safety pin out. Safety pin out. Five, four, three, two, one. He's just doing barrel rolls. The speed with which they flew out of the catapult was crazy. If they landed on the same level they got ejected from, they'd fly a whopping 60 meters far. If that's not wild, I don't know what is. Let's go! Landing safe, landing safe. Alright, so we are happy. Fred and Dani are happy with the settings, so they are prepared for the final stunt. That's what flying feels like. That was quite a launch, yeah. So you So you guys feel ready for the big thing? Yes. Alright. Yeah man, this is really good. So guys... We just finished with the biggest project of our life. We can't show you the results just yet, but the next video is coming in just a couple of days. It's not going to be one, there's going to be two videos and it's some of the best work we've ever done. Don't forget to subscribe because you don't want to miss that out. See you in the next episode.