If you find yourself falling to your death above open water you’re probably already doing this.
can you even imagine what happened to John Denver when the experimental plane he was in nose dived in to the ocean from700 feet and how fast he was going. talk about multiple blunt force trauma. what exactly would happen to him as he hit the water? wouldnt that kind of force just tear you apart or what? I felt so sorry for him. that must have been such a horrible tragic way to die. it happened so fast it makes me wonder if he even suffered or just died instantly. I cant even imagine. I swear to god you would never get me up in one of those joke pieces of crap. experimental planes shouldnt even be allowed to fly much less be made. one wrong move and poof you are history.
RIP John…
They are experimental models made to be looked at and learnt from. they are not safe to fly.
You can’t make planes at all without experimental planes. At some point, the work needs to make the transition from theory to practice - and that’s an experiment.
(And in the specific case of John Denver - he was a willing participant in the experiment)
John Denver? That’s the reason we should ban experimental planes?
The mind boggles.
Denver himself didn’t hit the water. His plane hit the water, and then he himself hit the instrument panel of his plane. From a blunt-force-on-his-body perspective, it probably wasn’t much different from hitting the ground. His Wikipedia article mentions that his head and body were badly disfigured in the impact, to the point that identification by dental record was not possible. Likely he wasn’t even aware of the impending impact: he was most likely struggling to switch the fuel valve behind his left shoulder, and didn’t even see the ocean coming up to meet him.
It was indeed an experimental plane, but the primary cause of the crash appeared to have been pilot error. The problem with the location of the fuel gauge and tank switch valve on his plane were welll known and understood, but he declined to address that problem adequately before his final flight, and he declined additional fuel before departure. It’s also worth noting that his medical certification had been revoked, so he was not flying legally that day.
So yes, it was an experimental plane, but I’ll blame pilot error. He’s a zombie now.
v^2=2as (v=velocity, a=32fps=gravity, s=distance to jump.)
(2)(32)(100)=6400 implies after 100 foot jump, you are doing 80 fps. (88fps=60mph).
from 200 feet, you are doing 113fps or about 77mph.
(Ignoring the growing air drag issue)
So a Golden Gate drop is about half terminal velocity; probably survivable if you prepare right and don’t drown after.
Doing a belly flop cannot be good in any circumstance, and from hundreds of feet will likely be fatal.
I recall reading about the search for remains of US airmen in Vietnam. They mentioned that they could tell the ones who died on impact inside their jet; at 600mph, the body fluids blew out the sides of their boots during sudden deceleration.
At what point does position at impact become irrelevant? There must be a certain entry speed that dictates a very high likelihood of death via deceleration injuries, regardless of posture. Can the approximate maximum high dive ceiling be calculated?
The key, as others mentioned, is how fast (therefore how energetically) you must displace water. For the same reason, we have sonic booms - at 600mph the air can’t get out of the way fast enough. At 120mph, if you have to displace the largest area of your body (bellyflop) you will stop very very quickly. Whack the tub with the flat of your hand - moving that water out of the way takes energy. OTOH, entering foot-first pointed, you move only a little water at a time. 120mph = 176fps, so about 1/30 of a second to displace the smallest crossection of your body area, gradually - toes, then thighs, then torso… The legs are taking the brunt of the work, which are considerably less fragile than a whack on the skull or slam to the ribcage.
My totally unprofessional inexperienced guess is that it is eminently survivable, but since very few people try it, fewwer have the ability and forethought to position themselves for entry, unconscious or injured is a possibility, and very few “lucky accident survivors” have someone around to retreive them afterward, they likely drown. Plus, as pointed out current and temperature shock do in people like the Golden Gate jumpers, even if they are conscious and try to survive.
Another interesting point - when I did skydiving training, I ran across something nobody warned me about - from about 100 or 50 feet up, I could see the landing field clearly, nothing but a wide expanse of grass, but had noreference unless I looked to the side - so as I approached the ground, I had no idea how high I was - 100 feet, 50 feet, or 20 feet? Until suddenly I was there. (fortunately the instructor, on the ground, kept telling me when to flare)
I imagine the problem is much worse going into the ocean. When do you switch from flat to pointed? Too early and you speed up quite a bit. (I recall a fellow who flew float planes, who used to do a pass and drop a medium sized rock before landing so he had ripples to give a height reference if the water was too glassy. In the winter he used the same trick to judge ice thickness while ski flying; drop a rock - if it bounces, the ice will hold you, if it goes through, find somewhere else.)
I’m still convinced that if someone tied a pointy, heavy object like a DU shell to their feet and jumped out of a stationary helicopter, the object would displace the water ahead of him to create a “tunnel” through the water, saving him from deceleration injuries. Then the only problem would be cutting away the object from one’s feet and returning to the surface in time.
Let’s assume that works, and creates a “crater” 10 feet deep. The only difference will be that you fall for an additional 10 feet before hitting the water.
Jesus.
I think the flaw to this method has already been pointed out. The shell would slow down much faster than the person and they would slam into it with great force.
However, this discussion does give me some insight as to how people can go over Niagara falls in a barrel. Lots of aerated water to ease entry, and a hard shell to protect you on impact. Since these folks were usually jammed in, there was little room inside for secondary impacts.
If you used an object with density and aerodynamic properties of a human body, this would be true. But if you have a heavy, high-density object with a pointy nose on it strapped to a jumper’s feet, it would decelerate more gently then a jumper’s unaccompanied body. The obvious example to demonstrate this is a pilot in a fighter aircraft flying along at 400 MPH. Engines off, the plane (with pilot in cockpit) decelerates at a modest rate. Pilot ejects himself into the slipstream, he experiences violent, injurious deceleration because he is very lightweight and unaerodynamic.
One problem of course is that a pointy-nosed appendage strapped to one’s feet increases one’s terminal velocity: you’ll hit the water harder than you otherwise would have.
Acceptance of a reasonably high failure rate probably also helps.
This is particularly bad over water, which, having fractal properties, looks pretty much the same from a wide range of heights. My guess is that anyone trying to pivot at the last second would be likely to do it too soon. That’s probably a lot better than too late! Despite this difficulty, that’s what I’d try to do.
My father (a Navy pilot back around 1960) told me that he learned about this in flight training. When you parachute into water, you’re supposed to release your canopy when (or immediately before) you make contact with the water, so any ambient wind doesn’t drag you through the surf in an uncontrolled manner. There were instances of some pilots mistakenly releasing their canopies when they were still fatally far above the water because they had misjudged their height.
“oops!”
While the surface tension myth is most certainly busted, I am certain that the damage is caused by sudden deceleration which would - at least marginally - be reduced by forming a tight upright, toes first, slanted dive position as opposed to “flopping” in the water.
Perhaps you would not survive a terminal velocity fall to water in this manner, but if I am ever in that situation, I believe my best chance of survival is to cut into the water as tightly as possible as opposed to firing a gun or dropping a hammer 
Thank you… I know have Sugar Free NOS all over my keyboard and strange co-worker looks from my outburst of lawls! :smack:
How close would a cliff diver in a sleek diving position be to terminal velocity? I ask because once that is reached (about 1000 feet in a non sleek/jumping position) then the height does not matter.
So if terminal velocity in that position is at say 250 feet, then 250 feet and 10,000 feet produce the same result (although I imagine keeping body position at upper heights is increasingly difficult to maintain).