Yanks leap on our SkyJump

Photo: Richard Simpson

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The Yanks are taking our SkyJump concept and super-sizing it.

Erik Stone, above, is one of a group of Americans who want to start offering adrenalin junkies the chance to leap from the top of The Stratosphere Las Vegas Hotel & Casino then plummet 260m at a scream-inducing speed of up to 85km/h while taking in dazzling views of the world-famous Las Vegas Strip.

So they've come to New Zealand to learn how to safely pull it off.

Since late February an operations team from the casino has been training at Auckland's Sky Tower, the site of the world's original SkyJump, in preparation for the launch of their own version of the SkyJump next month.

The Las Vegas SkyJump will be the highest in the world and is being set up with help from the founder and managing director of Auckland's SkyJump, Steve Weidmann. There are currently only two other SkyJump operations outside Auckland – Macau and South Korea – and Weidmann helped set up both.

"We are now looking at the possibility of setting it up with other partnership operations and have had inquiries from Canada, Australia, Mexico, the Philippines and Singapore," says Weidmann.

Auckland's SkyJump is a 192m jump and people fall at approximately 85km/h for around 11 seconds. The eldest person to take the jump off the Sky Tower last year was 86, the youngest just 10.