Freaky, there's a video link there too.
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=435377&in_page_id=1770
Skydiver falls from 12,000 feet and lives
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Not exactly free fall... the reporter said he was falling at 70mph, it's still amazing he lived.
Raymond S. Kraft wrote:The history of the world is the history of civilizational clashes, cultural clashes. All wars are about ideas, ideas about what society and civilization should be like, and the most determined always win.
Those who are willing to be the most ruthless always win. The pacifists always lose, because the anti-pacifists kill them.
Uh, Tikker, read the article. The chutes out only barely slowed him down. He hit at about 70-80mph instead of 120mph.
Lets work out to how high up you'd be to hit the ground at 80mph, shall we? I'll leave out all the math, but the 2 important things to know are that 1) the acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 m/s^2, and 2) there are 2.54cm/inch. From that we can figure out that the acceleration due to gravity in english units is about 22mph. So, it would take you 3.5 sec of falling to reach 76-77mph.
Now, in the first second, you would fall 9.8 meters. (I'll stick to meters for this, since I know you canadians think better that way) Over the 2nd second, your speed will have doubled, you're falling at 19.8 m/s, and you will have fallen nearly 30 meters total. Over the 3rd second, your speed will be up to 29.6 m/s, and you'll have fallen nearly 60 meters total. Over the next half second, you'll gain another 4.9m/sec in velocity, taking your velocity up to 34.5 metres/second, and you'll add that total distance to how far you'll have fallen.
So, 9.8 + 19.8 + 29.6 + 34.5 = 93.7 metres is how far you'd have to fall, free-fall, in order to hit the ground at the speed that guy hit at. 93.7 metres is about 307 feet. Figure 15 feet per story on a building, we're talking about a 20 story building.
So please, Tikker, for the sake of science, go throw yourself off the roof of a 20-story building into bushes, and tell us how that works out for you. Since you're so unimpressed with what happened with this guy, obviously you'll have no problem with attempmting to duplicate his feat, right?
-Arlos
Lets work out to how high up you'd be to hit the ground at 80mph, shall we? I'll leave out all the math, but the 2 important things to know are that 1) the acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 m/s^2, and 2) there are 2.54cm/inch. From that we can figure out that the acceleration due to gravity in english units is about 22mph. So, it would take you 3.5 sec of falling to reach 76-77mph.
Now, in the first second, you would fall 9.8 meters. (I'll stick to meters for this, since I know you canadians think better that way) Over the 2nd second, your speed will have doubled, you're falling at 19.8 m/s, and you will have fallen nearly 30 meters total. Over the 3rd second, your speed will be up to 29.6 m/s, and you'll have fallen nearly 60 meters total. Over the next half second, you'll gain another 4.9m/sec in velocity, taking your velocity up to 34.5 metres/second, and you'll add that total distance to how far you'll have fallen.
So, 9.8 + 19.8 + 29.6 + 34.5 = 93.7 metres is how far you'd have to fall, free-fall, in order to hit the ground at the speed that guy hit at. 93.7 metres is about 307 feet. Figure 15 feet per story on a building, we're talking about a 20 story building.
So please, Tikker, for the sake of science, go throw yourself off the roof of a 20-story building into bushes, and tell us how that works out for you. Since you're so unimpressed with what happened with this guy, obviously you'll have no problem with attempmting to duplicate his feat, right?
-Arlos
Last edited by Arlos on Wed Feb 14, 2007 3:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
Why yes, yes I did, and he was going down quite rapidly. Lets just say we disagree with how rapidly he was descending, and I'm far more apt to trust someone who was actually there, is one of the top-10 skydivers in the world, and has more than 7000 jumps to his credit than some random person who watched a video.
-Arlos
-Arlos
arlos wrote:Why yes, yes I did, and he was going down quite rapidly. Lets just say we disagree with how rapidly he was descending, and I'm far more apt to trust someone who was actually there, is one of the top-10 skydivers in the world, and has more than 7000 jumps to his credit than some random person who watched a video.
-Arlos
so you saw his fully deployed chute, where just the control cables were tangled(which is what put him into the uncontrollable spin)
there's a bug fucking difference between the headline(guy freefalls 12k feet) vs a guy who's chute is open and just controls are tangled
that's my whole point ~
Uh...I don't see anywhere that says he freefell....just that he fell.
Inside each person lives two wolves. One is loyal, kind, respectful, humble and open to the mystery of life. The other is greedy, jealous, hateful, afraid and blind to the wonders of life. They are in battle for your spirit. The one who wins is the one you feed.
Martrae wrote:Uh...I don't see anywhere that says he freefell....just that he fell.
here you go smartass
Top: Freefalling. Middle: Crash landing. Below : Michael Holmes with girlfriend
those are the titles under the pics
Shot from the tiny camera in the helmet of champion skydiver Michael Holmes, it records with chilling clarity what happened when he plummeted 12,000ft to earth.
the article is sensationalizing what actually happened, which is all that I'm pointing out
the article attempts to leave the impression that he fell 12,000 feet with nothing slowing him down, yet he miraculously survived!
It's still pretty miraculous, no matter how you slice it.
Inside each person lives two wolves. One is loyal, kind, respectful, humble and open to the mystery of life. The other is greedy, jealous, hateful, afraid and blind to the wonders of life. They are in battle for your spirit. The one who wins is the one you feed.
OK, so throwing yourself off a 20 story building and living isn't as impressive as hitting at terminal velocity and living, you are indeed correct. But again, if you are so confident of the average person's ability to readily survive flinging themselves off 100 metre high objects and landing in a brush pile, there's an easy way to test it...
-Arlos
-Arlos
arlos wrote:OK, so throwing yourself off a 20 story building and living isn't as impressive as hitting at terminal velocity and living, you are indeed correct. But again, if you are so confident of the average person's ability to readily survive flinging themselves off 100 metre high objects and landing in a brush pile, there's an easy way to test it...
-Arlos
he's not falling at anywhere near terminal velocity, nor is his fall completely unimpeded which you completely ignored in your calculations foolman
Terminal velocity = 120mph
His speed at impact = 70-80mph, according to the expert witnesses present at the event.
My calculations show the height at which you would have to fall unimpeded to impact the ground at 75ish MPH. The fact that his chutes were partially open is what slowed him from 120mph to 80mph. Do note that every time those chutes spin, they spill all of their air. So yes, it slowed him. Some.
But again, as I calculated, impact speed of 75ish mph = 100 meter unimpeded fall, approximately. It's simple math/physics. The fact that his fall was, to some extent, impeded has already been taken into account in all this, as that's what CAUSED the decceleration from 120 to 80mph. So, any further consideration of that factor would be redundant and pointless.
Obviously, you feel that falling off a 20 story building is no big deal. I boggle at that, but you are, of course, entitled to your own opinion. Just don't expect the rest of humanity to agree with you, and start flinging themselves off high rises into shrubbery for fun. I welcome the reports of your own personal experimentation into the matter.
-Arlos
His speed at impact = 70-80mph, according to the expert witnesses present at the event.
My calculations show the height at which you would have to fall unimpeded to impact the ground at 75ish MPH. The fact that his chutes were partially open is what slowed him from 120mph to 80mph. Do note that every time those chutes spin, they spill all of their air. So yes, it slowed him. Some.
But again, as I calculated, impact speed of 75ish mph = 100 meter unimpeded fall, approximately. It's simple math/physics. The fact that his fall was, to some extent, impeded has already been taken into account in all this, as that's what CAUSED the decceleration from 120 to 80mph. So, any further consideration of that factor would be redundant and pointless.
Obviously, you feel that falling off a 20 story building is no big deal. I boggle at that, but you are, of course, entitled to your own opinion. Just don't expect the rest of humanity to agree with you, and start flinging themselves off high rises into shrubbery for fun. I welcome the reports of your own personal experimentation into the matter.
-Arlos
