
How to Fall 35,000 Feet And Survive (2010) - Tomte
http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/a5045/4344036/
======
jor-el
Another good place to land is ant mounds, as in case of Joan Murray. "She
approached the ground at 81 miles per hour (130 kilometers per hour), landing
on a mound of fire ants. Doctors believe that the shock of being stung over
200 times by the ants released a surge of adrenaline which kept her heart
beating" [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Murray_%28skydiver%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Murray_%28skydiver%29)

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jandrese
Jesus Christ. At that point surviving is the curse.

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grizzles
If there is any decent vertical feature, a good skydiver could try flying into
it and sacrificing an arm. It probably wouldn't help but if we are talking
optimal strategy here, that's probably near the top.

A friend of mine had his primary fail and he passed out. He woke up before the
ground and fired his reserve. That broke his neck. He fell hard, there was no
one in the area he fell in, but he was able to gather his chute and walk back
to base with his chin on his chest without passing out. Though I think he
crawled the last kilometer or so.

He started skydiving again, pretty much as soon as they took off the neck
brace that had been screwed into his skull.

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datashovel
There's probably room here for a niche consumer product. Something that one
could wear on a flight discretely, that would behave as a makeshift parachute
should one find oneself in this circumstance. If it were cheap enough (and not
ridiculously uncomfortable) I'd probably consider buying one.

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fma
Wearing one of those...the TSA may want a word with you.

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themartorana
If your last name is Cooper you may not be allowed on the flight. No reason.

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yread
see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper)
to know why

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YeGoblynQueenne
I remember reading that one.

My feeling was that your best bet is to not have to try.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Take the easy way out why don't you! Meanwhile, I think it's more fun to
contemplate the possibilities.

I'm thinking I'll build a multi-story, Tempur-Pedic mattress maybe on top of
shallow lake. Put some nets around it that extend high into the sky. The
person landing on it gets cushion from the water and compression along with
soft surface. Will hit it, slow down, and any bouncing contained within nets.
Just need some idi... brave adventurer to both fund this structure and use it.

Note: Too great a chance of bouncing outside the nets. A spring or rocket
activated top could help but hurts as much as the ground. Make hamburger out
of them probably. So, a parallel, Tempur-Pedic surface that springs across the
top or is moved into place with helicopters. That should be safer for high-
energy, upward bouncing.

~~~
viacoffee
Yeah, about that... None of what you said would work. People think water is
this "cushion" like thing. In reality it is as solid as a brick unless the
surface is broken (the mattress is not enough). A human would just end up
breaking every bone in their body attempting to do this.

~~~
vatotemking
"HITTING THE OCEAN IS ESSENTIALLY THE SAME AS COLLIDING WITH A SIDEWALK" -from
the article

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tunap
If a large article of debris hit prior and you entered the churning, bubbling
water(and not hit the debris), you may get off with just broken toes, feet,
hips...maybe. Of course, you'd likely drown before you could swim back to the
surface.

Chris MaClugage jumped a ski over three houseboats in Havasu a few years back.
They aerated his landing area to buffer the landing/impact. Seems to have
worked...

[https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch%3...](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DqAR3UzJ1FGU&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwipwfPAj-
_MAhXG7YMKHXxpAoEQtwIIFTAA&usg=AFQjCNHGhGIT6GEiiDoqd98ndn5KWya5IA)

~~~
justinph
Mythbusters tested this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_%282003_season%29#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_%282003_season%29#Hammer_Bridge_Drop)

You still die:

 _Dropping Buster with an internal accelerometer from a crane led to
difficulty because the dummy continually lost parts on each control impact.
Eventually, they managed consistent drops (mostly just below 300 g), finding
that the hammer reduced the impact slightly, but the 150-foot (46 m) fall
would still be lethal._

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slavik81
It seems they tested whether _a hammer_ could break the surface enough. Larger
debris would create a significantly larger disturbance and would probably be
more effective.

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nickpsecurity
I remember this article. It was really fun. Now, anyone know of modern
research or simulations that has made some headway on how these people might
have survived? And best odds of duplicating that should one find themselves
10,000+ft in air with no parachute? Or just idiotic basejumpers trying to
create a new category in Guiness?

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tim333
MythBusters did some research on The New Jersey airman mentioned. In general
you need something that will slow you down in a relatively gradual way over 20
feet + or so. Things that have worked are deep sloping snow, branches of large
trees and in the Jersey case the roof of the train station which seems to have
been made of a metal lattice that presumably bent some distance when he hit it
[http://fly.historicwings.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/01/High...](http://fly.historicwings.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/01/HighFlight-Magee5.jpg)

~~~
nickpsecurity
Nice, nice. That's a start. I also recall in the original Final Fantasy movie
that they landed by shooting gel packs that did exactly that. It spread out
and up a certain distance. Then, they hit it with immediate slowdown. I wonder
if that was forward thinking or leveraging something someone already heard
about.

I'd worry about suffocating in the gel solution. If it's thick enough, you'd
probably get stuck. So, something with give like other examples is better.

~~~
tim333
I find it hard to visualise the gel pack thing.

I was thinking just now of Mike Basich kind of demonstrating the landing in
snow bit. He aimed to jump out of a helicopter on a snowboard at 50ft for a
magazine photoshoot but it ended up being nearer 130ft. I think that makes it
about a 60mph fall so not terminal velocity but pretty quick.

Vid of jump
[https://youtu.be/OC42K5ex0iA?t=18s](https://youtu.be/OC42K5ex0iA?t=18s)

Him talking about it from 22m30
[https://vimeo.com/7732513](https://vimeo.com/7732513)

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JFlash
Would being drunk help? In drunk driving crashes the drunk driver survives
more often than the others directly involved in the collision, but I've never
gotten a definitive reason why...

EDIT: survive more often than others directly involved in the collision who
were in a comparable vehicle or in the same vehicle as the driver.

~~~
passivepinetree
I believe the reason is related to the safety of the driver's position in the
vehicle rather than the state of being drunk. The driver's seat is the only
one guaranteed to be filled each time the car is driven, therefore car
companies have a bigger incentive to care about the safety of that seat than
any other seat.

~~~
trevelyan
People also steer themselves away so the collision is more likely to happen on
the other side of the car.

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vidoc
The brother of a dad's friend survived a 5000m jump in the 60s. He was doing
an airborne jump in the mont blanc area, both parachutes failed (super rare),
and he freefalled into a tree. He basically broke most of his bones and spent
2 months at the hospital but made it!

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crispytx
Whoever wrote this obviously has never seen a skydiver impact the ground at
high speed. Watch a video of high performance canopy pilot, or "swooper",
impact the ground at 60mph; they bounce off the ground like rag dolls, and are
usually left with broken femurs. An impact at 100mph will most certainly kill
you unless something extraordinary breaks your fall.

\- crispytx (Wingsuit Pilot & Programmer)

~~~
pcurve
True. But over open water? It might be worth taking a stab at it, though
you're probably going to die anyway from falling debris, drowning,
hypothermia, sharks, or just bleeding out.

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rlpb
Open water is as hard as concrete when impacted at high speed. It doesn't
compress and doesn't "have time" to move away.

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wprapido
another case like that
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulović](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulović)

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dannypgh
"Lower body weight reduces terminal velocity,"

How does this work?

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barrkel
Gravitational force is proportional to mass; in a vacuum, the only thing that
stops heavier things from falling faster is the fact that acceleration due to
applied force is inversely proportional to mass, so the mass cancels out.

Drag is proportional to cross-sectional area and the square of the velocity;
mass doesn't factor in.

There are two main forces on the falling object, then: gravity pulling it
down, and drag pushing it up. Terminal velocity is reached when both are
equal. Lower mass means less gravity, but drag is unaffected. Thus it takes a
lower amount of speed increase until drag equals the gravitational pull, and
terminal velocity is reached.

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D-Coder
Thus, take a compressed-air tank with you. Point it down and open the valve to
increase the air density that you are falling through. Is this so
complicated???

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harperlee
That basically amounts to a jetpack, and yes it would help!

