How Luke Aikins survived a skydive with no parachute

Inching closer to the door Luke Aikins had nothing but 100 per cent confidence.

He was 15,000 above ground when he took off his oxygen mask and tossed it to a mate.

Looking down, he tried to focus but instead cracked a joke with his friends seconds before taking the biggest plunge of his life.

Mid fall he giggles to himself as he checks his handles to make sure they’re in the right place.

It’s too late now if they aren’t.

Laughing to himself he continues to fall to about 6000 ft when his teammates open their parachutes.

Luke doesn’t have one.

He’s making history jumping from a plane without a parachute into a giant net.

He’s skydived more than 18,000 times before and is also a BASE jumper, wingsuit flyer, Red Bull pilot and military trained stuntman.

You could say he’s fearless but there is one thing he’s afraid of.

"I would say my biggest fear is not being a good dad to my son,” he said.

“The other stuff is like, the scary stuff doesn't bother me at all."

"In the moment you just deal with whatever you have to, to get through it … but this, being a dad thing, there's no rules, there's no instructions that come with it and I want to be there to support him, push him, but not too much... and that's a really weird thing to figure that out."

It’s an unexpected comment from the professional daredevil who has dedicated his life to push every physical and mental boundary he's come across.

Luke trained Felix Baumgartner, the first man to jump from the stratosphere breaking the record for the highest sky dive.

READ MORE: 'Luke made me conquer my fear'

When he was asked to complete his biggest stunt yet, at first his reaction was a hard and fast “no”.

"[My wife and I] sort of both laughed at the idea because it was just one of those things that was sort of, not impossible, just, sort of funny and ridiculous, crazy, you know."

"So I had told them no I turned them down because it was too crazy for me. I had a little boy a wife and a life.

But it was his wife Monica who knew that Luke would eventually change his mind.

"I could just see Luke's brain working and working after, you know we talked about that, and, I was like I know he's going to do it."

The plan was an incredible combination of courage and careful planning.

Luke would free fall for 8km into a 30 x 30m net in the Californian desert.

His only reference point from so high in the sky were lights on the ground, used to guide him to his target.

If he were out of range they would appear red… if he was spot target on they’d change to white.

When his team opened their parachutes, he would flip onto his back and land in the net.

"I said 'I'm not a hired gun, I'm not a stunt guy that’s going to come in and just do this jump based on what you guys have come up with. I want to be involved in every aspect of the stuff that saves my life.'"

It was calculated Luke would need to hit the net at a speed of 193 km/h so the most crucial element was finding a net that would hold him, slow his fall and keep him off the ground.

He turned to Cirque du Soleil acrobats who relied on life-saving nets daily for advice.

"I'm like 'What is this [net]? Where did you get it?' And they told me what it was made of and I went home and looked it up."

"It's a fish netting company; they make netting for catching fish."

Two years after being approached to do the jump, Luke and his team were ready and the reality began to set-in and he spoke to his wife about the risks involved, including death.

"When I woke up on the day of the jump, just another day. Breakfast with my son, high five, wife and I headed off to ah go make some history."

The day before the jump — which was live broadcast in the US — a ruling by the Screen Actors Guild ordered that Luke wear an emergency parachute, throwing off all their careful calculations.

Aside from the weight and bulk of the parachute, the plan was for Luke to land on his back. With a parachute he said it would be like 'landing on a bowling ball'.

His wife Monica said something that shocked them both.

"Probably no wife has ever said this to their husband but I was like, 'I don't want you to wear that... I want you to jump without a parachute',"

"After I said it I started laughing, you know, cause I was just like, I probably never thought I'd say that out loud, you know

He made the decision to jump without an emergency parachute.

How the jump unfolded

It took 30 minutes for Luke and his team to climb 8 kilometres.

"In that moment when I moved to the door, I had nothing but 100% confidence."

"I didn't have a doubt about what was going on.

"I look down, and now I really start focusing on where I am."

Incredibly Luke takes a moment to joke with his skydiving buddies watching the jump live.

"A little over half way down, maybe 12,000 feet or so, I do a handle check, basically something we do in skydiving where we check for our handles to make sure they're in the right position."

"I giggled to myself, I thought it was pretty funny."

At about 6,000 feet Luke's teammates start to open their parachutes and he is on his own.

"I had one job to do, and that's to land in that net and at about 5,000 ft. I realised I'm a little bit off."

"About 2,000 feet the light at the inside forward light turns red… I try to back up a little bit. It doesn't seem like it's happening fast enough."

The ground crew watched as Luke overcorrected and flew backwards past the centre of the net. With just seconds to spare, Luke makes a crucial decision to remain off-centre.

"I shoot backwards too far I know that the outside [lights] are white, so there's no question that I'm inside the net… so at that moment I make a split second decision not to keep moving towards the centre."

At 300 ft above ground, Luke's final maneuver is to roll onto his back for landing.

He is caught by the net, which is designed to roll him into the middle as it slows his fall.

"It was awesome... it was unbelievable," Luke said.

"I said a couple of curse words and then I lay there for a second, and in the video you can hear my breathing, start breathing very heavy, you could tell, I think it starts to hit you, you kind of have an emotional moment."

His mum Debi was onsite but couldn’t bring herself to watch the jump.

For wife Monica it was a different story.

"Yeah, I would let him do it again... I mean, the science is there, he's done it, I actually was a little upset that he was like 15 - 20 feet off the centre mark."

"Like when I saw him, I was just like, 'Really?'"

"I'm a perfectionist a little bit."