Sure, she’s done a million grinds in her life, but this one probably made her the most nervous. Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
Leticia Bufoni is one of the best skateboarders in the world. The Brazilian has a lot of accolades under her belt: six X Games golds, three silvers, and three bronzes, just to name a few. She’s done a lot of crazy shit on a skateboard over the course of her career, but none of them as crazy as what she did back in August. Bufoni did a rail grind. Not just any rail grind, though: the end of the rail was 9,000 feet off the ground.
Called the Sky Grind, the stunt involved an enormous crew consisting of more than 50 people and a tailor-made skatepark inside a C-130 Hercules airplane. It was, of course, the very first skatepark inside of an airplane, and it was designed by Joe Ciaglia, founder of California Skateparks and the brain behind the skatepark used in the Tokyo Olympics. The cameraman was Craig O’Brien, who filmed Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible – Fallout. And the plane? Yeah, that’s the same one that was in the Fast and Furious.
Bufoni trained hard for the stunt, doing over a 100 skydives in preparation. Her trainer, Red Bull Air Force member Jeffrey Provenzano, was impressed by her dedication. “As a skydiver, she is amazing,” he said. “I was surprised. Athletes tend to learn fast, but she was beyond expectations. She gave 100 percent of her attention to all of the details.”
Bufoni was happy with how things went, to say the least. “It’s crazy to think that I’m the first person to skateboard inside a plane and do a feeble in the air,” she said. “That’s something I didn’t know if it was possible or not. I’ve never skateboarded on an airplane. That was one of the greatest days of my life.”
