Dubai is equal parts engineering marvel and rich person playground. It’s where drones race pricey supercars and skateboarders rent out and drain entire waterparks for their amusement. It’s also where BASE jumpers Chris Douggs McDougall and Jimmy Pouchert shot themselves 300 feet into the air just for the fuck of it.
Sure we’ve seen many, many, many (oh so very many) human catapults before, but never before on this scale. Held up by two massive cranes, the rig sent these fearless maniacs from a dead stop to 125 miles-per-hour in a single second, which resulted in about 6 g’s of force on their bodies by their estimation—approximately three times what astronauts feel during launch. Luckily, neither McDougall or Pouchert passed out, so both were able to deploy their parachutes and land safely.
There’s also POV footage of the catapult being ridden at night, but the beauty of Dubai lit up is not enough to calm that queasy feeling in my stomach.
