How Does David Copperfield Fly ?

Everyone knows how this trick looks! David goes up in the air above the stage, soars above it, turns over, flies through the rings and in the closed glass box and in the end flows in the air with a girl in his hands. People have been trying to reveal this mystery for many years, there have been a lot of interesting suppositions and they keep coming; the most popular version is the hauberk made of magnets, which David wears under his sweater; and there is a special device under the stage with the help of which Copperfield leaves the floor and goes a couple of meters up.

Some even think, that David hypnotizes the whole audience during this trick and people simply don't notice, that his assistants almost carry him with their bare hands. Of course, all of these versions are false and even amusing. In this article we'll go through David's Flying from the show, called "Flying: live the dream." If you have the video of this trick, please, prepare it for viewing; if not, you can find some fragments of it in this article.

Technology of Flying.

David flies with the help of special ropes; only few factories in the world are producing these ropes. They are cosmic factories in general but also one factory in Las Vegas produces such ropes, the thickness of one of which is a bit less than a millimeter and it holds more than 100 kg. In Moscow, at the Mitishinski aerospace factory, they showed us how they look and what they are used for. They are ideal for transportation and for use in space, because the ropes are very strong, though they are very thin and light. Their total thickness is about 2 cm (thin threads are tied together, making a rope) and they are able to bare a colossal load. But the thickness of each thread itself is almost unnoticeable from a slight distance. With the help of these very ropes David Copperfield flies.

David always flies against a background of the flapping light-blue cloth with silver vertical fragments. This background makes the ropes totally invisible for the audience, the same as a black background. David uses only two ropes, which are attached to an acrobatic belt, fixed on his body and hidden under the black sweater.

There is a winch above the stage (the most expensive part of the trick). It's able to lift David with various speed and acceleration, i.e. smooth and unnoticeable. It's attached to special rails and it can move according to their flexes, turns and direction. Such devices are used in circus or in movies ("The sneaking tiger, the hiding dragon", "The Matrix").

Two or three men operate the winch. One is responsible for the vertical lift-up, the other - for moving of the winch on the rails and the third one is just standing by. But David turns over himself, as far as the ropes are attached to the belt and David can easily correct his position in the air by bending forward or back.