Hulu is presenting Red Bull’s latest death-defying aerial stunt as the exclusive U.S. livestreaming partner. The opportunistic rights pickup shows how Disney is hunting for new head-turning opportunities to help Hulu stand out in the crowded streaming market, according to Variety.
What’s Happening:
- In Red Bull’s Plane Swap event, set for Sunday, April 24, skydivers and pilots Luke Aikins and Andy Farrington — each piloting single-seat Cessna aircrafts to 14,000 feet in the skies over Arizona — will put their planes into a vertical nosedive. They’ll then jump out in midair at 140 mph (leaving the cockpits empty) and attempt to skydive into each other’s planes as they hurtle toward the ground.
- The never-before-attempted Plane Swap stunt will be livestreamed on Hulu beginning at 4 p.m. PT on April 24.
- Hulu is the exclusive streaming partner of Plane Swap in the U.S. (available to all subscribers) and Red Bull TV is the broadcast platform for the rest of the world.
- On Hulu, the event also will be available to watch on-demand starting the next day.
- Plane Swap is the latest in a series of live news and sports programming for Hulu’s on-demand subscribers. Past events on the streamer have included Lollapalooza 2021, the New Year’s Eve Ball Drop and 75 live NHL games.
- The Plane Swap stunt required the development of a purpose-built airbrake system installed on the aircrafts’ belly, designed to control aerodynamic stability. Once engaged, the airbrakes will ensure the planes maintain a relatively controlled terminal velocity in nosedive that closely matches the speed of the skydivers’ descent.
- Aikins and Farrington worked with aeronautical engineer Dr. Paulo Iscold, who served as lead engineer on the project.
- The Plane Swap concept is Aikins’ brainchild, inspired by a photo he saw in an aviation magazine in the ’90s. As a professional skydiver, he’s made more than 21,000 jumps and served as the skydiving consultant on the Red Bull Stratos mission (where Felix Baumgartner jumped from a record-setting altitude of 127,852 feet in 2012).
- Aikins also performed the first-ever skydive without a parachute on live TV in 2016 and developed Red Bull Aces, the world’s first wingsuit slalom competition that began in 2014.
- Farrington, meanwhile, boasts more than 27,000 skydives himself. The two are cousins who live together on a 40-acre property in Washington State.
What They’re Saying:
- Luke Aikins, American Aircraft Pilot and Skydiving Professional:
- “Plane Swap is the natural progression and culmination of my life’s work as a professional, both in the air as a pilot and skydiver and on the ground as an innovator,”
- “It’s the pinnacle of my career, and my goal is to inspire the world and show that anything is possible.”