
Unplanned Freefall? Some Survival Tips - Tomte
http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/carkeet.html
======
sfeng
> 120 divided by 5 = 24. Not bad! 24 mph is only a bit faster than the speed
> at which experienced parachutists land.

This is of course being a little silly, but it does get the physics wrong.
Your energy is proportional to the square of your speed, so you have 25x more
energy to dissipate at 120 mph, not 5x. Even if your five point landing was
perfect, each of the five 'hits' is the equivalent of a landing at just under
60 mph, not 24.

~~~
andrewla
My intuition rings false on this -- I don't think this is right. In a vacuum,
ignoring the rocket equation (that is, assuming ejected reaction mass is
negligible compared to projectile mass), the energy required to produce the
120 -> 96 mph change is the same as that required to go from 24 -> 0\. This
works out in conservation of energy because the ejected mass has kinetic
energy of its own.

In the case of you landing, I don't think energy balance is the way to look at
it; each of the collisions that slows you down will transfer some energy to
the ground. In terms of force, the force is dependent only on the
acceleration, so it comes down to how long each impact lasts. If each "bounce"
or "thud" lasts the same amount of time (I don't know if this is realistic)
then each one will transfer 1/5th of the force, as the article says.

~~~
Retric
Your intuition is wrong.

Potential energy is linear with height. AKA it takes the same energy to climb
from floor 1 to 2 as 2 to 3.

Gravity is 32 feet per second per second aka you gain speed over time. In a
vacuum 0 to 32 feet per second takes 1 second, 32 to 64 feet per second takes
1 seconds, 64 to 96 takes 1 second etc.

However, in the first second you fall 16 feet. in the next second you fall 38
feet because you where falling at the start of that second. Thus, it takes
more energy to increase your speed.

PS: What's confusing about rockets, is your fuel has momentum. So, when use it
your consuming the energy it took to get that fuel up to speed with you.
Further, at low speed most of the energy goes into the exhaust not the rocket.

~~~
babyrainbow
>However, in the first second you fall 16 feet. in the next second you fall 38
feet because you where falling at the start of that second. Thus, it takes
more energy to increase your speed...

Doesn't make sense. Care to explain? Are you saying it takes less energy to
take an object from 0 to 10m/s than it requires to take it from 10m/s to
20m/s?

~~~
hughes
That's exactly correct. Consider the equation for kinetic energy:

    
    
        E = 1/2 m*v^2
    

The energy to go from 0-10 m/s is the difference in this value (for 1kg e.g.):

    
    
        dE = E1 - E0 = 1/2(10^2) - 1/2(0^2) = 50J
    

To go from 10m/s to 20m/s:

    
    
        dE = E2 - E1 = 1/2(20^2) - 1/2(10^2) = 200 - 50 = 150J
    

In fact by solving for velocity you can figure out what happens if you put
another 50J into your object that's already going 10m/s:

    
    
        v = sqrt(2*E) = sqrt(200) = 14.1m/s
    

When you double the energy, you only get 1.4 times the speed.

------
wyldfire
I recall the advice of Jack Handey [1] [2]:

> “If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe
> you'll look like a dummy and people will try to catch you because, hey, free
> dummy.”

[1]
[http://www.deepthoughtsbyjackhandey.com/](http://www.deepthoughtsbyjackhandey.com/)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Handey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Handey)

~~~
khazhou
SENATOR Jack Handey

~~~
dandelany
..? Jack Handey != Al Franken

~~~
ChillyWater
Without checking the interweb, isn't Stuart Smalley == Al Franken?

~~~
maxerickson
Al Franken - Real person, writer and cast member on SNL, Senator.

Stuart Smalley - Character played by Al Franken.

Jack Handey - Real person, writer on SNL, did Deep Thoughts voiceovers.

------
johngalt
> 120 divided by 5 = 24. Not bad! 24 mph is only a bit faster than the speed
> at which experienced parachutists land.

Better yet, just put your hands in front of you and land on all ten fingers.
Then it's only 12mph. /s

In reality your entire body is moving at 120mph, so you can't divide the
forces in this manner. This a PSI problem. Total inertia distributed over a
given area. And the results are much less favorable.

~~~
tempestn
As sfeng describes in another comment, the math isn't right, but the concept
does make sense. It doesn't negate what you're saying either though; the 5
point landing is basically a way of distributing the force over as much area
as possible. (You can't accomplish the same thing by just landing on your
side, because the mass of your body isn't evenly distributed across the
surface that would contact the ground.) It does manage to distribute the force
over time a bit too, which is also beneficial, but a less significant effect.

------
nolanpro
Excellent read. Just a few more pointers from personal experience. When over
water, "pencil" your body, feet first, at the very last second. Molecules of
atmosphere, which are your friend at 120mph, are not so much when they are of
water.

Also the author didn't mention my favorite survivor Juliane Koepcke.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliane_Koepcke](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliane_Koepcke)

~~~
ParrotyError
I've never been on the offshore survival course where they teach you how to
jump off an oil platform into the sea and survive, but allegedly they tell you
to cover your mouth firmly with the palm of your hand and pinch your nostrils
closed tight between your thumb and fingers. Apparently when you hit the cold
water your natural reaction is to breath in. Also, you must prevent water
being forced up your nostrils and damaging your brain etc.

~~~
siphor
I tried this on a ~60ft cliff jump and punched myself in the eye. Also got the
wind knocked out of me

~~~
scythe
Maybe use your elbow? It's not a perfect cover, but it's impossible to hit
yourself.

~~~
MaxfordAndSons
I can't help but think this would get your shoulder dislocated or lats torn.

------
justifier
> The perfectly tiered Norfolk Island pine is a natural safety net

When I was child I used have fun by climbing to the top of conifers behind our
house to sit on the highest branch and just slide down

Each successive tiered limb would catch the bend on the ones above and I would
slide down perfectly fine

~~~
komali2
Children genuinely are constantly trying to find unique ways to kill
themselves.

------
kolbe
Speed skiers go over 150mph, versus 120 for a flat-oriented free falling
person. It's conceivable that orienting yourself to slide down a groomed black
diamond ski run could be a winning strategy, too.

~~~
bitL
Maybe you should target a steep avalanche terrain with fresh snow. Not only
you have a hell of a ride while falling down, you get to enjoy a ride in a
snowy feather all the way down the valley! Don't forget to mount your GoPro
while boarding!

~~~
iamatworknow
>Don't forget to mount your GoPro while boarding!

Man, I wonder if we're going to end up seeing someone's free fall smartphone
video someday. Not everyone is going to read this article and be prepared to
survive like we now are, so what if they decide to use those couple of minutes
falling to try to record a message to their loved ones? The audio would be
blown out but I don't see why the camera wouldn't continue working. That would
be quite disturbing to watch.

~~~
komali2
Potentially NSFW / terrifying videos:

Multiple gopros record an in-air collision of skydiving planes:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p6hqMnsLFY&list=FLR2K9vyQEB...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p6hqMnsLFY&list=FLR2K9vyQEBb4qUyunijtBHg&index=3&t=2s)

Tangled chute:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciIjdvNo65s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciIjdvNo65s)

I can't find it but I've seen two more videos of people who have survived near
freefall after parachuting accidents. One became a paraplegic IIRC.

------
joegosse
Interesting that the overall advice here is "Don't Panic"

Also interesting that having a towel could be incredibly useful in this
situation.

~~~
geophile
Since we're quoting Doug Adams: “The Guide says there is an art to flying",
said Ford, "or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw
yourself at the ground and miss.”

------
cromulent
Somewhat relevant:

[http://topgunbase.ws/i-flew-my-wingsuit-into-trees-and-
woke-...](http://topgunbase.ws/i-flew-my-wingsuit-into-trees-and-woke-up-in-a-
hospital/)

~~~
jacquesm
Ouch. Nice move for Americans to fly in France where healthcare is affordable.
If you did this in the US as a tourist you'd likely be broke for the rest of
your life.

~~~
Arizhel
Make sure to go back to your home country as fast as possible, and then just
ignore the bills. They'll have a very difficult time collecting on a debt in a
foreign country. Don't come back to the US as a tourist after that.

This reminds me of college, where sometimes the police would come looking for
students who were foreign nationals, because they had gotten credit cards and
then racked up huge balances buying stuff, but didn't bother paying the bill.
When the creditors tried to have them served, it turned out they had already
graduated and left the country. Good luck getting some guy in Indonesia to pay
off his US credit card balance. What were these creditors thinking?

~~~
camus2
> Make sure to go back to your home country as fast as possible, and then just
> ignore the bills. They'll have a very difficult time collecting on a debt in
> a foreign country. Don't come back to the US as a tourist after that.

Actually if you have a credit card, you might have a travel insurance as well.
So no need to ignore the bills. And in France it's not like in US where the
first thing they ask you is the name of your insurance company, even if you're
bleeding to death.

~~~
Arizhel
>And in France it's not like in US where the first thing they ask you is the
name of your insurance company, even if you're bleeding to death.

I was talking about a scenario where a tourist to the US goes to a US hospital
and racks up a lot of medical bills.

~~~
camus2
Sure, but it goes both ways, a tourists NEEDS an health insurance to travel to
US. I'm pretty sure it's necessary even for those who benefit from the VISA
waver program.

------
delegate
My personal philosophy admits the fact that this life might just be a training
camp for another life.

Hence, all the information learned in this one will be useful at some point in
this or another life.

Now I don't know what to do with this information .. I don't want to need it..

And then if fate really leads me to fall from a plane, I will definetely
remember this article which will seem infinitely funnier in mid flight.

Heck if I don't hit the ground laughing my ass off !

~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
> My personal philosophy admits the fact that this life might just be a
> training camp for another life.

Makes me wonder if annihilation is possible in the future life, but not this
one.

~~~
simonh
If you live N lives then the chance that this is the first is 1/N. I don't
know about you, but I don't remember anything from any previous lives, so it
seems to me there's a (N-1)/N chance you don't get to remember anything from
previous lives anyway.

~~~
leggomylibro
It could be a question of soul distribution, though; if you can only have one
ghost in each machine, and there's the potential for a spacefaring
civilization to expand to many, many planets in the future, then it's possible
that the 50 or so billion people who have lived since humanity's birth
represent only a sliver of a fraction of the total number of souls needed to
staff a well-stocked universe. So we could potentially be heavily weighted
towards most people being on their first go-around if we have the potential to
make it that far and souls or selves or whatever are actually scarce enough to
be re-used.

~~~
iamatworknow
No. All of the reality as we know it is just a software bug, with the fix
request sitting in some junior developer's project management system. They
just haven't gotten around to submitting a pull request yet.

------
sizzzzlerz
A man jumps off a 20 story building. As he passes an open window on the 6th
floor, people on the floor hear him exclaim "so far, so good!".

~~~
komali2
I don't get it

~~~
_cereal
I suppose it's a quote from La Haine (1995)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113247/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113247/)

> Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each
> floor, he kept saying to reassure himself: So far so good... so far so
> good... so far so good. How you fall doesn't matter. It's how you land!

~~~
_raul
I remember hearing it from Steve McQueen in The Magnificent Seven when I was a
kid
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7GP3l5znc8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7GP3l5znc8)

------
JoeDaDude
Ages ago (early 1980s) I read a magazine article about the minds' adaptation
when falling. The article posited that the brain kicks into high gear and time
subjectively slows down for the faller, enabling them to take action to save
themselves.

The article had several first-hand accounts of people who had fallen off
cliffs, wagons, and the like, and one skydiver who survived impact by landing
in a muddy ditch. The article was especially interesting since I was a
skydiver at the time and all of us jumpers could relate to the feelings
described. Not only that, but the one skydiver interviewed had jumped at our
drop zone and was known by most of us.

Sadly, I can't remember where the article appeared. I think it was Smithsonian
Magazine but I have been unable to locate a reference online. If anyone else
locates it, please post.

~~~
jimmaswell
I remember reading about some experiments done on this where the result was
that the subjects just remembered the experience in more detail, and didn't
actually experience time slower. Something about looking at something that
changed just slightly faster than the maximum speed someone can normally see
changes in something, while freefalling.

~~~
komali2
That makes sense - high adrenaline causing extremely high resolution for
memory write, but later the playback speed on a read is the same, so it seems
slower when really it's just more detailed / takes up more tape.

------
owenversteeg
I've written a longer, more detailed comment in this thread, but long things
are hard to remember so I decided to condense my advice into a paragraph:

Falling from a plane, you have a minute to land after waking up. You can move
laterally 2 miles by controlling your body. That gives you 13 sq miles to
land. In this order, aim for: snow, swamp, glass skylights, large bushy trees
(but not redwoods.) Water is almost guaranteed death. Stay "flat" until right
before impact, and move to a standing position. Relax and go completely limp.
If you follow this advice your odds are good.

My more detailed comment, with sources/numbers, is here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13840660](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13840660)

~~~
JoshTriplett
Glass skylights, really? Not disputing it, but what's your reasoning? Slowing
you down while still breaking before you do?

Also, regarding water: while I've heard the standard comment that hitting
water can be as bad as hitting concrete, that seems like it would apply more
if you have a larger surface area. Divers can dive from 35+ meters, and hit at
60+ mph, without any injury at all. If you are capable of aiming and landing
feet-first and remaining as streamlined as possible, would water still be a
fatal option?

~~~
owenversteeg
Yeah, glass is actually one of your better bets. Two of the 5-15 survivors of
free fall incidents fell through glass roofs. You can read more here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Magee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Magee)

The problem is that you're hitting water at 120mph. A 60mph impact of a 50kg
person is 35kJ; a 120mph impact of a 50kg person is 150kJ. That's 4.5 times
the energy. I'd almost certainly choose water (with a streamlined, pencil dive
profile) over concrete, but that doesn't mean it's not going to be far more
fatal than any other options.

~~~
marvy
Nitpick: doubling the speed should merely quadruple the energy, 4.5x is too
much.

------
tobtoh
Reading this article brought back memories when I was getting training to go
solo skydiving. The first day was all theory and drills in the classroom.

In all my years at school, university lectures, and work-related training
workshops, that one day of skydiving class remains the only time in my life
when I was 100% completely focussed, awake and attentive for every subject.

------
dahart
Having jumped out of many airplanes, I've thought about this and how to
survive on occasion. But temperatures at 35k are often like -50 degrees. At
500mph decelerating down to 100mph, it seems like there's a good chance you
could become a human snowflake long before you hit the ground. :P

~~~
amorphid
A friend of mine once said that if you keep your lips puckered up, and force
yourself to breathe through a tiny hole, you increase the air pressure in your
mouth and lungs, which is useful at a high altitude. I don't have a thought at
this moment how to test this as I sit hear at sea level. Any idea if this is
true, or partially true? I didn't see anything about this in a quick Google
search.

~~~
avian
Seems doubtful this would have any significant effect. You can only create
about 0.1 bar of overpressure with your lungs on exhale.

------
okreallywtf
I had always heard that being unconscious was the key to surviving an
extremely long fall (relaxed body doesn't tear itself apart on impact). I
can't find the story of a boy who was picked up by a tornado who was tossed
out from hundreds of feet and survived without any injuries, it was attributed
(in the show I was watching) to his having passed out and that his body was
relaxed.

~~~
bbcbasic
I've seen someone fall off a cliff (30m I guess?) and survive. He was drunk.

~~~
justinclift
Injuries?

------
ChuckMcM
I wonder if you could grab the center aisle life raft on the way out. If you
could keep it under you after inflating it, not only would it provide more
surface area and so a slower terminal velocity but it would also absorb energy
when you hit by popping and create a wider deceleration profile so limiting
the g-force of the impact.

~~~
knodi123
If you're supernaturally calm and skilled, it will also give you more
steerability. You might even be so lucky as to be able to aim for a stand of
pine!

~~~
justinclift
Or an angled snowbank. :D

------
achikin
As a skydiver I would admit that the content of this article is a time-wasting
bullshit. Here is a real world scenario:

1) you'll knock out either because of lack of oxygen or because of a violent
spin

2) you'll freeze to death

3) you won't be able to position yourself properly or fly in a particular
direction because of lack of training, so you'll hit the ground at a random
place so hard that you'll die.

What I would do is flip to my back not to shock myself with the view of the
earth coming at 120mph, relax and wait.

Towel huh. The speed difference is so big, that you'll never see a towel, that
happened to fall off the same airplane as you.

There was a case in Russia not so long ago when a cameraman, who happened to
be a very experienced skydiver, fell off a helicopter. He managed to drive
himself towards a pond but died immediately because of water impact. The hit
was so hard that his jumping suit was almost stripped off his body.

------
leot
One thing I've been curious about for a while: would it be possible to survive
free fall into water if equipped with a sufficiently long spike-shaped "base"?
The sharp part of the spike, which would probably have to be 100+ ft long,
would be oriented so that as it entered the water it would displace more and
more water, reducing the g-forces experienced by the spike, and you atop it.

A few improbable things would need to also hold: 1) Spike would need to stay
straight as it entered the water. 2) Spike should not significantly increase
terminal velocity, at least not for most of the descent

I think (?) it's doable, but would be fun to see the physics worked out. E.g.,
how long should the spike be? What should be its shape? How could it be kept
maneuvered into the right orientation for entering the water without
significantly increasing terminal velocity?

~~~
rdruxn
I always been curious about surfactants and whether you could throw some
underneath yourself in a free fall to break up the surface tension in a splash
landing.

~~~
avar
Then today's your lucky day. Mythbusters did a bit on exactly this, i.e. if
you're holding a hammer and about to fall into water, whether throwing it
ahead of you will break the surface tension and save your life:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCSQExxWulU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCSQExxWulU)

------
khazhou
This is very useful information. They should have this guidesheet in every
airline seat back.

~~~
tempestn
I'm sure that would go over really well.

------
Cofike
I kind of want to free fall to test this out now. I feel kind of prepared.

------
kabdib
I worked on a hardware product that shipped for the Xbox 360, and it had an
accelerometer.

I wanted to add a game achievement for "30 seconds of free fall". Achievable
on something like the Vomit Comet. Going for 5 minutes of free-fall would have
required something like a rocket. Nobody liked either of my ideas :-)

------
gweinberg
I'm sorry to be the voice of gloom and doom, but this was the money quote for
me: "Thirty feet is the cutoff for fatality in a fall. That is, most who fall
from thirty feet or higher die" Holy crap, only thirty feet? We are all going
to die.

------
owenversteeg
Well-written but a bit light on information. I thought about this a while back
when I had the chance to try free-falling in an indoor wind tunnel.

You can control four variables: your speed, your landing position, your
landing orientation, and your muscles.

\- Increase your surface area as much as you can, that's your only way to slow
down. Best case scenario you'll find a parachute, put it on, and slow down to
25mph or so; worst case, you'll manage to point yourself in a bullet shape and
hit 200 mph. Realistically you'll go into a "flat" position and sail along
around 120mph.

\- Make yourself "flat" until you're about to land, then position yourself
such that you land feet first.

\- You can move, as the site said, about 2 miles horizontally falling from
15,000 feet: aim for trees, a heap of soil, or snow if possible. If you know
the area, aim for any buildings with a large glass skylight - that's saved two
known freefallers [0].

\- Relax your muscles as much as you can. This can greatly improve your odds.
By "greatly improve your odds" I am not kidding: this is almost definitely the
single best thing you can do, and being fully relaxed can make you half as
likely to die. [1]

There's also a very good possibility you're not at 35,000 feet. For example:

\- You fall off the Burj Khalifa, 830 meters high. You'll fall for about 20
seconds, the last 5 or so near terminal velocity. Use your body to move and
aim for the trees near the base of the tower - you've got enough time to make
it, easily.

\- You fall off a very tall building, ~500 meters or so. Same as the Burj
Khalifa but you have less time, so think fast.

\- You fall off a shorter building. There's no time to maneuver or slow down.
With the few seconds you have, point your feet down and relax.

If you're over water, your odds are very low. The best option is to go in
feet-first like a pencil dive.

Remember, you _do_ have an OK chance at survival. Between 5 and 15 people have
survived free fall, most of which did not know what to do. From 15,000 feet
up, you can land wherever you want inside a 13 square mile area - 2 miles in
any direction. That's probably enough to get you to some trees at the very
least. You can draw that on a map with this tool [2].

You can seriously improve your odds of survival by following these steps.
Landing on snow, or a swamp, or a glass skylight makes your odds quite good.
Landing in trees makes your odds OK. Making yourself flat gives you more time,
and grabbing onto debris - if you can - can increase your chances of survival
by 5 times [3]. Then, simply relaxing can double your chances of survival.

Finally, once you've hit the ground - regardless of what you did - there's a
decent chance you're still alive, even if you'll die soon. Spend a short
amount of time to stop external bleeding, keep your wounds clean and contact
emergency services as soon as you can - ultimately, they will know far better
than you what to do.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Magee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Magee)

[1]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.alcohol.2012.08.006](http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.alcohol.2012.08.006)

[2] [http://obeattie.github.io/gmaps-radius/](http://obeattie.github.io/gmaps-
radius/)

[3]
[http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/a5045/434...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/a5045/4344036/)

~~~
prodmerc
Doesn't surviving any landing guarantee you'll be disabled for life?

~~~
pavel_lishin
Vesna suffered a lot of injuries, but recovered completely:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovi%C4%87](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovi%C4%87)

> _Vulović continued working for Jat Airways at a desk job following a full
> recovery from her injuries._

------
zw123456
Great read! I must admit, I have thought about this a few times in the past
when I was on an airplane and thought what would I do if the plane split in
two and thought about some of the things the author mentioned.

One more tip, always wear the largest rain coat you can find onto the plane
and keep some nylon rope in one of the pockets so you could fashion a
parachute on the way down :)

------
nerdponx
Fun read.

Has anyone actually survived an unplanned free fall like this?

~~~
paulpauper
5 have
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fall_survivors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fall_survivors)

~~~
sulam
More than 5.

[http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/wreckage.html](http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/wreckage.html)

[http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/ffallers.html](http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/ffallers.html)

------
intrasight
That was a very excellent distraction

------
rodrigocoelho
How easy is it to control your body's attitude during a free fall?

~~~
manarth
Belly-down is the easiest and most stable attitude, which is why that's the
first attitude taught in skydiving.

The other common attitudes are head-down vertical, feet-first vertical,
"sitting", and back-flying. The first three have a much faster fall-rate than
belly-down, and are less stable. Backflying isn't quite such a difference in
fall-rate, but is still harder to learn, and less stable.

How easy is it to learn? Well, unless you've skydived before, then you get
around a minute to learn from scratch. Good luck to that!

------
xenihn
Great article, reminds me of the same writing style used by the author of the
Rotten Library (which, by the way, is still a great read).

------
mrkgnao
> If you have ever tried to keep your head when all about you are losing
> theirs

because there aren't any around to blame it on you? :)

------
mbostleman
[https://youtu.be/IVqqnc6x9pA](https://youtu.be/IVqqnc6x9pA)

------
d33
Just curious, could clothing help you create something like a paradise? For
example, a hoodie held by sleeves?

~~~
scythe
You need to hold it by at least three points, otherwise it will simply flop
upwards like a flag. Your toes can't curl hard enough to hold onto a piece of
fabric being pulled by a 120 mph wind, so the only way to make a sail is with
your hands and your _teeth_. If you have a button-down, you can hold the
corners at your sides to make a shitty wingsuit. I suppose there is a small
advantage if you get to put your legs below you ("crumple zone") while still
maximizing your cross-sectional area.

Most clothing fabrics are worse at stopping airflow than the tight nylon of a
parachute, so the drag will be less than a chute of equal size. If you can
somehow get it soaking wet it'll be more effective, as the fibers swell and
make it less permeable to air; consequently, you might want to stick your
shirt in your jeans before you piss yourself.

~~~
d33
That's way beyond insightful, thank you :D Any other ideas on how to get three
points? Tying a knot to a belt maybe? I mean we're talking about just a few
dozens of second there, right?

------
mediaserf
Wow! Glad that I am not the only one that constantly thinks about this when I
am on an airplane.

~~~
mirimir
I always opt for the last row.

------
hyperliner
I have always wondered about this. While this is welcome, I am reading and can
feel my blood pressure, stress level, and focus increasing as I read.

------
agentgt
I had hard time reading with the formatting of the site even with various
"reader" extensions turned on (maybe I'm the only one?). So I looked at the
HTML source to figure out why my extensions still couldn't format well... it
is 1999 HTML. Tables for paragraphs.

Even copy and pasting to a text editor yields pretty terrible results.

td { padding: 1em; }

Made it somewhat readable for me. Not a criticism but just in case someone has
the same problem as me.

~~~
vwcx
I remember reading this in 1999 when it first circulated!

------
radressss
I am very very sorry to break it to you, but this very poorly thought-out and
the writer has no understanding of physics or drag. Look around for items
after 20000 feet of freefall? There could be a parachute? Sorry are we all in
vacuum or something? Do you think they all fall at the same rate? Yes one can
survive a fall at terminal speeds but this is just insane to hope there are
any items around you after all that fall.

~~~
nothrabannosir
My dear child, 't was in jest. A peculiar one, granted.

