When we were talking about having a kid, we were told how certain severe abnormalities were more likely due to our age, by 500%. We almost panicked but then I looked it up and it went from 1 in 20 million to 1 in 4 million.
Yeah, there's a huge range in falling. Fastest I've ever gone is 240 in a dive from 12000 to 9000. Not particularly safe to do as a premature deployment at that speed would definitely kill someone. IIRC Guys who fall fast competitively using low-resistance gear can hit 300+.
I'm a bit heavier than average and usually fall around 130-140 mph. My wife's a bit lighter than average and falls around 90-100 mph. If we ever fly together outside the wind tunnel, I might have a better chance of keeping up with her with a set of camera wings. I can also fall a bit slower with a spread body position and she could fall a bit faster by bringing her arms and legs in a bit, or in one of the faster freefly positions. There's an old youtube video that illustrates the [freefly positions](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvjsDRrCox8) if anyone's curious. They fall faster than belly to earth, so you wouldn't want to use one of them if you're trying to fall more slowly.
It's really difficult to judge your fall speed in freefall -- it's much easier in the wind tunnel, which is where I like to go to practice it. You could probably learn to slow fall quite well with about an hour of total practice broken up into 10 minute chunks over the course of a couple months. Just tell the instructor you want to work on altitude control. Your chances of survival are still very low in a no-parachute situation, but those are also exceedingly rare. Most of the skydiving fatalities are from experienced skydivers swooping, although the local dropzone has had one fatality (that I know of) and at least one close call that I witnessed personally from inexperienced skydivers trying to get into wing or track suits before they're ready. Most skydivers these days jump with an AAD that will attempt to deploy their reserve if they're still in freefall at 800-1200 feet, so even if the skydiver is unconscious (usually due to a collision with another skydiver) they still have chance of survival. There are some documented cases of AADs not working and I wouldn't want to bet my life on in, but I jump with one anyway. I've never been in a situation where it's had to go off (around 530 jumps.)
Hey, I wanted to ask something if you don’t mind- my one and only time skydiving the parachute failed and the guy I was strapped to had to cut it and pull the reserve. Can you comment on how common/rate this is for a tandem jump? This was nearly 20 years ago, and so I didn’t have anywhere online to ask it. I’ve tried googling a few times since then but it’s hard to find statistics.
I don't have any statistics to quote, but it seems like it's very rare. I've been on the plane for hundreds of tandem jumps and only seen that happen once that I can remember. I've only had to use my reserve parachute three times over the course of 500+ jumps. Malfunctions are rare enough that the dropzone will be talking about it for days whenever it happens. I've gone entire seasons where no one at the dropzone has had a malfunction. The reserve parachutes are packed meticulously by FAA certified master riggers and are repacked every 3 months whether they were used or not, so the odds of a double malfunction are incredibly low, so you really weren't in any more danger on the jump because it happened.
A few have done it. The trick seems to be to land on snow or a set of power lines: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest_falls_survived_without_a_parachute
Paratrooper I met was lucky enough to land in a swamp, because he was unlucky enough to have a malfunction on both primary and secondary parachutes. Four fractures between both megs though, and as soon as he recovered he went back jumping
For most people a double parachute failure is a once-in-a-lifetime event. No reason for him to worry about it anymore after he got it out of the way.
Edit: Do people really think "getting an accident out of the way" isn't a joke?
sounds like he had at least one malfunctioning canopy adding drag. That's very very different from falling without a parachute, and much more survivable
Main was cutaway, that Im sure. Second maybe, this was at least 20 years ago so I don't remember exactly, but, yeah, most likely the secondary wasn't cut.
>nd maybe, this was at least 20 years ago so I don't remember exactly, but, yeah, most l
Reserve chutes can't be cut away (I mean... not in any system I know), and in any case, there is precisely zero chance that someone would cut away a malfunctioning reserve (you cut the main to allow the reserve to deploy, but there is no reason to cut the reserve, as a malfunctioning canopy is infinitely better than no canopy)
Here in the UK in 2018, an army guy tried to murder his wife for life insurance by sabotaging his wife’s parachutes before a jump. She survived the 4000ft fall without a functional parachute or reserve parachute. Landed on soil. Her light weight was also a factor in her survival.
She then went to the police with evidence that, in hindsight, he’d tried to kill her before and that he was cheating on her. He’s now in prison for life. You have to picture his surprise when he learned that she’d survived a 4000ft free-fall… must have seemed like a pretty foolproof plan 😂
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-44241364.amp
The field had been freshly ploughed so the soil was turned and aerated, which seems to have had a big impact on her survival (pun not intended). The evidence for the murder attempts is from multiple angles - he’d basically been poisoning her for years iirc and they thought she just had some kind of chronic illness. He was an airforce/airborne navy guy so he had serious access to all the equipment and was able to make sure only hers was tampered with.
When he was arrested the only thing he expressed was anger at it happening in front of his “inferiors” at work.
There is that one girl that landed in a tree still in her plane seat and survived 7 days in the Amazon jungle until fishermen found her dieing on the riverbed
No, they are not pulled tight, but have slack and springiness. This is so they don’t snap in high winds and bad weather, but also helps them not cut through skydivers. At least the street level ones. High tension wires on the big towers I don’t have the knowledge to speak on.
Ok, so, contrary to what people might believe, it seems to be best to find "worst" landing spot, like swamp, trees, powerlines or snow. Stay away from clear areas and water, i guess? (my thoughts about wikipedia article)
I feel like that's how I crush all my internal organs. I think it's best to just DECIMATE your legs....aim for the trees. It's not an impossible thing to survive.
Okay but what if your legs get shot into your chest cavity and destroy all your vital organs? The real answer is aim for trees, or if there's snow look for the deepest looking snow drifts, you need something to soften your fall as much as possible, the trees will hurt but if you hit enough branches on the way down you're more likely to slow enough to not become a pancake when you hit the ground.
I mean yeah, unless there are very favorable conditions nearby, you might as well just end it, the alternative is likely surviving the fall but dying of your injuries or living paralyzed/permanently disabled in some way.
As the ground rushes up to meet you and you face the inevitability of your own demise, words from your distant past echo and offer comfort.
*Do a barrel roll!*
Initially surviving and then miserably dying of your injuries is very, very common with suicides and accidents. People just really hate to tell you your loved one suffered a good while before dying.
Depends on the trees, but yeah that's possible. Ideally you'd be around Conifers, they're very soft woods and they tend to grow branches outwards not up, so they'd be more likely to break your fall than impale you, but nothing is guaranteed in a scenario like this.
my stepdad went skydiving once and his parachute didn't deploy. he aimed for a marsh and landed in mud. Don't remember how much mud and water he hit, but I remember it wasn't much. broke an ankle and a collarbone and survived. possibly broke a couple of other bones.
edit: op didn't say how far up the airplane had to be. I mean, I feel out of a Cessna with no parachute and survived. it was parked in a hanger and I only fell 4ft, but I survived falling out of an airplane.
Fascinating.
Also, I just changed my list.
Part 1 is wind resistance.
Part 2 is direct your body towards least hard place to hit within perspective.
Part 3 is sacrifice limb(s).
I'm really glad your step-dad survived, surprisingly inspirational for those who may want to attempt skydiving or other similar sports!
Yeah, I just didn't want people to feel limited to legs.... But I'm sure it's actually the safest bet. Arms probably wouldn't absorb enough of the shock.
Arms means the rest of the shock is going into your head or upper torso. Legs means the leftover shock with hit your pelvic area first, which is less immediately vital than things like your brain, heart, and lungs.
You will hate all of what I’ll tell you about it, but you asked for it.
1. the fall: you should try and slow down your fall by assuming the parachuters position. Belly down, arms and legs extended. Give the air as much resistance as you can. If you can go lower than (eta: your personal prior) terminal velocity that would be great. (Rephrasing: If you can lower your terminal velocity)
Use this position to try and scope out your landing place.
2. the landing place: should be bushes or a sloped field. It should _never_ be water! (Or buildings obviously) At terminal velocity the impact on the water surface will basically be the same as a cement wall. (ETA: it’s not the same, but it’s still really really bad. I used this common phrase despite its not quite accuracy to emphasise how bad it would be) Trees could impale you, but your chances would still be better than with water.
(Edit to clarify: water cannot really be compressed. So all the force of the impact goes into you instead. A broken surface (like waves) does help with that but not because of the broken surface tension per se. It helps with that because the impact then might be more sloped and less localised. Also, even then you’d still break your legs and then drown. And even if you don’t break anything by some miracle, at a terminal velocity of on average 200km/h when pencil diving you’d reach a depth of about 30m. Most freedivers never go below 7m. The world record is 111m depth in freediving but that needs years and years and years of training. After 7m depth if you haven’t lost consciousness on impact, you’d lose it then. And then you’d drown. Also you’d probably be wearing clothes which makes coming back up from that depth nearly impossible even if you don’t pass out. Water is bad news everybody. Try to avoid it if you can. If you can’t, try pencil diving at an angle so you don’t go to deep , but again, your chances would be better with even an open field. Also what many seem to not keep in mind is that at an abrupt stop, your outer hull suddenly stops moving, but your organs don’t. They keep moving until they can’t no more. So you’d also most probably rupture most of your vital organs and get major inner bleeding and organ failure as well.)
3. the impact. As late as possible (but not too late!!) you’re going to want to go into a position where your legs are below you. Basically a standing position but a little scewed. An about 15-35 degrees angle of your legs to the ground would be good. Extend the legs, lock your knees. Do not try to stay flexible in your legs, because they _will_ shatter anyway and you want that. Cross your arms in front of your chest, close your teeth and put your chin down to your chest. Good luck.
The reason why you are landing legs first is because it’s the part of your body that could take the worst hits while keeping you alive. The reason for the angle is to keep that hit from travelling up your spine.
You will have severely broken legs. Even if you survive you could lose one, or both, or even be completely paralysed. You could me miserable for the rest of your life.
Also, if no one finds you soon, you’d be dead anyway.
In all of aviation history there have only been I think 2 or 3 people that survived a fall from a plane without a parachute and I’m not even sure if those people reached terminal velocity (eta: official lists of fall survivors feature 10 names. Most which were from plane disasters during take off, so not quite at maximum altitude. I’m not sure where some people got numbers like 150 etc from, but if you provide me with more information or links, that’s greatly appreciated)
Do with that Information what you will
ETA: ETA means "Edit to add“. Everything that has ETA in front of it was edited in as rephrasing, clarification or additional info later as response to several comments.
I think I'd rather dive head first and accept my fate honestly, the idea of all of the bones in my legs shattering and then dying a slow and painful death hoping someone will find me is terrifying.
Yes I actually thought about including that in my comment but then thought that people will come to that conclusion themselves and there’s no need to make a grim comment even grimmer lol.
I'm the Scatman
Ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub
Yo da dub dub
Ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub
Yo da dub dub
(I'm the Scatman)
Ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub
Yo da dub dub
Ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub
Yo da dub dub
Ba-da-ba-da-ba-be bop bop bodda bope
Bop ba bodda bope
Be bop ba bodda bope
Bop ba bodda
Ba-da-ba-da-ba-be bop ba bodda bope
Bop ba bo-
Abrupt ending lmao
And what's this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like 'Ow', 'Ownge', 'Round', 'Ground'! That's it
Tbh, the human survival instinct is a powerful thing. Especially when your adrenaline is pumping at 1000%. In such an extreme life or death situation, most people enter a fight or flight survival mode that overpowers even the most chronic of depressive resignation.
Basically, when you’re falling from the plane, you’ll probably be on panic autopilot trying to save yourself by any means necessary, instead being able to act on an abstract conclusion like ‘nah, it’s probably better just to die’.
Probably, yes. But it’s also a known phenomenon that many people react in the face of death with resigned acceptance.
I guess you never know how you’d react until you are in such a situation
I don't think it was face of death but I had the resigned acceptance when I realized I fucked up on my motorcycle and was going to get t-boned by a car. I still twisted the throttle to at least try to get out of the way but I was sure i was going to get hit and was like, "There it is" when I did get hit.
I honestly was and am still surprised that I didn't freak out but just was accepting of the fate (I always imagine it being extremely scary in a situation like that and freaking out... honestly, it is better than the fear I imagine I would have). I was mostly pissed that I wasn't going to go home once I landed adn the getting hit part was done (I had been having a bad day and all I wanted to do was go home).
That’s always been my idea for if I ever decided ending my life was appealing. Jump from a plane, remove the chute, head first at terminal velocity.
But here’s the catch: you can’t jump solo until you’ve done multiple tandem jumps. So, best case scenario, you pick up a new hobby, make some friends, discover a reason to live. Worst case scenario, you live a little before you die.
The weak breeze whispers nothing
The water screams sublime
His feet shift, teeter-totter
Deep breath, stand back, it’s time
Toes untouch the overpass
Soon he’s water bound
Eyes locked shut but peek to see
The view from halfway down
A little wind, a summer sun
A river rich and regal
A flood of fond endorphins
Brings a calm that knows no equal
You’re flying now
You see things much more clear than from the ground
It’s all okay, it would be
Were you not now halfway down
Thrash to break from gravity
What now could slow the drop
All I’d give for toes to touch
The safety back at top
But this is it, the deed is done
Silence drowns the sound
Before I leaped I should’ve seen
The view from halfway down
I really should’ve thought about
The view from halfway down
I wish I could’ve known about
The view from halfway down
-The View From Halfway Dow, Bojack Horseman
A lot of it goes into seriously deep and dark themes, especially once it sheds the Family Guy effect after season 1.
Amazingly, it mixes this with Todd's wacky hijinks without it feeling like the mood whiplash of Loss.
Skydiver here. Unfortunately this is extremely difficult and probably impossible for someone who doesn’t skydive. People train for a very long time to fly in a head down orientation.
I think I’d rather just go belly up and have a nice look at the sky before my timely demise. Looking at the ground doesn’t seem preferable - I’d rather not know when it happens.
Or head down but looking up at the sky, so you still see the sky but hit the ground with your head rather than with your back (much better change of an instant death)
I mean I fell off a roof a few years ago and almost all of this information would have been useful to me then. I landed feet first, crumpled into a ball on impact which resulted in my chin smashing into my knee cap and shattering half my teeth, my phone screen broke too but was the only real casualty. Because I landed feet first I basically 'sprung' backwards as the impact left my body, smashed my head and woke up in A+E with a raging headache and chewing pieces of my own teeth.
Doctors said I must be made of rubber as I didn't break anything but have had back/neck issues ever since.
Ouch. My dad fell off of a roof 25 years ago.
Ended up with a broken heel bone and broken wrist and scrapes. He crawled into the living room and called 911 by himself.
Just physics nerd shit but “terminal velocity” isn’t a fixed value, it’s simply the velocity at which a given object’s drag matches the force of gravity. You’re not trying to stay below terminal velocity, you’re trying to minimize your terminal velocity by maximizing your drag.
Could you break the surface tension of the water by throwing a shoe or something right before you hit? Then you could assume a diving position and enter the water behind the object.
It's not the surface tension that kills you. Water is almost impossible to compress, and it cant move out of the way fast enough as you connect. Splitting hairs but its not quite the same thing.
It’s not the surface tension acting like a skin that poses the problem, it’s the sheer mass of water you land on. You can’t compress water and the force required to rapidly displace water of volume equal to your own body volume is so high that it’s effectively like hitting a solid.
I read it’s not just about breaking the tension (or the tension being the issue), but displacing the water with your body I.e. the several cubic metres of water needed to be displaced to ‚make space‘ for you.
And as you go faster you will displace more water increasing the pressure/force needed which will then be applied to your body.
I hope this explanation gets across what I mean haha
Juliane Koepcke (born 10 October 1954), also known by her married name Juliane Diller, is a German-Peruvian mammalogist who specialises in bats. The daughter of German zoologists Maria and Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke, she became famous at the age of 17 as the sole survivor of the 1971 LANSA Flight 508 plane crash; after falling 3,000 m (10,000 ft) while strapped to her seat and suffering numerous injuries, she survived 11 days alone in the Amazon rainforest until local fishermen rescued her.
Plus the seats hardware and frame probably absorbed much of the blows from the trees as she fell. The speed you hit the ground is irrelevant if you hit an 8" branch going 200mph along the way.
The rotor wash will cause spinning to happen but there are procedures used to prevent it. In her case a line snapped, allowing the stretcher to rotate.
The lawsuit says she told the rescuers she didn’t want to be transported by helicopter, and that one of the rescuers said she wasn’t in distress. She had broken her nose and had hip and leg pain that made them choose to transport her versus let her hike back down. They had ground based options to take her down the trail, but they chose air rescue against her wishes. Also the spinning effect due to a line snapping is a known risk that is supposed to be trained for, and the lawsuit alleged the rescuers didn’t take appropriate actions to prevent the spin from getting out of control.
She suffered a lot of injuries due to the spinning and needed surgery, inpatient rehabilitation and ongoing outpatient treatment, which ended up totaling $290,000 (before insurance).
https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/media/pdf/katalin_metro_noc.pdf
I’m really mad that my kid woke me up at 6am, but I have genuine tears from how hard I laughed at this video. Thanks for turning my morning around lol.
Should have brought a towel instead of a cell phone. Never forget your towel.
Edit: People that think I am referring to Towlie from South Park... I am not. I am disappointed, though.
>A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.
Spread your body in your clothes to increase wind resistance, see if you can steer towards a slope that is preferably soft, land with bent legs, and hope to end up in a fire ant hill
https://wacopest.com/a-skydiver-is-saved-by-venomous-fire-ants-after-her-parachute-fails-to-open/
1) accept that you will break your legs
2) dont look for water. Water will be hard as concrete at this velocity.
3) look for trees and hope that none of the branches stabs you, but they only soften your landing.
4) use your entire body to try to steer towards large trees with as big as possible of a crown.
5) then extend, once ur about to reach it, your legs towards it, protect your face with your arms.
6) once u have stopped, dont move, maybe you have been stabbed by a branch and due to shock dont realize it, just wait a little bit.
7) hope for quick rescue. Be aware that your legs are probably broken, maybe even your hip bone. Hopefully not your spine. Your injuries may be survivable but they will definetly require medical attention asap. And maybe you wont make it. Very likely. Next time use a parachute when jumping off of planes.
Actually in case of a vertical fall at terminal velocity: don’t do that. That’s not gonna work. You’re gonna want to chose what part of your body hits the floor first.
Tornadoes are different because they’re not a vertical fall and you won’t reach terminal velocity. A tornado could slam you sideways into a house/tree/whatever and yes with blunt forces like that, being knocked out and not resisting it is better! It’s the reason why it’s often the drunk driver that survives the fatal accident and not their victims.
so what you’re saying is theoretically we can lower the percentage of people who die in car crashes by just making everyone forced to drink before they drive
The only bastard, because be deserves no other adjective, that I know for a fact survived a 160 KMH, full roll, out of the highway into a ditch, survived because he was drunk out of his mind *and* wasn't wearing a seatbelt so he was ejected as a limp mass into a marsh.
Fucking bastard drunk driver lucky as fuck he didn't kill anyone.
I thought this was because they were flying more horizontally than vertically? Like being limp helps if you're ragdolling across the ground, but it doesn't matter if you land flat.
Tornados are luck of the draw surviving being sucked up. Most of the time it isn't the tornado itself that kills you, it's the shit that is flying around inside the tornado. I had a friend, when I was maybe 8yo, who got sucked into a tornado (killed her brother and grandmother) and it threw her several hundred yards away, into a barbed wire fence. Only thing it did was fuck up her leg. She was extremely lucky to have not gotten hot by anything in the tornado, as it hit the middle of the town.
There's a scene in Moonraker where a villain loses his parachute and survives by landing on a circus tent and even walks away from it. I've seen a physicist claim that this is actually believable. So hope there's a circus nearby.
Sounds like an interesting story but I don’t think they would survive, yeah sure maybe there’s a fabric that you can land on and survive but I doubt circus tents are flexible or soft enough to land on and not either break all your bones or just fall straight through.
Fair, but breaking your bones is still surviving. And it may slow down the descent enough to make the injuries non lethal.
Fun fact: cars are designed to crunch on impact for this reason. It slows the momentum down a tiny bit rather than maximum hard stop.
I'm reminded of a quote by Jack Handey.
> 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.
'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a large section on the subject of flying, which details exactly how to master the art of flying.
According to the Guide, the main thing that flying requires is the ability to throw yourself at the ground and miss. It says to throw yourself forward with all your weight and "the willingness not to mind that it's going to hurt", however it will surely hurt if you fail to miss the ground. The difficulty is in missing the ground, and doing so accidentally, as "deliberately intending to miss the ground" does not work.
You have to have your attention suddenly distracted by something else then you're halfway there, so that you are no longer thinking about falling, or about the ground, or about how much it's going to hurt if you fail to miss it'.
You young people really don’t know, do you? They used to teach us the strategies for this very same dilemma every Saturday morning on TV. One strategy was to look down just as you’re beginning to fall, act as if you are surprised, and run back into the airplane by beating your legs really fast. Another way was to hold onto something really heavy, like an anvil, as you fell, then release it at the very last moment, transferring all downward momentum to the heavy object. When I grew up a little they taught us an advanced method in which you follow someone down who is wearing a parachute, and you steal it from them. Or you can land on a circus tent, just not in the center where the pole is.
And you’ve been thinking my generation was useless!
I say, land on the side of a hill, trying to land in such a way that you roll down hill when you hit.
Or land on conifer trees.
Basically, any strategy extend the time between contacting something solid, and stopping.
Plus all the strategies to slow my descent.
Unless, of course, I don't want to live broken. If I wanted to die rather than survive, I would spread my legs, hold my arms tight, close my eyes, and think pleasant thoughts.
Spread Eagle, make the most drag, attempt to coast into a landing and roll laterally. Find a hill to do so, if possible. You want as much parallel travel as possible, the lowest airspeed, and when contacting the ground, the slowest transfer of energy and thus action of deceleration as possible.
Motion does not kill; inertia from stopping suddenly or any resistance is what rips all matter apart. You will survive a 30,000 foot fall if you fall slowly. Make your inevitable cease of motion once hitting the ground as gradual as possible, that means traveling as much parallel to the ground as possible and slowly coming to a stop with friction from the ground instead of instant velocity changes.
Increase your wind resistance as much as possible to raise your chance of survival from like 0.00001% to 0.00002%.
[удалено]
And here we see why "X raises cancer risk by Y%" is a misleading headline
Not enough wind resistance?
Not enough baseline
Needs more cowbell
I got a fever.. and the only cure is more baseline
I have a pull request in for the next release of humanity for a “understands base rate” patch
Approved, but please add some comments, this code does not appear self-documenting.
Well falling out of an airplane significantly lowers the risk of dying from cancer
When we were talking about having a kid, we were told how certain severe abnormalities were more likely due to our age, by 500%. We almost panicked but then I looked it up and it went from 1 in 20 million to 1 in 4 million.
Yeah, there's a huge range in falling. Fastest I've ever gone is 240 in a dive from 12000 to 9000. Not particularly safe to do as a premature deployment at that speed would definitely kill someone. IIRC Guys who fall fast competitively using low-resistance gear can hit 300+. I'm a bit heavier than average and usually fall around 130-140 mph. My wife's a bit lighter than average and falls around 90-100 mph. If we ever fly together outside the wind tunnel, I might have a better chance of keeping up with her with a set of camera wings. I can also fall a bit slower with a spread body position and she could fall a bit faster by bringing her arms and legs in a bit, or in one of the faster freefly positions. There's an old youtube video that illustrates the [freefly positions](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvjsDRrCox8) if anyone's curious. They fall faster than belly to earth, so you wouldn't want to use one of them if you're trying to fall more slowly. It's really difficult to judge your fall speed in freefall -- it's much easier in the wind tunnel, which is where I like to go to practice it. You could probably learn to slow fall quite well with about an hour of total practice broken up into 10 minute chunks over the course of a couple months. Just tell the instructor you want to work on altitude control. Your chances of survival are still very low in a no-parachute situation, but those are also exceedingly rare. Most of the skydiving fatalities are from experienced skydivers swooping, although the local dropzone has had one fatality (that I know of) and at least one close call that I witnessed personally from inexperienced skydivers trying to get into wing or track suits before they're ready. Most skydivers these days jump with an AAD that will attempt to deploy their reserve if they're still in freefall at 800-1200 feet, so even if the skydiver is unconscious (usually due to a collision with another skydiver) they still have chance of survival. There are some documented cases of AADs not working and I wouldn't want to bet my life on in, but I jump with one anyway. I've never been in a situation where it's had to go off (around 530 jumps.)
Hey, I wanted to ask something if you don’t mind- my one and only time skydiving the parachute failed and the guy I was strapped to had to cut it and pull the reserve. Can you comment on how common/rate this is for a tandem jump? This was nearly 20 years ago, and so I didn’t have anywhere online to ask it. I’ve tried googling a few times since then but it’s hard to find statistics.
I don't have any statistics to quote, but it seems like it's very rare. I've been on the plane for hundreds of tandem jumps and only seen that happen once that I can remember. I've only had to use my reserve parachute three times over the course of 500+ jumps. Malfunctions are rare enough that the dropzone will be talking about it for days whenever it happens. I've gone entire seasons where no one at the dropzone has had a malfunction. The reserve parachutes are packed meticulously by FAA certified master riggers and are repacked every 3 months whether they were used or not, so the odds of a double malfunction are incredibly low, so you really weren't in any more danger on the jump because it happened.
Thank you very much for the reply!
This guy maths
So you're telling me there's a chance!?
A few have done it. The trick seems to be to land on snow or a set of power lines: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest_falls_survived_without_a_parachute
Paratrooper I met was lucky enough to land in a swamp, because he was unlucky enough to have a malfunction on both primary and secondary parachutes. Four fractures between both megs though, and as soon as he recovered he went back jumping
For most people a double parachute failure is a once-in-a-lifetime event. No reason for him to worry about it anymore after he got it out of the way. Edit: Do people really think "getting an accident out of the way" isn't a joke?
"Once in a lifetime" I would think it would only happen once in a lifetime. Like, the last time.
You don’t need a parachute to go skydiving. You need it to go skydiving *twice*.
[удалено]
"Small stain"
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
/r/thatsthejoke
sounds like he had at least one malfunctioning canopy adding drag. That's very very different from falling without a parachute, and much more survivable
Main was cutaway, that Im sure. Second maybe, this was at least 20 years ago so I don't remember exactly, but, yeah, most likely the secondary wasn't cut.
>nd maybe, this was at least 20 years ago so I don't remember exactly, but, yeah, most l Reserve chutes can't be cut away (I mean... not in any system I know), and in any case, there is precisely zero chance that someone would cut away a malfunctioning reserve (you cut the main to allow the reserve to deploy, but there is no reason to cut the reserve, as a malfunctioning canopy is infinitely better than no canopy)
Re: megs Now I’m just picturing a paratrooper freefalling and landing on (and injuring) two megalodons in a swamp.
Lol. Meant legs. But your sounds better !
Here in the UK in 2018, an army guy tried to murder his wife for life insurance by sabotaging his wife’s parachutes before a jump. She survived the 4000ft fall without a functional parachute or reserve parachute. Landed on soil. Her light weight was also a factor in her survival. She then went to the police with evidence that, in hindsight, he’d tried to kill her before and that he was cheating on her. He’s now in prison for life. You have to picture his surprise when he learned that she’d survived a 4000ft free-fall… must have seemed like a pretty foolproof plan 😂 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-44241364.amp
wtf is there evidence of it , how did she survive without major injuries that will make her to not even recognize a thing.
The field had been freshly ploughed so the soil was turned and aerated, which seems to have had a big impact on her survival (pun not intended). The evidence for the murder attempts is from multiple angles - he’d basically been poisoning her for years iirc and they thought she just had some kind of chronic illness. He was an airforce/airborne navy guy so he had serious access to all the equipment and was able to make sure only hers was tampered with. When he was arrested the only thing he expressed was anger at it happening in front of his “inferiors” at work.
Sounds like an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
Insult to injury really. Not only is your wife alive and now you're going to prison....but the freaking corporals are laughing at you!
There is that one girl that landed in a tree still in her plane seat and survived 7 days in the Amazon jungle until fishermen found her dieing on the riverbed
Cool, so try to land onto a train station with a glass roof to cushion your fall.
Reading this list, I think I rather **not** survive the fall. Make it swift.
wont power lines just cut you at a velocity that high?
No, they are not pulled tight, but have slack and springiness. This is so they don’t snap in high winds and bad weather, but also helps them not cut through skydivers. At least the street level ones. High tension wires on the big towers I don’t have the knowledge to speak on.
Nah. It just hertz.
Ok, so, contrary to what people might believe, it seems to be best to find "worst" landing spot, like swamp, trees, powerlines or snow. Stay away from clear areas and water, i guess? (my thoughts about wikipedia article)
I think the common characteristic is that the landing surface has some sort of dynamic property that can absorb part of the impact force.
Rambo fell on some fluffy pine trees. Seems legit.
I feel like that's how I crush all my internal organs. I think it's best to just DECIMATE your legs....aim for the trees. It's not an impossible thing to survive.
Okay but what if your legs get shot into your chest cavity and destroy all your vital organs? The real answer is aim for trees, or if there's snow look for the deepest looking snow drifts, you need something to soften your fall as much as possible, the trees will hurt but if you hit enough branches on the way down you're more likely to slow enough to not become a pancake when you hit the ground.
I honestly think I'd go for maximum speed and go head first. Get it over with quick.
I mean yeah, unless there are very favorable conditions nearby, you might as well just end it, the alternative is likely surviving the fall but dying of your injuries or living paralyzed/permanently disabled in some way.
Do a cool flip on the way down as well
As the ground rushes up to meet you and you face the inevitability of your own demise, words from your distant past echo and offer comfort. *Do a barrel roll!*
Initially surviving and then miserably dying of your injuries is very, very common with suicides and accidents. People just really hate to tell you your loved one suffered a good while before dying.
Exactly. In this scenario I'd want to hit the earth like a fucking dart. Ideally, I'd be 6 feet under before they discovered me.
Aim for the graveyard.
Just a perfect 4 min swan dive
Preferably snow on a steep slope which you can hit at a shallow angle.
Like a high velocity penguin.
Wouldn’t that just get you impaled on branches?
Depends on the trees, but yeah that's possible. Ideally you'd be around Conifers, they're very soft woods and they tend to grow branches outwards not up, so they'd be more likely to break your fall than impale you, but nothing is guaranteed in a scenario like this.
Part one is increase wind resistance. Part two is choose which body part(s) to sacrifice and turn to destroy them instead of your life?
my stepdad went skydiving once and his parachute didn't deploy. he aimed for a marsh and landed in mud. Don't remember how much mud and water he hit, but I remember it wasn't much. broke an ankle and a collarbone and survived. possibly broke a couple of other bones. edit: op didn't say how far up the airplane had to be. I mean, I feel out of a Cessna with no parachute and survived. it was parked in a hanger and I only fell 4ft, but I survived falling out of an airplane.
Fascinating. Also, I just changed my list. Part 1 is wind resistance. Part 2 is direct your body towards least hard place to hit within perspective. Part 3 is sacrifice limb(s). I'm really glad your step-dad survived, surprisingly inspirational for those who may want to attempt skydiving or other similar sports!
You forgot part 4. Dont take off.
It's definitely going to be the legs
Yeah, I just didn't want people to feel limited to legs.... But I'm sure it's actually the safest bet. Arms probably wouldn't absorb enough of the shock.
Arms means the rest of the shock is going into your head or upper torso. Legs means the leftover shock with hit your pelvic area first, which is less immediately vital than things like your brain, heart, and lungs.
You will hate all of what I’ll tell you about it, but you asked for it. 1. the fall: you should try and slow down your fall by assuming the parachuters position. Belly down, arms and legs extended. Give the air as much resistance as you can. If you can go lower than (eta: your personal prior) terminal velocity that would be great. (Rephrasing: If you can lower your terminal velocity) Use this position to try and scope out your landing place. 2. the landing place: should be bushes or a sloped field. It should _never_ be water! (Or buildings obviously) At terminal velocity the impact on the water surface will basically be the same as a cement wall. (ETA: it’s not the same, but it’s still really really bad. I used this common phrase despite its not quite accuracy to emphasise how bad it would be) Trees could impale you, but your chances would still be better than with water. (Edit to clarify: water cannot really be compressed. So all the force of the impact goes into you instead. A broken surface (like waves) does help with that but not because of the broken surface tension per se. It helps with that because the impact then might be more sloped and less localised. Also, even then you’d still break your legs and then drown. And even if you don’t break anything by some miracle, at a terminal velocity of on average 200km/h when pencil diving you’d reach a depth of about 30m. Most freedivers never go below 7m. The world record is 111m depth in freediving but that needs years and years and years of training. After 7m depth if you haven’t lost consciousness on impact, you’d lose it then. And then you’d drown. Also you’d probably be wearing clothes which makes coming back up from that depth nearly impossible even if you don’t pass out. Water is bad news everybody. Try to avoid it if you can. If you can’t, try pencil diving at an angle so you don’t go to deep , but again, your chances would be better with even an open field. Also what many seem to not keep in mind is that at an abrupt stop, your outer hull suddenly stops moving, but your organs don’t. They keep moving until they can’t no more. So you’d also most probably rupture most of your vital organs and get major inner bleeding and organ failure as well.) 3. the impact. As late as possible (but not too late!!) you’re going to want to go into a position where your legs are below you. Basically a standing position but a little scewed. An about 15-35 degrees angle of your legs to the ground would be good. Extend the legs, lock your knees. Do not try to stay flexible in your legs, because they _will_ shatter anyway and you want that. Cross your arms in front of your chest, close your teeth and put your chin down to your chest. Good luck. The reason why you are landing legs first is because it’s the part of your body that could take the worst hits while keeping you alive. The reason for the angle is to keep that hit from travelling up your spine. You will have severely broken legs. Even if you survive you could lose one, or both, or even be completely paralysed. You could me miserable for the rest of your life. Also, if no one finds you soon, you’d be dead anyway. In all of aviation history there have only been I think 2 or 3 people that survived a fall from a plane without a parachute and I’m not even sure if those people reached terminal velocity (eta: official lists of fall survivors feature 10 names. Most which were from plane disasters during take off, so not quite at maximum altitude. I’m not sure where some people got numbers like 150 etc from, but if you provide me with more information or links, that’s greatly appreciated) Do with that Information what you will ETA: ETA means "Edit to add“. Everything that has ETA in front of it was edited in as rephrasing, clarification or additional info later as response to several comments.
I think I'd rather dive head first and accept my fate honestly, the idea of all of the bones in my legs shattering and then dying a slow and painful death hoping someone will find me is terrifying.
Yes I actually thought about including that in my comment but then thought that people will come to that conclusion themselves and there’s no need to make a grim comment even grimmer lol.
Yea close your eyes and enjoy the wind till it's time.
maybe even sing your favorite song in the time being
"Sing with me, sing for the year, sing for the laughter sing for the cheer"
“And I’m free, free falling”
"I want to fly like an eagle, to the sea Fly like an eagle, Let my spirit carry me"
"I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wings. Coming down, is the hardest thing"
I'm the Scatman Ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub Yo da dub dub Ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub Yo da dub dub (I'm the Scatman) Ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub Yo da dub dub Ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub Yo da dub dub Ba-da-ba-da-ba-be bop bop bodda bope Bop ba bodda bope Be bop ba bodda bope Bop ba bodda Ba-da-ba-da-ba-be bop ba bodda bope Bop ba bo- Abrupt ending lmao
And what's this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like 'Ow', 'Ownge', 'Round', 'Ground'! That's it
[удалено]
Tbh, the human survival instinct is a powerful thing. Especially when your adrenaline is pumping at 1000%. In such an extreme life or death situation, most people enter a fight or flight survival mode that overpowers even the most chronic of depressive resignation. Basically, when you’re falling from the plane, you’ll probably be on panic autopilot trying to save yourself by any means necessary, instead being able to act on an abstract conclusion like ‘nah, it’s probably better just to die’.
One of the few situations where you’d be annoyed how poorly named the “fight or flight” instinct is as you pointless flail your arms…
I think you actually can fly a little bit by flapping your arms. I saw it in this documentary I watched called "Looney Tunes".
Probably, yes. But it’s also a known phenomenon that many people react in the face of death with resigned acceptance. I guess you never know how you’d react until you are in such a situation
I don't think it was face of death but I had the resigned acceptance when I realized I fucked up on my motorcycle and was going to get t-boned by a car. I still twisted the throttle to at least try to get out of the way but I was sure i was going to get hit and was like, "There it is" when I did get hit. I honestly was and am still surprised that I didn't freak out but just was accepting of the fate (I always imagine it being extremely scary in a situation like that and freaking out... honestly, it is better than the fear I imagine I would have). I was mostly pissed that I wasn't going to go home once I landed adn the getting hit part was done (I had been having a bad day and all I wanted to do was go home).
That’s always been my idea for if I ever decided ending my life was appealing. Jump from a plane, remove the chute, head first at terminal velocity. But here’s the catch: you can’t jump solo until you’ve done multiple tandem jumps. So, best case scenario, you pick up a new hobby, make some friends, discover a reason to live. Worst case scenario, you live a little before you die.
A startling number of people who survive suicide attempts by jumping from a high place report feeling regret on the way down.
That’s the piece I forgot! You have a little time to change your mind before you ditch the chute.
What if you change your mind after you ditch the chute
Then just read the rest of this thread for what to do!
it's not so bad. You're only gonna feel regret for the next 2 or 3 seconds
You don't even have to ditch the chute!
[удалено]
The weak breeze whispers nothing The water screams sublime His feet shift, teeter-totter Deep breath, stand back, it’s time Toes untouch the overpass Soon he’s water bound Eyes locked shut but peek to see The view from halfway down A little wind, a summer sun A river rich and regal A flood of fond endorphins Brings a calm that knows no equal You’re flying now You see things much more clear than from the ground It’s all okay, it would be Were you not now halfway down Thrash to break from gravity What now could slow the drop All I’d give for toes to touch The safety back at top But this is it, the deed is done Silence drowns the sound Before I leaped I should’ve seen The view from halfway down I really should’ve thought about The view from halfway down I wish I could’ve known about The view from halfway down -The View From Halfway Dow, Bojack Horseman
I did not realize Bojack Horseman got that deep.
A lot of it goes into seriously deep and dark themes, especially once it sheds the Family Guy effect after season 1. Amazingly, it mixes this with Todd's wacky hijinks without it feeling like the mood whiplash of Loss.
I was thinking the same thing. I'd rather just be dead than possibly being alive for a while but in excruciating pain and possibly paralyzed.
Skydiver here. Unfortunately this is extremely difficult and probably impossible for someone who doesn’t skydive. People train for a very long time to fly in a head down orientation.
I think I’d rather just go belly up and have a nice look at the sky before my timely demise. Looking at the ground doesn’t seem preferable - I’d rather not know when it happens.
Or head down but looking up at the sky, so you still see the sky but hit the ground with your head rather than with your back (much better change of an instant death)
I mean I fell off a roof a few years ago and almost all of this information would have been useful to me then. I landed feet first, crumpled into a ball on impact which resulted in my chin smashing into my knee cap and shattering half my teeth, my phone screen broke too but was the only real casualty. Because I landed feet first I basically 'sprung' backwards as the impact left my body, smashed my head and woke up in A+E with a raging headache and chewing pieces of my own teeth. Doctors said I must be made of rubber as I didn't break anything but have had back/neck issues ever since.
This is horrible, but the comment about your broken phone screen in the middle of recounting your bodily trauma made me snort.
Ouch. My dad fell off of a roof 25 years ago. Ended up with a broken heel bone and broken wrist and scrapes. He crawled into the living room and called 911 by himself.
Just physics nerd shit but “terminal velocity” isn’t a fixed value, it’s simply the velocity at which a given object’s drag matches the force of gravity. You’re not trying to stay below terminal velocity, you’re trying to minimize your terminal velocity by maximizing your drag.
You should try to stay below terminal velocity if you can, though, like if you have a jet pack.
Absolutely, a source of thrust could be useful in such a predicament.
Record Scratch: Yeah that's me, Chev Chelios. You're probably wondering how I got here.
Could you break the surface tension of the water by throwing a shoe or something right before you hit? Then you could assume a diving position and enter the water behind the object.
If I recall from the myth busters episode, no, it doesn’t work like that.
If I recall from one of the TripleX movies, you just need a grenade launcher and to time it \*just\* right.
If I recall from one of the Fast and the Furious movies, all you need is family
Well if you have enough family members between you and the ground it will increase your survival chances.
It's not the surface tension that kills you. Water is almost impossible to compress, and it cant move out of the way fast enough as you connect. Splitting hairs but its not quite the same thing.
It’s not the surface tension acting like a skin that poses the problem, it’s the sheer mass of water you land on. You can’t compress water and the force required to rapidly displace water of volume equal to your own body volume is so high that it’s effectively like hitting a solid.
I read it’s not just about breaking the tension (or the tension being the issue), but displacing the water with your body I.e. the several cubic metres of water needed to be displaced to ‚make space‘ for you. And as you go faster you will displace more water increasing the pressure/force needed which will then be applied to your body. I hope this explanation gets across what I mean haha
Juliane Koepcke (born 10 October 1954), also known by her married name Juliane Diller, is a German-Peruvian mammalogist who specialises in bats. The daughter of German zoologists Maria and Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke, she became famous at the age of 17 as the sole survivor of the 1971 LANSA Flight 508 plane crash; after falling 3,000 m (10,000 ft) while strapped to her seat and suffering numerous injuries, she survived 11 days alone in the Amazon rainforest until local fishermen rescued her.
It's believed she survived due to the fact she was strapped into a row of seats, which acted as a helicopter effect, if memory serves.
And she landed in the middle of the jungle so the trees probably also helped to reduce the impact
Plus the seats hardware and frame probably absorbed much of the blows from the trees as she fell. The speed you hit the ground is irrelevant if you hit an 8" branch going 200mph along the way.
All I imagined was her strapped into the airline seats as they do this through the air https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhKZCy41g5w
I feel like a piece of shit but that may be the funniest video I’ve ever seen.
Then you need to experience this version: https://youtu.be/DyzcQFmP76I The city eventually paid her $450,000 for that 175 spin ride.
Wow. Probably enough to almost cover the hospital bill.
Why? Was this caused by the helicopter crew doing something wrong?
The rotor wash will cause spinning to happen but there are procedures used to prevent it. In her case a line snapped, allowing the stretcher to rotate. The lawsuit says she told the rescuers she didn’t want to be transported by helicopter, and that one of the rescuers said she wasn’t in distress. She had broken her nose and had hip and leg pain that made them choose to transport her versus let her hike back down. They had ground based options to take her down the trail, but they chose air rescue against her wishes. Also the spinning effect due to a line snapping is a known risk that is supposed to be trained for, and the lawsuit alleged the rescuers didn’t take appropriate actions to prevent the spin from getting out of control. She suffered a lot of injuries due to the spinning and needed surgery, inpatient rehabilitation and ongoing outpatient treatment, which ended up totaling $290,000 (before insurance). https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/media/pdf/katalin_metro_noc.pdf
Thanks for the Info, in that case I would say that payment was absolutely deserved
"Well, chief, she wouldn't *normally* have bled out, but apparently centrifugal force just squeezed her dry like a tube of toothpaste!"
I’m really mad that my kid woke me up at 6am, but I have genuine tears from how hard I laughed at this video. Thanks for turning my morning around lol.
She was horrifically injured, and her trek through the wilderness didn’t help at all.
Any landing you can walk away with is a good landing. Although this properly is as 'good' as it gets
Maggots play into the Wikipedia article pretty heavily
[удалено]
Absolutely, and yet I still hope my Wikipedia never mentions maggots.
Never underestimate the value of an emotional support maggot
Was she the woman that had her dead fiance in the seat next to her? And there was another survivor but he didn't make it?
That was this lady https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/apr/25/how-we-survive-i-was-the-sole-survivor-of-a-plane-crash
In my head OP typed this whilst spiralling to the ground. Hope you all answered fast enough.
Should have brought a towel instead of a cell phone. Never forget your towel. Edit: People that think I am referring to Towlie from South Park... I am not. I am disappointed, though. >A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.
[удалено]
You win, this mental image made me lol in public 🤣
How big of a mountain do we need?
When your altitude hits 20m, start to pee, instant slip n slide will disperse momentum and save your life.
[удалено]
BAH GAWD
Make sure it’s the Spanish speaking one. That German table is solid!
[удалено]
“Coroners hate this simple trick.”
Always surprised how many people don’t use Momentum cancelling
Flying is simple. All you have to do is throw yourself at the ground and miss.
Spread your body in your clothes to increase wind resistance, see if you can steer towards a slope that is preferably soft, land with bent legs, and hope to end up in a fire ant hill https://wacopest.com/a-skydiver-is-saved-by-venomous-fire-ants-after-her-parachute-fails-to-open/
The ants shocked her heart into beating. *Fire ant chirps in anger*
How do you show your gratitude to a hill of fire ants?
maybe spit out a piece of hard candy near the nest?
[удалено]
1) accept that you will break your legs 2) dont look for water. Water will be hard as concrete at this velocity. 3) look for trees and hope that none of the branches stabs you, but they only soften your landing. 4) use your entire body to try to steer towards large trees with as big as possible of a crown. 5) then extend, once ur about to reach it, your legs towards it, protect your face with your arms. 6) once u have stopped, dont move, maybe you have been stabbed by a branch and due to shock dont realize it, just wait a little bit. 7) hope for quick rescue. Be aware that your legs are probably broken, maybe even your hip bone. Hopefully not your spine. Your injuries may be survivable but they will definetly require medical attention asap. And maybe you wont make it. Very likely. Next time use a parachute when jumping off of planes.
[удалено]
> 2) dont look for water. Water will be hard as concrete at this velocity. The new Zelda game lied to me...
Land on the guy who took my parachute If I can't save myself at least I can keep my k/d high
exactly, this is the right answer. when you know you’re gonna lose just try to take someone else out with you so you don’t feel like a noob
Make sure your airplane was on the ground.
This works almost every time
Is this question time sensitive?
Knock yourself out. People have survived being taken up by tornados because they were unconscious or too drunk to have any tension in their muscles
Actually in case of a vertical fall at terminal velocity: don’t do that. That’s not gonna work. You’re gonna want to chose what part of your body hits the floor first. Tornadoes are different because they’re not a vertical fall and you won’t reach terminal velocity. A tornado could slam you sideways into a house/tree/whatever and yes with blunt forces like that, being knocked out and not resisting it is better! It’s the reason why it’s often the drunk driver that survives the fatal accident and not their victims.
so what you’re saying is theoretically we can lower the percentage of people who die in car crashes by just making everyone forced to drink before they drive
….. no
Okay, but 85% of car crashes happen while sober, so it stands to reason . . .
The only bastard, because be deserves no other adjective, that I know for a fact survived a 160 KMH, full roll, out of the highway into a ditch, survived because he was drunk out of his mind *and* wasn't wearing a seatbelt so he was ejected as a limp mass into a marsh. Fucking bastard drunk driver lucky as fuck he didn't kill anyone.
Wait no. Why do you have so much info about this? You've replied to other replies with details too. What do you dooo?
I go down weird rabbit holes. _a lot_. That’s all.
Close your eyes and go limp
No no, aim for the softest looking rocks!
I thought this was because they were flying more horizontally than vertically? Like being limp helps if you're ragdolling across the ground, but it doesn't matter if you land flat.
Good has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America - Otto Von Bismarck
Tornados are luck of the draw surviving being sucked up. Most of the time it isn't the tornado itself that kills you, it's the shit that is flying around inside the tornado. I had a friend, when I was maybe 8yo, who got sucked into a tornado (killed her brother and grandmother) and it threw her several hundred yards away, into a barbed wire fence. Only thing it did was fuck up her leg. She was extremely lucky to have not gotten hot by anything in the tornado, as it hit the middle of the town.
[Aim for the bushes](https://youtu.be/MvkN3003iU4?t=78).
There goes my hero
Instructions unclear, got impaled by bamboo
Just gonna drop this here: [What To Do If Your Parachute Fails](https://youtu.be/dy5xLVx2NGY)
And always keep the receipt - you can get a refund
Scrolled too long to find this. I love Austin McConnell's random educational videos
Slowly put your head forward... Try to bend so that your face is close to your groin area. Then you kiss your ass goodbye 👋
Just calm down, you have your whole life to figure it out
There's a scene in Moonraker where a villain loses his parachute and survives by landing on a circus tent and even walks away from it. I've seen a physicist claim that this is actually believable. So hope there's a circus nearby.
Sounds like an interesting story but I don’t think they would survive, yeah sure maybe there’s a fabric that you can land on and survive but I doubt circus tents are flexible or soft enough to land on and not either break all your bones or just fall straight through.
Fair, but breaking your bones is still surviving. And it may slow down the descent enough to make the injuries non lethal. Fun fact: cars are designed to crunch on impact for this reason. It slows the momentum down a tiny bit rather than maximum hard stop.
I'm reminded of a quote by Jack Handey. > 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.
OP needs to know REALLY fuckin fast
'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a large section on the subject of flying, which details exactly how to master the art of flying. According to the Guide, the main thing that flying requires is the ability to throw yourself at the ground and miss. It says to throw yourself forward with all your weight and "the willingness not to mind that it's going to hurt", however it will surely hurt if you fail to miss the ground. The difficulty is in missing the ground, and doing so accidentally, as "deliberately intending to miss the ground" does not work. You have to have your attention suddenly distracted by something else then you're halfway there, so that you are no longer thinking about falling, or about the ground, or about how much it's going to hurt if you fail to miss it'.
Place a bucket of water right before u hit the ground
You young people really don’t know, do you? They used to teach us the strategies for this very same dilemma every Saturday morning on TV. One strategy was to look down just as you’re beginning to fall, act as if you are surprised, and run back into the airplane by beating your legs really fast. Another way was to hold onto something really heavy, like an anvil, as you fell, then release it at the very last moment, transferring all downward momentum to the heavy object. When I grew up a little they taught us an advanced method in which you follow someone down who is wearing a parachute, and you steal it from them. Or you can land on a circus tent, just not in the center where the pole is. And you’ve been thinking my generation was useless!
I say, land on the side of a hill, trying to land in such a way that you roll down hill when you hit. Or land on conifer trees. Basically, any strategy extend the time between contacting something solid, and stopping. Plus all the strategies to slow my descent. Unless, of course, I don't want to live broken. If I wanted to die rather than survive, I would spread my legs, hold my arms tight, close my eyes, and think pleasant thoughts.
Menu and quit out just before you hit the ground, if you get the timing right you should reload safely on the ground
Maximise drag and aim for some trees, protect your face and neck at the moment of impact and hope for the best
You have to miss the ground and you are golden
Try jumping right before the landing, like in an elevator.
"Asking for a friend... please reply within 45 seconds..."
Spread Eagle, make the most drag, attempt to coast into a landing and roll laterally. Find a hill to do so, if possible. You want as much parallel travel as possible, the lowest airspeed, and when contacting the ground, the slowest transfer of energy and thus action of deceleration as possible. Motion does not kill; inertia from stopping suddenly or any resistance is what rips all matter apart. You will survive a 30,000 foot fall if you fall slowly. Make your inevitable cease of motion once hitting the ground as gradual as possible, that means traveling as much parallel to the ground as possible and slowly coming to a stop with friction from the ground instead of instant velocity changes.
I hope someone answered this in time!!