Skydiver to jump from 25,000 feet without parachute or wingsuit

LOS ANGELES — Luke Aikins has been jumping out of airplanes for quite some time. In fact, he's dropped out of the sky more than 18,000 times and lived to tell the tale.

But his skill will be put to the test on FOX25 Saturday night when he jumps out of an airplane wearing just the clothes on his back.

That's right, he won't have a parachute, he won't have a wingsuit -- he'll have nothing to slow his fall, just a net to catch him.

"Like any normal, sane person I said, 'Thank you, but no thank you. I have a wife and a son and I've got a life to live,' " Aikins, 42, told PEOPLE Magazine about the first time the idea was proposed. "Then, two weeks went by and I kept waking up in the middle of the night thinking, if somebody said you had to do this, how could it be done?"

After months of planning, Aikins will answer that question in a special live event on FOX25 called Stride Gum Presents: Heaven Sent. 

Aikins will fall from 25,000 feet in the sky and land on a 100x100-foot net suspended 200 feet off the ground live at 8 p.m. Eastern Time.

The landing target won't even be visible when he jumps, but special lights have been set up to guide him as he falls and keep him lined up to hit that target.

Aikins has reportedly completed 34 practice jumps -- in which he deploys a parachute at just 1,000 feet up -- successfully.

You can watch the jump live on FOX25 Saturday night at 8 p.m. Eastern Time.

Cox Media Group