Snake River Jump Team Features Twin Falls’ Miles Daisher, Set to Bid on Land Rights
OutdoorHub 09.27.13
REO Development Group said today that it will participate in an Idaho state auction to win the right to lease a landing zone that Twin Falls resident and local hero Miles Daisher needs to fulfill his lifelong dream of making a motorcycle jump over the Snake River Canyon.
If REO wins the auction, which is being conducted by the Idaho Department of Lands (IDOL) this Friday, the company hopes to launch Daisher more than 1,500 feet over the Canyon in September 2014 in front of a live worldwide television audience. The timing and location coincide with the 40th anniversary of Evel Knievel’s failed attempt to accomplish a similar feat.
“The key for us has been Miles’ passion for this idea,” said REO’s Hud Englehart, one of three original REO participants who have been at work on a Snake River jump for almost eight years. “When Miles decided to exclusively join our team, it broke a log jam which yielded a workable jump vision and a technical team to go along with it.
“As a result, we’ll arrive at the auction having done our due diligence, studied the jump and assembled a team that can actually pull it off,” he asserted.
According to Englehart, the REO team abandoned Knievel’s concept of the jump for safety reasons. “Our experts looked at Knievel’s vehicle and mission specifications, and determined that Knievel probably would have sustained fatal injuries if his parachute hadn’t prematurely deployed back in the fall of 1974.
Englehart said that a propulsion systems expert examined Knievel’s jump specifications and helped steer REO toward a “man-worthy” version of the jump.
“Our jump vision gives Miles control over the leap from start to finish, something never envisioned by Knievel but absolutely mission critical for a danger-filled leap into thin air over a 500 foot deep chasm,” Englehart said.
The REO team features Daisher, a world renowned base jumper and self-proclaimed United States Air Force brat, who made his first solo skydive at 25 and his inaugural BASE jump two years later. He is a member of the Red Bull Air Force and recently jumped Hellhole Bend in Arizona for Degree Deodorant. He teaches skydivers to BASE jump, and he and his wife Nikki also organize the annual Perrine Bridge Festival that has raised over $150,000 for special needs kids in Twin Falls.
Daisher is joined by Luke Aikins, the skydiving consultant for Red Bull’s incredible 128,100 ft. Stratos dive, who will serve as technical lead on the project. A professional skydiver with two decades of experience and more than 16,000 jumps to his credit, Aikins has a lifelong history of tackling aviation challenges that are out of the ordinary. He worked hand-in-hand with Stratos jumper Felix Baumgartner to develop parachute configuration, drogue deployment and flight posture for the jump.
Pete Moran, Owner and President of Rezin Marketing and former sports marketing manager for Red Bull, will work with the team on developing partnerships. Moran is a long-time colleague of Daisher and Aikins whose company currently manages endorsement deals for athletes including Kasey Keller (ESPN Commentator, Former US National Team goalkeeper and three time Soccer Athlete of the Year); Marshawn Lynch, Seattle Seahawks; Jeremy Jones, Pro Snowboarder; Josh Brown, New York Giants; and many others.
BeCore, an experiential marketing and event company, has been retained by REO to produce the event. BeCore is California based and has staged major events for Red Bull, Nike, Microsoft and other major corporations. The company was responsible for providing a Mission Control & Media Center for Red Bull’s Stratos project as well as maintaining premises over the course of several months in Roswell, New Mexico.
REO’s Chicago principals include former Chicago Bulls marketing head Dave Rosengard, Beacon Advisors Managing Partner and former Hill and Knowlton PR executive Hud Englehart, and attorney Timothy Okal. The three have been at work to develop a Snake River jump for several years and are intimately familiar with the requirements – technical, governmental, financial – to accomplish the leap.
