Rick is the current world record holder of the upside down straitjacket escape, at 2.23 seconds. He, also, is the only person authorized, to perform his escapes by the United States Federal Aviation Administration, up to 30,000 feet, without safety lines. Rick begins on the ground, where police officers, guards, etc. buckle Rick, into a regulation straitjacket (sometimes with additional handcuffs/leg-irons or belt and muff, Australian straitjacket). His ankles are attached to carabeeners, which are attached to nylon climbing ropes, while Maisel hangs upside down, until the desired altitude is reached. The pilot, then drops a separate 1 inch manila rope, which Rick climbs, hand-over-hand (after disengaging his boots), back into the aircraft.
Options are to perform the straitjacket escape from a crane extending as high as 300 feet or from a fire department 100-foot extension ladder. The escape can, also, be performed from the side of a skyscraper, high-rise building or tower, a bridge spanning a gorge, or an aerial tramway gondola. The escape, normally, is performed in 10 to 15 minutes (or part of a larger/longer show or production). Planned to the exact second, Rick was hired to perform as the ball, dropped at midnight for New Mexico’s Millennium New Year’s Celebration (performing his straitjacket escape on the way up). Rick has been sponsored by Hang UpsTM (inversion tables and inversion boots) for over ten years, from normal, Hang UpsTM Inverta- Tables (except for decorating the apparatus for “Las Vegas” and TV performances, worldwide. Maisel says he literally trusts his life to Hang Ups products and performed the “world record upside-down strait jacket escape”, for “Guinness Records”, using Hang UpsTM systems.
