ARIZONA (UNITED STATES) • Daredevil David Blaine performed his latest stunt on Wednesday, ascending nearly 7,600m into the Arizona sky while hanging from a cluster of jumbo-sized balloons before parachuting safely back to earth.

"It's like magic, it feels like I'm floating in the air," Blaine, while connected to dozens of balloons in an event he called Ascension, said in a radio message to his team of aides back on the ground, after gently lifting off from a desert airstrip in Page, Arizona.

YouTube said the live-streamed stunt set a new record as the most-watched YouTube Originals live event with more than 770,000 viewers.

Blaine, 47, gradually dropped small weights to speed his ascent, donned a parachute mid-flight and strapped on an oxygen mask as he neared 7,600m. Most commercial flights travel at a height of around 9,500m.

On Sunday, he postponed the stunt and announced he was moving it from its initial location of New Jersey and New York to Arizona "because of the complexity of (the) project".

Blaine has a history of performing high-profile, high-risk feats of endurance. These include locking himself in a fish bowl, trapping himself in a block of ice for two days in Times Square, and standing freely atop a tall, thin pillar for 35 hours in New York City.

Wednesday's stunt lasted roughly 30 minutes. Blaine released himself from the balloon cluster and free-fell for some 30 seconds before deploying a parachute to slow his descent.

"Wow, that was awesome," he yelled into his radio as he stood back on land.

Blaine said he trained for the event for two years, including becoming a licensed pilot. It was his first live broadcast stunt since 2012.

REUTERS