Marine pilot falls 3 miles lives

[AKSWulfe]

Sure, it's possible... but then again, I never said it was common or highly likely..

I mean, it's highly likely you'll survive if you get into the proper position and everything works your way...

then again, it's still highly improbable it will all come together and work in your favor.
-SW

[Monk]

I think I wrote that wrong, your right anything is possible. The question about the plane is a serious question. Would that be possible?

[AKSWulfe]

What kind of plane? How fast? What kind of clothes are you wearing? Do you fall to the ground and roll on soft, wet grass?

etc... there's a lot of factors that would play into this situation.

Dropping and rolling off a Cessna 172 in ski pants and a ski jacket into wet (or snowy) grass would be far more survivable than jumping off... well something going a lot faster over pavement or concrete with shorts and a T-Shirt on..
-SW

[SKurj]

Depends ... Monk.. too many variables...


SKurj

[MwRod]

All He says is he broke multiable bones in his legs and back but lived,  Remember you fall at about 120mph.

   what I need is ideas on how to find this mans name. any help would be nice.

[senna]

Thats amazing. Maybe its some aerodynamic up wind flow phenomena  thing that is self balancing and the guy isnt actually going so fast.

[Thrawn]

Maybe God didn't want him.  

[senna]

Im willing to bet though (my personal opinion) that he musta been yanking on the RIP like mad. Good thing for him he was lucky thus far or some see it as unlucky to begin with. He probably has a natural good frame work for that sorta thing, I mean landing like that and all and not dying. Anything past 40 mph is quite terminal, wierd how some make it and some dont. I goto see it to believe it though as there are alot of legends in this world, like bigfoot and the lochness etc... Rambo?

I've seen pictures of bigfoot and the lochness, looks real enough, still questionable though...

[Erlkonig]

Well, if you hit the water "just right" (fully extended like a pencil, feet first)... the chances of surviving that are fairly high.

But your feet can't be flat, otherwise they'll hit the water like their hitting the ground and buckle your legs.

This would be a great chance for a Darwin Award.  Any takers?

[fdiron]

I've read a whole book about parachuting accidents.  Yeah, many people have survived when their chutes didnt open at all.  Terminal velocity is ~120mph for a man, so its not that unbelivable.  Pine trees are very good for landing in.  While I havent seen anyone actually fall into a pine tree before, I have seen many balsa-wood r/c airplanes fly into pine trees and not have a scratch on them.

Heres some notable cases-  Lancaster tail gunner falls 20,000 feet after he starts to burn up and he falls into a pine tree and 18 inches of snow.  He breaks his pelvis and spends the rest of the war as a POW.

1950s fighter pilot bails out, ejection seat fails to seperate from him, he hits ground (amputates both legs) but survives.

A navy seal was doing a c-130 rope extraction (where a c-130 picks up a seal by flying low over the ground and snagging a rope attached to a seal).  Anways, the seal gets picked up, and the c-130 flys out over the ocean.  The rope breaks, so the seal angles his body at 45 degrees and stiffens up.  The force of the impact of the water was said to have cut the Seal in half.

[Elfenwolf]

If you fell from three miles up it would take you a minute and a half to hit the ground and I imagine by that time you'd have already gotten past the 10 seconds of "woe is me" and the 20 seconds of "I'll miss my wife and kids" and that still gives you a whole minute of the "I better learn how to fly" mindset. All this proves is that if man can't actually fly they can, indeed, flap their arms a la Sylvester the Cat when the tightrope breaks to at least come to a semi-controlled landing they may survive. That Marine adapted and overcame because that's what Marines do. Semper fi.

[senna]

Thats a toejamty way to die and a long time to be disappointed that you are about to meet your maker. Kinda makes you wish you were a giant on your way down like jack in the bean stock or something. Of all people, why my parachute.

[Fishu]

On Icebreakers (well, finnish virtual pilots) pages theres story of Brewster pilot who survived a direct crash in the ice.. not one of those 'crash landings' where pilots usually are still alive.

He dived dived and dived, then hit the ice and the collision ejected the seat, which then landed on the it's backside and then continued to ski on the ice, digging a tunnel in the snow, where from the pilot soon after woke up, still seated.
Everything left of the plane was some of the engine block and part of the tail.

[hblair]

How high does a person have to be to reach terminal velocity? And how fast is terminal velocity?

BTW, me and some buddies used to jump off some local bridges, one of which is about 60 ft high. Even at that seemingly short height, there was enough time in the fall to skeeer the crap outa you. Much arm wailing to get balance to point toes in and "toothpick" into the water. We thought we were brave mofo's just jumping from the sidewalk, til some crazy dude stood on the handrail and did a swan dive.

[fdiron]

Well, I'm horrible at math, but not counting wind resistance, a person would fall at 32 feet per second per second.  So at the end of the first second you would be falling 32 feet per second.  At the end of the 2nd second, you would be falling 64 feet per second.

60 mph is 88 feet per second, so 120mph (terminal velocity for a person falling flat) is 176 feet per second.