If you fell from an airplane, what kind of padding would you have to have in order to survive the fall?

Question

Wasn't quite sure if this was the right place to put this question, but I think I'm in the right ballpark, at least.

Now, the answer to this question doesn't have to be that realistic (but let's not involve, say, magic or fairies, 'kay?), but if you fell full-distance from an airplane onto some sort of surface, what kind of padding (and how much of it) would you have to have on the ground in order to survive? Or is survival possible at all? I ask this because I know that even relatively non-solid surfaces (such as sand or water) would have no cushioning effect whatsoever--from that height, there's little difference between those and concrete.

Thanks!

Answer 1

The airbag that's inflated while you're falling is indeed the best bet. Its air resistance lowers your terminal velocity. It spreads your deceleration fairly uniformly over time. It spreads the force fairly uniformly over your body, minimizing the stress to any particular part like your legs or your head. I think you'd be surprised how small an airbag would prevent nearly all injury.

Answer 2

All you need is a big enough puddle of mud.

Tree limbs have ALSO been known to cushion a fall - with no working parachute at all. YES - believe it or not - people HAVE SURVIVED. Could they survive if they had to do it again? Maybe. Maybe not. An awful lot depends on luck.

And that's from a falling distance of about 2 miles high.

THINK TERMINAL VELOCITY.

You will break every single bone in your body, and it will take months before you can walk again. And it might take about a year before you can do anything competently - such as jump out of a perfectly good airplane once again. I'm not sure of the exact length of time for that - but it's AT LEAST a year.

I know all about this because I was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division for 7 years, 3 months, and 21 days. And how do I know that MUD will cushion the fall? Because I knew of a couple of people who did it. They were members of the army's Golden Knights Parachute Team, and routinely did free falls at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina.

It was a GIRL who hit the mud, during one of the times I know about. So the weaker sex isn't as weak as you might think. Another time it was a Staff Sergeant - but a guy this time. It was a few years before the girl, but he hit the mud also. So were they AIMING for the mud or WHAT? I don't know. You tell me. Your guess is as good as mine.

Although I don't personally know of anyone who hit the trees without a parashute, during the second World War - there are documented cases of paratroopers who survived when their shutes failed to deploy - and were lucky enough to hit the trees. The branches slow you down without decelerating too much.

YES - they will ALSO break every bone in your body.

From personal experience? None of my main parachutes ever failed to deploy. But I DID hit the ground in some places I would rather not have. Try landing in a sticker patch. Or getting dragged by high winds into a cactus, in the Mohave Desert.

Actually? A tree landing is one of the softest landings you can make. I remember once my parachute was caught between the branches of 3 different trees. My feet hit the ground. Then I bounced back up again - about 4 or 5 feet in the air. Then I plopped down on my rear end - in the middle of a swamp.

I never landed on water - so I can't tell you what that's like. But if you can survive a MUD PUDDLE with no parachute? I would think that the average person could survive water also; especially if they hit the water feet first.

I THINK YOUR BIGGEST PROBLEM WOULD BE DROWNING.

I don't know what terminal velocity is in the Earth's atmosphere, but I THINK it's around 130 - 200 miles an hour. Maybe 300 tops. That's just a ballpark figure - and I could easily be mistaken. But it's survivable - more so than you might think.

Are you trying to do this WITHOUT INJURY??? Or at least minimize the injury? My guess - and it's only a guess - is that an ordinary air bag will do. Something big - like the kind that stunt men use to jump off buildings with - should do the trick.

Oh yeah! That SAND you were talking about? I don't know what effect it will have on the human body - but if you drop an M-16 or AR-15 or M-60 machine gun into it at 1250 feet - it will be COMPLETELY BURIED into the ground.

Just thought I would throw that one in there for the hell of it. :)))))

Answer 3

And the respond isn't that straightforward. Weight (surely, mass) determines gravitational pull, and if there have been no air, cats, bowling balls, feathers, and each little thing else might strengthen up on the comparable value. In ecosystem, nonetheless, the cat's decrease acceleration may be, to an volume (unknown to me), offset by utilising air resistance. Mass, distribution, and shape are all factors. For a cat that has aligned its ft below it, a fall of 10,000 ft may be not greater (or much less) unfavourable than a fall from some hundred ft (making a usual guess, yet you get the assumption). additionally, a cat landing on all fours, and of direction greater proficient at breaking it is fall, might have the capacity to "cushion" it is impression lots greater useful than a human (nonetheless this will possibly no longer count lots because of the fact it would ensue over the area of decrease than a foot--yet nevertheless). besides, i'm no longer suggesting every physique ought to try this, or that i might place money on the percentages of survival in the event that they did, however the question is probable no longer so easy as some would suspect.

Answer 4

Thick enough padding so that it could be compressed over a long enough distance and time interval to limit the g-forces on your body to the survivable range. Big collapsible air mattresses are used by special effects crews for jumping off buildings, etc.

Here's how you can look at it. Assume a constant deceleration rate when hitting the pad. If you fall at say 170 fps, and want to limit the deceleration rate to say 30 g where g = 32.2 f/s2,
V_final = 0 = V_initial + a*t = 170 - (32.2 * 30) * t
for which t = 0.18 s

during this time, avg velocity V_avg = 170/2 = 85 fps

so distance s = V_avg * t = 85 * 0.18 = 15 ft

Pretty thick.

Answer 5

there have been cases where people have fallen into mud or haystacks and survived but to fall from an airplane with just some kind of padding, you would not survive. what kills people is the sudden stop! no joke intended. a falling body falls at about 120mph. when it hits the ground, all body parts (brain,heart,bones) are still traveling at 120mph. even with padding, it still trys to go from free fall to zero motion in about one-eight of a second. remember, the padding is going through the same physical changes as a falling body would so the padding would burst apart at its seams. adding it up: ground-1 falling body-0. padding would not help.

Answer 6

Well, a stewardess survived a fall from a Yugoslav airliner over Czechoslovakia once and an RAF airman survived a fall from his Lancaster bomber over Germany in World War 2. In both cases they fell on a layer of snow over pine needles.

Answer 7

from a commercial get going a long distance you would fall almost 40,000 feet so you would soffacate or freeze to death before you even hit the ground (its about -30 F at that height). You would need like 10 ft of memory foam if you did survive to the ground.

Answer 8

People have survived such falls unprotected - but rarely.

Other than a parachute the ony proven effective protection is air bags.

Answer 9

Hi. I assume you mean without injury. The terminal velocity of a skydiver in a stable spread position (really) is 125-130 MPH. You would need to absorb the force of a complete stop without exceeding about 9g. 1g is 32 feet per second per second. The rest is math.

Answer 10

It could be done if you were surrounded by large air bags. That's how the mars rovers landed (see link). If someone gave me enough money to be the first one to try it, I'd want the bags to be as big as the rovers' too. In addition to providing padding, air resistance would slow the decent because it's so big and light.