(But no planes or treadmills, thank Og).
So say you’re in a canoe at the lip of a really tall waterfall. You have a parachute attached to the canoe. If you deploy it at just the right moment, will you float away in a flying canoe?
What about two parachutes, one at each end of the boat? Would that make it more or less stable?
Never mind feasible, would this be technically physically possible?
(No, I don’t need answer fast. I was just wondering. It would make a really funny scene in a story).
One or two, there would be no way to keep the canoe stable and level. Image a 3-legged stool missing a leg.
Even if you did manage to get it to work though, you’d still be carne in a canoe.
The drafts created by the rushing water would suck you back into the fall and to your demise.
I think a better idea would be a speedboat. Zoom right off the edge to get well clear of the fall before deploying the chute. If a re-entering space capsule can employ a chute to break its fall, I don’t see why an appropriately modified speedboat couldn’t. Sounds like a good device for a James Bond movie if nothing else.
You probably need a couple hundred feet of fall to get the momentum to open the parachute in time. There can’t be too many watefalls with 200-plus feet of drop.
I would think 2 parachutes anchored 10 feet apart would interfere with each other big time.
Modern parachutes tend to be parasails, not those circular canopies, with a flying wing inflated and maintained open by forward momentum (originally generated from the fall velocity); steered by pulling on the two sides to tilt it. Again, the cliff has to be more vertical than horizonatal, so you can inflate and steer away before you start rolling down the side of he cliff. If you do end up with the waterfall interfering with the parachute, not enough forward momentum, likely it will not inflate properly and you just have extra stuff dragging you under at the bottom.
IIRC, movies of basejumpers they take a fast running jump off the building, so that they are quite far from the wall when their chute opens… Oh, and you want to be facing away from the wall or else, splat!
It might work better if you wear the parachute and let the canoe or speedboat fall away while you float safely to Earth.
Nah, that wouldn’t work for the story.
I suppose it’s physically possible. The canoe would have to fall a certain distance to inflate the parachute. For a story, you could reduce the distance needed and not have the canoe tip enough to lose its contents. Or even have the parachute start to inflate as you go over the edge (maybe it’s a windy day or the canoe is going really fast).
In reality, it wouldn’t work that way. The parachute needs a fair amount of airspeed to come out of the container and inflate. The canoe is going to tumble as it falls and everything not tied down will fall out. It will also probably snag the lines or the parachute itself.
If you tried it a thousand times, you might get a clean deployment once. But probably not.
…a canal, Panama!
I don’t see why (as noted above) this should be much more complicated than BASE jumping. For that matter, a person in a canoe going over a waterfall should be able to get about as much, if not possibly more horizontal speed than a person run and jumping off a cliff.
Yeah, the Devil is in the details but its not like you would be pushing the boundaries of physics and engineering.
I was waiting for someone to say that.
It ought to remain stable with a single parachute attached to a point directly above the center of mass of the canoe. As long as the canoe is heavy enough, the combined COM of canoe+passenger should remain below the attachment point, in which case the canoe will remain stable.
Two parachutes - one at the bow, one at the stern - would be troublesome. Any difference in sink rates between the two 'chutes will soon result in a canoe that is no longer horizontal.
Yep, there are some weird air currents around big waterfalls, including effects generated by the falling water itself, as well as effects created by the ambient wind encountering the “step” of the waterfall. I wouldn’t recommend trying this at home.
A man, a plan, a canoe-parachute, a waterfall, a mall, a fret, a… wait, uh… car, a peon, a canal: PANAMA!
Waterfalls nearly 200’ high have been successfully run in standard kayaks.
As a well-prepared outdoorsman, I know trouble can strike at anytime. That’s why my canoes are all equipped with 0/0 capability ejection seats, or a ballistic parachute from these guys, as well as the required personal flotation devices and and a safety whistle!
How about using a jetski and a parachute? Here is a list of some of the crazier attempts to go over Niagra falls. Here is the link for the picture that follows this quote.
If you did manage to get a parachuted boat airborn, would it drift right down or float around for a while? What if there was a wind?
Let’s just keep that at 500 feet minimum in a single drop. There are 228 waterfalls.
Depends on the size of the parachute. If it’s big enough, it could float around awhile.
You would pretty much have to use a round parachute, which has very limited steering. It’ll go where the wind takes it.
Which as pointed out, is likely into the waterfall. Unless it is a very narrow waterfall. But even then, why would a canoe, travelling with the water at its speed, get much farther out than the water would? Open the chute and water hits it from above. Chute collapses.
Very different than a running jump off of a cliff.
No, not possible.
I don’t see why you would necessarily go back into the waterfall. If you have some momentum going over the edge you’ll get a little bit of distance between you and the water. There are ways to give even a large round canopy some forward drive. Put a vent in the back of the canopy (either cut a hole in it or leave out a panel of nylon) and the escaping air will drive it forward.
BASE jumpers don’t usually get more than about 10 feet of separation between them and the cliff face. Most people can’t jump very far, even with a running start.
And we’re talking about what’s possible, for a story- not what’s likely. It is possible that a canoe could go over a waterfall, get a parachute open and drift to the ground.
