WEIDMANN: We offer the experience of standing on a building in the middle of a city and jumping off. People are absolutely terrified. I mean, tears and everything.
VAN ASCH: Yes, I have tried it. The step-off is similar to bungee.
WEIDMANN: Bungee jumping wasn't happening in cities—building owners are reluctant to allow it. On the a fan is tied to a shaft that's wrapped with wire rope. The fan slows down the unspooling rope. You jump, reach a speed of 50 mph—it's a 630-foot jump—and fall fast all the way until you've gone 560 feet. Just when you think you're going to die, the wire shifts to a shaft that turns the fan faster, and your speed decreases.
VAN ASCH: You don't have the acceleration and subsequent bounce. The physical and emotional sequence is different.Rolling down a hill inside a padded ball? I've always wondered why someone would want to do that.
WEIDMANN: Who made the first jump from the tower? You're talking to him. We wanted to keep it secret, so we did the jump at 2 a.m. It was not a nice night—drizzly, and there were clouds pouring into the jump zone. I took a leap. I was told that I needed to be quiet because there are all these accommodation buildings nearby, apartments and condominiums. With the clouds, I couldn't see the ground. I just yahooed all the way down.
AKERS: We were throwing around ideas of crazy things to try. One was walking on water. We thought about inflatable shoes, then we thought about a big plastic ball with a single skin. Then we wondered if a double skin wouldn't be better. It took three or four months to develop. We took it to the beach to see what we could do with it. But once the wind picks up, it's like a big sail with a person in it. You'd start getting blown out to sea and there was nothing you could do. But people noticed. It's clear and plastic and beautiful. So we began to think about how we could make money off it. As a total fluke, we thought about rolling it down a hill. My parents had a farm, so we took it there. It was scary, standing on top of that hill, wondering what would happen.
HARRAP: Rolling down a hill inside a padded ball? I've always wondered why someone would want to do that.
AKERS: The whole thing, rotates only once every 33 feet, so there's not a problem with throwing up. We started developing a harness system. With that, there's no problem at all; you're completely pinned in. We also put water inside it. The water acts as a lubricant—it keeps you on the bottom the whole time, and the ball moves around you. It's like going down a huge waterslide.
WEIDMANN: There was also a thing called Fly by Wire and an incident where some gear went wrong.
HARRAP: I thought, imagine if you had a swing, but instead of just going backwards and forwards, you could move in a figure-8 pattern. Think of it as a thread that you simply thumbtack to the ceiling. The thread hangs straight down, and then you tie a matchstick to the thread. That's it, basically. But the matchstick has a motor on it. A "powered steerable swinging device," that's the patent name.
AKERS: I'm not sure if it's even operating anymore. It sounds fantastic, but it's the kind of idea where, if something goes wrong, it goes really wrong.