[HN Gopher] I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009) ___________________________________________________________________ I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009) Author : metadat Score : 498 points Date : 2022-10-26 14:41 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (uss-la-ca135.org) (TXT) w3m dump (uss-la-ca135.org) | a4isms wrote: | Pairs nicely with the story of bailing out of an SR-71 Blackbird: | | https://theaviationgeekclub.com/sr-71-pilot-explains-how-he-... | | Recent HN discussion (including links to prior discussions): | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31641716 | londons_explore wrote: | Airbags in cars self-test themselves every time you start the | engine. They test all the sensors and electrics (including the | explosive igniter). | | I would hope ejector seats do the same. If so, the fault must be | with the mechanical part. But OP does not describe the cabin | filling with dense white smoke as you'd expect from a rocket | propelled ejector seat. | | That tells me someone made a major design mistake with the | seat... and yet the US military decided not to go dig up the seat | to find what went wrong with it. | | Thats baaaaad... | bmitc wrote: | This was in 1963, so I don't think they had such automated | systems like that. Cars didn't even have airbags at the time. | And how are they supposed to dig up a seat at the bottom of the | Pacific Ocean? | Sharlin wrote: | Right, the F-8 (introduced in 1955) almost certainly doesn't | have a single transistor in it. Probably no vacuum tubes | either due to their fragility. It's all hydraulic or | electromechanical. | londons_explore wrote: | Apologies - I thought this was in 2009. | djmips wrote: | I remember reading stories written like this when I was a child | called Drama In Real Life - in Reader's Digest. | bentt wrote: | Totally! It even has the same cadence. I wouldn't be surprised | if this was in there at one point. | hbarka wrote: | Opposing anecdotes will not be available. | michael_fine wrote: | In a story of insane luck (and unluck!), the craziest part is | definitely this | | " He said that if I had had a spleen, it almost certainly would | have ruptured when I hit the water, and I would have bled to | death. Of the 25 pilots in our squadron, I am the only one | without a spleen. It gives me something to think about. Maybe it | does you as well." | Diesel555 wrote: | I thought the craziest part was where in this sequence of | events does the pilot say | | > "This is very serious," I thought. | | It's just after | | > "The main, 24-foot parachute was just flapping in the breeze | and was tangled in its own shroud lines. It hadn't opened! I | could see the white folds neatly arranged, fluttering feebly in | the air. | | So... after the flame-out, after the fire, after the lack of | radios, after the failed ejection, after the canopy manual | ejection, after jumping out of the plane, after not hitting the | tail, then after pulling his parachute and it doesn't open does | he finally think - man this is serious. | dctoedt wrote: | >> "This is very serious," I thought. | | That's typical of military pilots -- their ethos is to | present a calm, unruffled mien to the world. Phrases such as, | "I was a bit concerned" would translate as "I was _this_ | close to sh*tting my pants from terror " in normal human- | speak. | | (Source: Dad and sister were military pilots, plus my own | service aboard an aircraft carrier.) | | There's a great and probably-apocryphal story in Tom Wolfe's | book _The Right Stuff_ where a rookie Navy fighter pilot is | part of a dog fight with North Korean (probably Russian- | piloted) MIGs; the rookie is shouting excitedly into the | radio, "He's on my six! He's on my six!" Another American | Navy pilot responds, "Shut up and die like an aviator" -- as | in, _naval_ aviator. | tomcam wrote: | Damn check out /u/dctoedt's profile. It's not just his | father who's sickeningly accomplished. | https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dctoedt | dxbydt wrote: | aesop #1 - king spots an ant drowning in the pond. king uses a | leaf to rescue ant. courtiers admonish king for wasting his | busy schedule on trivia like ants. at night the king sleeps & | the snake opens his fangs to strike the king's leg. the ant | bites the king's toe & king moves his leg in the nick of time. | the next morning the king admonishes his courtiers - if not for | the ant i wouldn't be alive. | | aesop #2 - man falls off horse and breaks leg. pretty damsel | unwilling to wed man because he is lame. everyone says, you are | so unlucky. lost your leg. lost your lady. now what ? king | announces war and all the able men of the village are drafted. | our man stays home because he is lame. the able soldiers are | killed off by the enemy. pretty damsel marries sole surviving | lame man. | | many more where that came from :) | TrueSlacker0 wrote: | Sorta reminds me of the Zen Koan "Is That So" | | "The Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbours as one | living a pure life. | | A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store | lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents | discovered she was with child. | | This made her parents angry. She would not confess who the | man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin. | | In great anger the parent went to the master. "Is that so?" | was all he would say. | | After the child was born it was brought to Hakuin. By this | time he had lost his reputation, which did not trouble him, | but he took very good care of the child. He obtained milk | from his neighbors and everything else he needed. | | A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She | told her parents the truth - the real father of the child was | a young man who worked in the fish market. | | The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to | ask forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child | back. | | Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: | "Is that so?"" | Maursault wrote: | You've reminded me of the story of the Zen master and the | little boy from Charlie Wilson's War.[1] | | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2cjVhUrmII&t=0m38s | acidburnNSA wrote: | I was taught this by a Chinese culture coach. She said it | more like: | | Man's horse runs away: aww Horse returns, brings new wild | horse: yay new horse Son riding wild horse breaks leg: aww | War comes and takes able-bodied men: yay get to live | sverhagen wrote: | So, whether it's unluck or foul play involved, are we | supposed to be grateful for the survival, or grumpy about the | occurrence in the first place. Then, apply logic to the | deities in your life. | throw827474737 wrote: | Wow.. so much bad luck (the original failure, ejection failure, | parachute failure) countered by that much luck (not hitting the | plane during "manual" eject, not bleeding to death because | havin his spleen removed 4 years earlier) ..amazing | unbelievable story with some good end :) | cdelsolar wrote: | i didn't understand something. he said impact with the plane | tail will usually kill someone during a manual eject, but | why? the plane and the person are going at the same speed at | first? | tunesmith wrote: | It's why it was pretty brilliant that he skewed the plane. | elteto wrote: | "Rolled" :) | tgarv wrote: | Sounds more like a combination of pitch and yaw: "I | trimmed the aircraft to fly in a kind of sidelong skid: | nose high and with the tail swung around slightly to the | right" | elteto wrote: | That makes sense, it not only gets the tail out of the | way but also pushes it down, making it much more unlikely | to hit it as he gets sucked out. | Diesel555 wrote: | He skidded the airplane. He applied rudder trim so that | the tail was not directly behind the aircraft. He also | mentions trying to be nose high. | | What this would look like I think. Slow down to increase | angle of attack in level flight. The nose is now high | (likely already occurred after flameout and ejection | attempts without thinking about it - check). Go full | deflection rudder trim to skid the aircraft. Now trim the | ailerons and elevators to fly level based on drag and | adverse yaw. Get out. | csallen wrote: | As someone who doesn't fly planes, it's almost impossible | to understand this comment or the author's original | passage lol | suzzer99 wrote: | Until the air catches the person and slows them down much | faster than the aerodynamic and much heavier (attached to | the plane) tail fin. | bbojan wrote: | The airplane is dense and very aerodynamic. We would say it | has a high ballistic coefficient [1]. | | The pilot is light would leave the cockpit flat or even | bent over, which is a very non-aerodynamic shape. His | ballistic coefficient would be low. He would decelerate | quickly, and the tail would catch up with him and slam him | from behind. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_coefficient | Guest9081239812 wrote: | Imagine pushing a balloon out of your car window while | driving on the highway and taking your foot off the | accelerator. It doesn't float outside the window beside | you, but it comes to a stop almost in an instant. | quickthrower2 wrote: | Go into neutral would be better comparison but the same | thing would happen. | rainbringer2000 wrote: | After seeing the video of the fellow in the base jumping incident | last week, this feels extra poignant. Glad this guy survived to | talk about it. | cat_plus_plus wrote: | Not to diminish anything about the story, but he had a pilot | chute and a tangled main chute while falling, lowering terminal | velocity and allowing him to land feet first. The rest is up to | luck, like landing in turbulent water with lowered surface | tension. To be fair, there are several stories of survival even | without anything to slow the fall out there. | [deleted] | bmitc wrote: | "Jesus Christ!" is my only reaction. This guy survived a sequence | of catastrophes, any one of which could have killed him: fire in | a plane, failed ejection and being ripped out of the plane, | parachute not deploying and hitting water, and being in open | ocean for a few hours. | | I do wonder how in the world he survived hitting the water. Is it | just that he hit the jackpot in terms of his entry angle, body | position, clothing or boots, and/or likely hitting the water at a | crest or something where the surface tension was broken up a bit? | ars wrote: | Re: surface tension, see my reply here: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33348619 | sharadov wrote: | What is insane is that after falling in the water he was still | conscious and had the presence of mind to cut the parachute | chords. How do you retain all your bearings after multiple | things going wrong and just not give up? Testament to his fight | to live ( am sure he's unique in that respect). | cm42 wrote: | Constant training, even/especially in bad weather, and | constantly preparing for specific tasks like this. | | "Amateurs practice till they get it right; professionals | practice till they can't get it wrong." | bmitc wrote: | Is that your quote or did you get it from somewhere? It's | really good. | codegeek wrote: | Can I steal this quote. | cm42 wrote: | Meanwhile, on the internet: meh, Wikipedia has a table with | bigger numbers. | dctoedt wrote: | Something similar happened to my dad (USAF fighter pilot) in | around 1961 or 62: He was test-flying a T-33 single-engine jet | trainer assigned to his unit after it'd had repair work. The | engine quit and wouldn't restart. He ejected, but his parachute | didn't deploy fully (much the same as in the article) and he got | tangled in the shrouds. He said a quick Hail Mary just before | crashing head-first in a muddy, fresh-plowed field. The pilot of | another plane in the area saw the crash and radioed the tower to | send the meat wagon and not the ambulance, but my dad walked away | with just a headache -- and with his helmet split open like a | melon. The impact apparently damaged his inner ear: five years | later he started getting vertigo while aloft, and soon afterwards | got medically grounded. (That meant he lost the extra flight pay | and was reduced to his base pay, with four school-aged kids while | stationed in the Washington DC area -- to make ends meet, my | mother had to go back to work as an RN [registered nurse].) | | EDIT: What I remember was that when my dad crashed (see above), | my mom came to get me from playing with the neighbor kids in | their yard. Dad had called her from the flight surgeon's office | and told her about the crash (very nonchalantly, she later said), | and that he was OK. So six-year-old me blithely went on playing. | Of course, my mom had been living with that possibility all their | married life .... | BolexNOLA wrote: | >and soon afterwards got medically grounded -- which meant he | lost flight pay, with four school-aged kids while stationed in | the Washington DC area; my mother had to go back to work as an | RN (registered nurse) to make ends meet. | | That's so, so wrong. | otikik wrote: | Not only it's inhumane, it's also stupid: it incentivizes | pilots who have problems like that to hide them, instead of | coming forward. | Diesel555 wrote: | I'm not sure I agree with the inhumane (flight pay is an | incentive pay where without it pilots still make the same | pay as the rest of the military their rank), but I can | confirm the stupidity of the policy. Usually anyone | medically interacting with a fighter pilot on an issue that | could be grounding must spend some time gaining trust for | the pilot to be completely open with them. The result of | this policy is normally that pilots are completely fine - | until they are completely broken. | tyingq wrote: | For some context, "flight pay" ranges from $150/month to | $400/month today, depending on tenure. A brand new | lieutenant has a ~$41k base salary, a 4-year captain | ~$65k. So it's not a small incentive, but not huge | either. There are other things like base housing (or a | housing allowance), overseas pay, etc, that bump up | overall comp a bit. | Blackthorn wrote: | Indeed, this is exactly how the FAA medical system works. | People either avoid medical care, or conceal it by paying | in cash for everything, rather than risking their medical | status. | dctoedt wrote: | According to my dad, flight surgeons are the natural | enemies of military pilots. | the__alchemist wrote: | Depends. Fighter squadrons generally have their own | dedicated in-house flight doc. They stop by the squadron | regularly, hang out outside work, deploy and go TDY with | you etc. The good ones will do their best not to screw | you over. It's best to be guarded against anyone external | though! | ghoward wrote: | Yes, absolutely. | | I have a pilot acquaintance that would refuse to go to the | doctor when he was younger. | | I also tried to become a pilot, but because of a documented | history of taking anti-depressants, the FAA grounded me for | life, despite being years removed from needing them. [1] I | wish that history was _not_ documented. | | [1]: https://gavinhoward.com/2022/09/grounded-for-life- | losing-the... | dmitrygr wrote: | Are you sure? Last I checked (a friend was on anti- | depressants), as long as you only want a private (not | commercial or ATP), a year off the meds or a year at a | stable dose and a letter from your doc that you're ok | will be enough to get a 3rd class medical. | ghoward wrote: | I have been denied a medical by the Federal Air Surgeon. | I have the personal letter from her to prove it. | | This is usually done on a case-by-case basis; I just | happened to come down on the unlucky end of it. | dmitrygr wrote: | Sorry, that sucks. There is hope that MATRIX will allow | more small planes to be piloted without a medical. Hang | in there. | mewse-hn wrote: | This guy survived his gas tank popping like a balloon inside his | supersonic fighter jet, his eject mechanism failing, his backup | eject mechanism failing, and his parachute not opening | eagsalazar2 wrote: | The odds of all those failures seems impossibly high. I wonder | if the exploding fuel tank and/or resulting fire is what | damaged the eject mechanism? | frontman1988 wrote: | I have often wondered if some airbag/spring like device could be | created that can save a freefalling person upon impact. A lot of | people die in paragliding, skydiving, small aircraft crashes etc. | Would be cool if some of those lives could be saved. | ksherlock wrote: | Another interesting incident was Lt Col William Rankin who fell | from a distance of 40,000 feet through a thunderstorm. Due to the | updrafts, it took 40 minutes while he went up and down like a yo | yo. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rankin | robswc wrote: | Sorta related... I just remember having my mind absolutely blown | when I learned about terminal velocity. It never made sense to me | as a kid how small things could fall from relatively greater | heights yet humans couldn't do even a few stories. | merely-unlikely wrote: | "To the mouse and any smaller animal gravity presents | practically no dangers. You can drop a mouse down a thousand- | yard mine shaft; and, on arriving at the bottom it gets a | slight shock and walks away, provided that the ground is fairly | soft. A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes. For | the resistance presented to movement by the air is proportional | to the surface of the moving object. Divide an animal's length, | breadth, and height each by ten; its weight is reduced to a | thousandth, but its surface only a hundredth. So the resistance | to falling in the case of the small animal is relatively ten | times greater than the driving force" | | https://www.phys.ufl.edu/courses/phy3221/spring10/HaldaneRig... | robswc wrote: | Exactly! Still blows my mind to this day. | | Maybe because "falling" is such a simple thing and | experienced by almost all land animals... and just changing a | few properties can mean the difference of life or death. | | After learning about it as a kid, I thought "if I ever get in | a plane crash, I just need to grab stuff to fall less fast | and maybe I'll survive." (which is not realistic at all but | you know, lol) | [deleted] | merely-unlikely wrote: | It amazes the quantity of resources that will sometimes be | deployed to rescue a sole man (or a handful) lost at sea. Not to | say this is a bad thing; I would certainly appreciate it if I | were lost at sea. But it might be questionable to a pure | utilitarian. | | I counted at least one plane, two ships, and a helicopter all | being diverted for the rescue. That's a great deal of expense in | terms of fuel, I assume hundreds of crew, and lost time in | whatever they were supposed to be doing. | | One might argue that the pilot himself is a valuable resource to | the military (cost of training plus his experience, fighter | pilots aren't cheap) but there are similar rescues of civilians | every once in a while. | imdoor wrote: | The "pure utilitarian" viewpoint never made much sense to me | because it seems to usually imply accounting for only first | order effects, when calculating some costs and gains, and | stopping there. I think the secondary effects of not saving | people might go far beyond some saved fuel and time in such | situations (especially in war, as some have mentioned here). | | In other words, optimizing some aspects of a very complex and | well functioning system, such as society, locally is likely to | mess things up globally. | excite1997 wrote: | > questionable to a pure utilitarian. | | So is most of human existence. "Efficient allocation of all | resources" isn't a common life goal... | Pasorrijer wrote: | Forbes estimates a basic, entry level fighter pilot costs about | $5.6m to $10m+ to train. | | An experienced pilot, obviously, is even more... But that gives | you an idea of the starting value of a pilot! | piyh wrote: | And on the utilitarian front, the first hand knowledge of the | failure. | louison11 wrote: | I'd say this is actually when you see the true purpose of a | military shine: protect its people. It doesn't matter how much | it costs. This is real love and sacrifice right here. I read | that and although I'm not American, I felt very patriotic. What | a great attitude and effort all the people involved brought. | otikik wrote: | I read it differently. I think it's a tradeoff: they know | that if they don't do that sort of expenditure, troop morale | will go down and they will have a less effective group | anyway. So they take the lesser hit. | jondeval wrote: | I think in practice there is no 'they' where some sort of | single bean-counter trade-off decision is made to compute | an abstract utility function that weighs troop morale | against expenditure. | | More realistically, it's a human decision making process | where everyone quickly aligns to do whatever it takes to | rescue the downed pilot. I've seen first hand how US | military members think in real life situations like this. | Everyone acts without a hint of self-interest around the | clock until they have exhausted all options. | | In fairness, it helps that it's the US military and money | is typically of no concern in operational settings. :-) | tevon wrote: | From a utilitarian standpoint my guess is that the payoff is | confidence. | | Every sailor on those ships watched them send everything they | had to rescue the pilot. Every one of them repeats this story. | And every kid/new recruit hears it. My guess is that it | instills a sense of safety where there isn't any. | | I certainly feel safer traveling abroad knowing the lengths | America generally goes to rescue its own. | merely-unlikely wrote: | > From a utilitarian standpoint my guess is that the payoff | is confidence. | | That's definitely part of the rational behind the more | general duty to provide assistance at sea: | | "A master or individual in charge of a vessel shall render | assistance to any individual found at sea in danger of being | lost, so far as the master or individual in charge can do so | without serious danger to the master's or individual's vessel | or individuals on board." | | https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/46/2304 | ars wrote: | During a shooting war the calculation might change, but in | times of peace what else are you thinking they are doing that | is so much more important? | codefoster wrote: | It's foolish for the pure utilitarian to leave the human factor | out of the equation. Or perhaps his error is to consider | dollars to be the ultimate commodity. Really, we as humans work | for a much more valuable commodity than money. The fighting of | the war in the first place is a human attempt at creating a | good story (of a country that actually realizes peace and | prosperity). The saving of one man (whether soldier or | civilian) is yet another attempt at such a story. It's the | human way. | merely-unlikely wrote: | Everyone in this thread has made good points and I don't | disagree with any of them. Nor would I advocate to change | policies here. My comment was really a surface level reaction | to the number of resources deployed that I wouldn't expect to | see living in the city for example. I almost deleted the | comment right after posting but it was already generating | discussion so I thought I'd leave it. | | > Or perhaps his error is to consider dollars to be the | ultimate commodity. | | I was thinking (from a utilitarian perspective) about where | those dollars could have been deployed to have a larger human | benefit. Ie if the operation cost $500k (I really don't have | good numbers on this but two military ships + the aircraft | are not cheap) how else could you use that $500k to help | people in need. | EarthLaunch wrote: | I liked your original comment, not because I agreed or | disagreed with the utilitarian angle, but because it raised | the most interesting emotional aspect of this story. Thanks | for making it. | kortilla wrote: | You're discounting the morale destruction of leaving your | teammates to die to save gas costs. | | > I assume hundreds of crew, and lost time in whatever they | were supposed to be doing. | | They aren't producing widgets. They are mostly idle or training | for a real event anyway. This was a good training exercise at a | minimum. | dr_dshiv wrote: | What else would those resources have been doing anyway? | lefstathiou wrote: | My childhood best friend went into the Army to be a Ranger. He | once told me that there is basically no higher priority event | than a search and rescue mission. Down to a man, if you are | captured, or at risk of capture, special forces and black hawks | get called in with the ability to use any means necessary to | get you out of there alive. He said it was an extreme source of | pride for him personally to see how far they went to save their | men on the ground and that this policy empowered you to fight | harder and more confidently knowing that the full force of the | US military was behind you (ie "no soldier left behind") | | While I am no expert on these things, a few of the videos / | articles / images I've seen of Russians fighters in Ukraine | lead me to believe they don't feel this similar level of | support from their armed forces, which could be contributing | adversely to the outcome (from their perspective). | dctoedt wrote: | See, e.g., the unbelievable heroics -- and losses -- in | rescuing a shot-down American flier during (what we call) the | Vietnam war, including a Navy SEAL who was awarded* the Medal | of Honor for his astonishing feats in finally getting the guy | out more than ten days after he was downed. | | * For those who don't know: Recipients of medals for valor in | combat (I'm not a member of that august group) don't like it | when people say they "won" the medals, because all too often | some of their friends died in the engagement; the preferred | usage is that someone "received" or "was awarded" the medal | in question. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_Bat_21_Bravo | yamtaddle wrote: | In the civilian cases, there may be large economic benefits to | the way people behave when they expect rescue if something goes | wrong, even if very few particular rescues make economic sense | _per se_. | | There's likely a similar argument to made for the military, but | involving morale and willingness to take personal risks in | emergencies or times of war. _Esprit de Corps_ and all that. | | These both in addition to all other arguments in favor of such | rescues. | dctoedt wrote: | > _There 's likely a similar argument to made for the | military, but involving morale and willingness to take | personal risks in emergencies or times of war. Esprit de | Corps and all that._ | | Yup. But it's not a conscious calculation; more like a primal | urge (or so I'm told, by people like my dad, who had first- | hand experience fighting in the Korean War). | yamtaddle wrote: | Oh, I'm sure it is, probably pretty far up the command | structure, and even all the way to the top, depending on | the people involved, let alone for those close to the | action. But even the bean-counters may not question it or | try to curb the practice, no matter how cold-hearted they | may be, because it may _in fact_ be a good use of money. | madrox wrote: | This reminds me of the articles attempting to calculate how | much we've spent fictionally bringing Matt Damon back from | places [1] and a line from the end of The Martian: "But really, | they did it because every human being has a basic instinct to | help each other out. It might not seem that way sometimes, but | it's true." | | 1: https://time.com/4162254/cost-of-rescuing-matt-damon/ | Rebelgecko wrote: | On top of the morale reasons that lots of people mentioned, the | opportunity cost isn't necessarily as bad as it sounds. Pilots | need a certain # of hours every year. If the option is "spend | 40 hours this month doing training exercises" vs "spend 40 | hours saving a pilot", the utilitarian argument becomes a bit | weaker. Especially if search & rescue is part of their regular | duties. | | Similar for sailors. They get paid the same whether they're | rescuing someone or drawing figure-8s in the middle of the | ocean. | pge wrote: | It's also (as I understand it) international law at sea that it | is the duty of any ship able to help to go the aid of a | distressed ship/person. | soegaard wrote: | Here is the amazing story of a controlled ejection from a Danish | F16: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz4vKMsUvpE | NikolaNovak wrote: | The whole description is wordy but astonishing. | | It is strange that the part that strikes me the most though is | this one: | | "The Coast Guard amphibian gained altitude and flew off. (I | learned later that he headed for a squadron of minesweepers that | was returning to the United States from a tour of the Western | Pacific. He was unable to tune to their radio frequency for | communications. But this ingenious pilot lowered a wire from his | aircraft and dragged it across the bow of the minesweeper, the | USS Embattle. The minesweeper captain understood the plea, and | veered off at top speed in my direction.)" | | That is such a fascinating operational ingenuity by the pilot and | the captain, I am thoroughly impressed! | Test0129 wrote: | I was under the impression that for non-surfaced subs the only | way to communicate them was to fly close to the surface and | lower a boom into the water. Is that not the case? | idontwantthis wrote: | Minesweepers are surface vessels | Test0129 wrote: | Oh good point. For some reason my mind was fixated on | submarines lol. | fit2rule wrote: | crdrost wrote: | These aren't subs, they are ships. I would imagine the plane | circled overhead at a low altitude several times, tried to | get their attention, kept going away and seeing if they would | follow, kept going back when they didn't. And people on the | ship were probably looking up being like, "what's his deal?" | | A "shot across the bows" is a colloquial expression for a | warning demanding imminent action. The idea was that long ago | if you couldn't communicate with some other ship, your last | ditch effort to tell them to stop "or else" was to fire a | cannonball over the nose (the bow) of the ship, so that you | do not damage the ship but they would definitely see it and | know you mean business. | | So I imagine someone on this plane using the colloquial | expression was just like "dammit! Follow us!! What more of a | shot across the bows do you need?!" And someone else was like | "you mean a literal one? I have some cable here, you drag | that a few meters above the deck I bet it will make a | terrible noise." or something. | the-printer wrote: | The dynamics of how humans can communicate with each other, | especially in spontaneous occasions like this, are so | interesting. | | From what you're explaining, the expression wasn't | something necessarily standardized "code yellow" sort of | thing. Could two novices been able to convey or comprehend | the meaning between themselves? | | With stories like this, who needs film! | jrumbut wrote: | It's also possible that the ship was already aware of a | lot of context, or perhaps after seeing the plane they | called to another ship and got the story. | rootusrootus wrote: | > Could two novices been able to convey or comprehend the | meaning between themselves? | | Maybe not for a towed line, though the shot across the | bow is probably intuitive. That's essentially the same | thing bees will do to warn you away from their hive. | mjochim wrote: | In German, we have almost the same expression, "ein Schuss | vor den Bug." Literally, it translates to "a shot in front | of the bow." I never thought about where it came from. | Interesting to learn. | | The expression has somehow always felt more like a frontal | attack that stops right before actually hitting you. But my | head may have conflated it with "jemandem etwas vor den | Latz knallen," which translates to "slap something in front | of somebody's bib." | LorenPechtel wrote: | Even without that--if an aircraft that I have identified as | an emergency services craft indicates a direction to me I'm | going to figure there's some reason I should be heading in | that direction. They clearly know something I don't. | jjwiseman wrote: | Submarines under the surface can receive VLF signals. The | signals are broadcast from either land stations[0], or | aircraft[1] trailing a 5-mile-long wire antenna (the aircraft | fly in a circle so the antenna is mostly vertical). Subs can | extend a long antenna below the surface in order to receive | the signals[2]. | | 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lualualei_VLF_transmitter 1. | https://twitter.com/lemonodor/status/1312134472280633345 2. | https://twitter.com/thenewarea51/status/1347668162406477824 | [deleted] | otikik wrote: | I didn't understand this, is "lowering a wire" an expression? | did the airplane just literally throw a very long comms cable | to the minesweeper? How did they "understand the plea" and knew | where to go? | [deleted] | suzzer99 wrote: | It's like Lassie barking at the family that Timmy has fallen | down a well. | jacksonkmarley wrote: | > The whole description is wordy | | I for one really enjoyed reading this story, it was quite | exciting and I never noticed anything 'wordy' about it. I | thought it was very well written. | NikolaNovak wrote: | I meant it as a relatively neutral descriptor. | | In modern day and age, this would frequently be shared as a | 20word phrase on tranquil image background on Facebook. | | Compared to that, this is "wordy" - which some of us will | enjoy (I did too:), others will not. | jacksonkmarley wrote: | I'm glad you also enjoyed the story! In that case perhaps | we just have a difference in our definitions, since I would | interpret 'wordy' as implying some disapproval at an excess | of words. | slingnow wrote: | If your definition of "wordy" is "anything longer than a 20 | word phrase", I mean, I don't know what to say really. Your | response to OP was definitely wordy then. And so is this | response. | | You've basically redefined the word so that it no longer | has any meaning. | NikolaNovak wrote: | I think your response was sarcastic but I actually fully | agree - yes language changes, cultural & social norms | change. Today in 2022, based on average of media creation | & consumption, this article is wordy (or "long form", if | we feel "wordy" is loaded with negative connotation:). It | would not have been wordy in different times & places. | | I _like_ long form. I like essays and articles and | geeking out and getting in depth of things. But I 'm not | oblivious that majority of media consumption is swiping | on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook. | nashashmi wrote: | "I like twitter" | Vox_Leone wrote: | I want to believe that there is still an audience for | long form. Besides, great debates can't be carried out | with 20-word pieces. Long form blogs of the web 1.0 were | instrumental for the tech environment we have today. I | would say that "you want to make articles as short as | possible, but not shorter" [0] | | [0]https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/374887/mea | ning-o... | NikolaNovak wrote: | I feel there's perception that by labeling this article | as "wordy", I have _also_ made far more reaching implicit | claims such as | | * Wordy is bad | | * There's no room in this world for wordy/long-form | | * I am a proponent of 20-word Facebook posts, they are | awesome and a pinnacle of human achievement and we should | all use them going forward | | I have not made such a claim in the initial post and have | made substantial effort to explicitly indicate thusly | since. Lord knows nobody ever labeled _me_ as "succinct" | :-D | | My old co-worker had a term "We are in violent | agreement", and I feel that's what's happening here :-> | fxleach wrote: | Indeed I felt that way too when reading passages such as: | | "As I was looking around, I was struck for an instant by | the eeriness of the scene: here I was, attached, like an | unwanted child, by an umbilicus to a gargantuan mother who | was fleeing across the sky at 200 knots as though from some | unnamed danger. Far below us was a broken layer of clouds | that filtered the sun glare over the Pacific." | | Wonderfully poetic and I enjoyed it, but yes, wordy. | [deleted] | hsnewman wrote: | larrik wrote: | Are you serious? How long do you need this title to be? | Jtsummers wrote: | There is a long standing tradition on HN to complain about | titles that don't totally and completely accurately capture | the message of the article, such that the article is a mere | 1000 word bit of fluff to the tweet-sized message itself. Any | title short of that measure is clickbait or just wrong. Best | option is to ignore them. | mikestew wrote: | Captain Pedantic[0] also seems to be under the illusion | that the title is exclusionary. Quite the contrary: many, | many people can fall from 15K feet altitude and live, and | the title will be just as accurate. | | [0] Kidding aside, I take it to be just a poorly-executed | attempt at humor. | kube-system wrote: | No, they typically keep their spacecraft much warmer. | googlryas wrote: | If you're going to be pedantic, at least be correct. "Absolute | zero" is basically always referring to temperature, and space | is not absolute zero. You're probably thinking of zero g. And | in any case, zero g isn't even pedantically correct because | you're still in Earth's gravitational field, so it should | really be something like zero g-forces. | vikingerik wrote: | "Microgravity" is the usual term for orbit - it's never quite | zero, due to irregularities in the Earth's mass distribution, | the tidal differential across the span of your body or the | spacecraft, and also influence from the moon and sun. There | are also nonzero forces other than gravity acting on the | spacecraft, in atmospheric drag, radiation pressure, and | thermal emission, so "free fall" isn't quite fully correct | either. | trelane wrote: | Yep. And not even _absolue zero_ is so absolute.[0] | | Zero gravity? Then why are you orbiting? | | [0] https://www.quantum-munich.de/119947/Negative-Absolute- | Tempe... | [deleted] | smugma wrote: | I wasn't sure if it was real or fan fiction. But Googling his | name turns up an IMDB account of the story (still doesn't answer | the question) but also a link to the article from the Marion | Military Institute: | | https://marionmilitary.edu/grit-profile-cliff-judkins-56-sur... | | Amazing story. | fauria wrote: | Related to this, in 2012 Gary Connery [1] landed a wingsuit over | cardboard boxes [2], and in 2016 Luke Aikins [3] jumped from | 25000 feet (~7600 metres) without a parachute, landing into a | giant net that absorbed the impact [4]. | | There has been issues of BASE jumpers accidentally landing | wingsuits without deploying a parachute too (can't find any | reference online at the moment). | | [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Connery | | [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEP8juRSBRo | | [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_Aikins | | [4] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTTOnvvEpn0 | scarier wrote: | Classic "screamer" failure--the tag line is that you have the | rest of your life to figure it out. "The Man Who Rode The | Thunder" is another classic parachute story worth reading. | rootusrootus wrote: | This happened in 1963. Planes had only been flying for 60 years | at that point; it really is pretty amazing how quickly we | progressed on technology during those early years. We still fly | 737s, which are descended from a design that first flew in 1967. | As well as the C130, which was part of this story. And don't get | me started on B-52s, which are even older. | | We have made great strides since then, of course, but it does | feel like 90% of the fundamental aviation technology we have | today was created just in the first few decades. | vuln wrote: | The U-2 was 1955-1957 still flying today. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_U-2 | zugi wrote: | Some things are limited by unchanging physics, like what shapes | work aerodynamically, limitations imposed by the speed of | sound, the maximum amount of thrust that can be generated by a | kilogram of fuel, and so forth. Once humans figure out what | basically works, we keep making incremental improvements | towards optimality given the physical constraints. In such | scenarios the first steps always look the biggest. | | The Boeing 787 Dreamliner doesn't look very different from the | 737 and its predecessors. But under the hood are some | revolutionary technologies: fly-by-wire all-electronic | controls, and construction primarily from carbon fiber | composite materials rather than the traditional steel, | aluminum, and titanium. It's actually pretty revolutionary, but | it still looks and feels like a fairly normal plane, because | it's the physics of air flow that dictates basic things like | shape. | bobthepanda wrote: | Right. | | There have always been novel concept planes but they usually | fall apart for practical reasons | | * SSTs like Concorde use a lot more fuel and have to be | narrow, to the point of sacrificing comfort | | * blended wings are not desirable for passenger comfort; | people like windows and _hate_ middle seats | | * airplanes have to fit within the constraints at operating | at airports that currently exist. Cities are not going to | build new airfields or modify existing ones for billions of | dollars for what might be a technological fad instead of a | long term improvement, so you pretty much need to fit | existing gates, existing runway widths and weight limits, | etc. The A380 needed such modifications and therefore could | not be flown everywhere. | blauditore wrote: | For many of these physical boundaries, airplanes (as well as | cars) are nowhere near the limits. E.g. fuel efficiency of | engines is usually well below 50%. | ISL wrote: | > We have made great strides since then, of course, but it does | feel like 90% of the fundamental aviation technology we have | today was created just in the first few decades. | | That's because the seminal work rapidly evolved into something | that's good-enough, and in some cases, close to optimal. | | If you look around, wherever you're sitting, you'll find plenty | of other human-engineered objects from a similar design- | trajectory. | | My coffee mug looks a whole lot like cups from Mesopotamia and | earlier. | soperj wrote: | On the other hand snowshoes though look nothing like | snowshoes from 50 years ago. | djmips wrote: | 'nothing like' is quite the hyperbole - but yes even | airplanes and computers are quite a bit more advanced than | F-8 Crusaders and Whirlwind machines of 1955. Probably at | least as much more than snowshoe advances. It's just the | basics are all still there. | andrepd wrote: | The thing that throws me the most is that in 1901 we had the | first powered heavier-than-air flight, a flimsy thing which | flew for a few minutes; by 1915 there were thousands of | aircraft routinely running all sorts of missions in the war. | | But to be fair, the Wright brothers first flight might be the | start of an era, but the history of aviation has at least 1 | century of intense experimentation and developing leading up to | that. | djmips wrote: | The same is true of computers which seem to have been created | in practically final form so concisely summarized by | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Draft_of_a_Report_on_the... | | On a whim I have investigated old computer architectures and | was surprised to find myself completely at home despite when | they call the 'instructions' 'orders'. :) | suzzer99 wrote: | Which is why software patents are so silly. When it's all 1s | and 0s under the covers, everything else just flows | logically. | gibspaulding wrote: | The progress of aviation technology fascinates me. We went from | the wright flyer to the B-52 in just 50 years and then in the | next 70 years went from the B-52 to... pretty much still the | B-52 (at least in terms of payload/range/airspeed). | | You could probably come up with something similar to Moore's | law for for those stats over those first 50 years. Makes me | wonder if/when computing will reach a similar plateau. It's | felt like we're close for a while, but at least if you allow | for a somewhat flexible definition, it just keeps trucking | along. | [deleted] | pcurve wrote: | I think the progress is mainly limited by cost of fuel and | sonic boom. But progress has been made in so many other | areas. Planes are safer quieter lighter and more reliable. | Some parts of computers also stopped progressing. For example | keyboards haven't changed much and neither have laser | printers. ;) | TrapLord_Rhodo wrote: | Progress is limited by security clearance. | | The US has incredible aircraft but no incentive to 'share'. | wbl wrote: | The USAF was third in the world for supersonic flight | hours in the 1990's. First was British Airways second was | Air France. | bobthepanda wrote: | The military doesn't optimize for fuel burn though, which | limits practicality in the cutthroat commercial sector. | 10000truths wrote: | Commercial supersonic flight has been done before with | the Concorde and the Tu-144. While it might not be as big | a money maker as standard commercial flights, I'm sure | there are people willing to shell out big bucks to reduce | their 15-hour flight to 3 hours. | tedunangst wrote: | Nobody is building passenger jets that go Mach 5. | 10000truths wrote: | Yeah, the numbers I wrote are rather exaggerated. But | even just the Mach 2 that the Concorde could achieve | would halve long-distance travel times. | bobthepanda wrote: | Because of the fuel burn, they also don't go that far. | Military supersonic planes regularly do aerial refueling | to make up for it. | | At the kind of range that Concorde and the Tu-144 | operated at, you can either spend three hours in a plush | but narrow seat, or you can leave at night in a lie-flat | business seat and wake up refreshed after a 6-8 hour | sleep. | lambda wrote: | We basically built towards a local maximum of what's | physically possible for fossil-fuel powered sub-sonic | aircraft; we also pushed into super-sonic, but the efficiency | and noise pretty much preclude that for all but military and | niche commercial operations. | | However, there have been huge improvements in other areas, | like efficiency and safety. Take a look at this fatal | accident charts, and remember that aviation usage has been | growing in the meantime, so rates per passenger and per | passenger mile have been improving even more than this shows. | | https://aviation-safety.net/graphics/infographics/Fatal- | Acci... | jefftk wrote: | _> remember that aviation usage has been growing in the | meantime, so rates per passenger and per passenger mile | have been improving even more than this shows_ | | We can chart that directly, and I agree it's impressive: ht | tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#/media/File:Fa. | .. | lambda wrote: | Yep, thanks! Was looking for a chart like that but didn't | find one on a quick search. | | And yeah, that's a huge improvement in safety. So while | the general shape of airplanes, and range and speed might | seem similar, the airplanes themselves and the whole | ecosystem around them (pilots, maintenance, airline and | airport ops, air traffic control, and so on) are far | safer. | aidenn0 wrote: | And microcomputers are not yet 60 years old... | londons_explore wrote: | There were a lot of technical failures here... | | I wonder if OP was _very_ unlucky, or if perhaps many of the | rarely used bits of safety equipment perhaps aren 't as well | designed and robust as they ought to be... | jeffrallen wrote: | I work in aviation, and every one of these stories grips me. The | complexity of the systems the military uses is enormous, but I | especially liked the tremendous effort the Navy put into getting | him to a hospital on land within hours. | thrdbndndn wrote: | Previous discussion: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15480334 | dang wrote: | Thanks! Macroexpanded: | | _I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15480334 - Oct 2017 (246 | comments) | the__alchemist wrote: | > At that time no one knew why his aircraft had flamed out. We | all supposed it had been some freak accident that sometimes | happens with no explanation. One thing we knew for sure, it was | not pilot error. This accident had to be some kind of mechanical | malfunction, but what? Our squadron had a perfect safety record | and was very disturbed because of the loss of an airplane the day | before. | | Today in peacetime if this happened, they might ground the fleet | depending on the details and leadership risk climate. If it were | pilot error, this would be less concerning, since the cause would | be known, and not to cause future problems (other than training- | related concerns like if others would make the same mistake) A | rogue mechanical failure that causes a crash/bailout is very | concerning! | | Risk tolerance was probably higher back then. | cm42 wrote: | > "This is very serious," I thought. | | Pilots are some of my favorite people. | trelane wrote: | And they say _Brits_ are the kings of understatement. :) | lkrubner wrote: | This doesn't seem like a big deal, since it is only 15,000 feet | and he had the help of an unopened parachute, which certainly | slowed his descent, even though it didn't slow his descent | enough. | | By contrast, Vesna Vulovic fell 33,000 with no parachute to help | her, and she also lived. | | https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9496466/stewardess-terror-fell... | msla wrote: | Back-of-envelope math on an educational website says terminal | velocity for a human in a horizontal position (that is, someone | with some control over themselves trying to _not_ go fast) is | approximately 120 mph, achieved after falling about 1490 ft. | | https://owlcation.com/stem/Drag-Force-and-the-Terminal-Veloc... | anderspitman wrote: | Reminds me of a web page I stumbled upon many years ago. It was | very much visually designed in the 90s style. | | The whole page was dedicated to tips and tricks for surviving | falls from very high distances. I only remember 3 points: | | * For most of the fall, try to spread out like a flying squirrel | to reduce your terminal velocity. | | * As you get close to the ground, rotate to take the impact | primarily on your feet and legs. | | * After you bounce, try to land on your feet again. | 2runner wrote: | Possibly? | | http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/carkeet.html | anderspitman wrote: | Definitely very similar in spirit; nice find! Doesn't feel | like the same one though. | codethief wrote: | > As you get close to the ground, rotate to take the impact | primarily on your feet and legs. | | That makes it sound a lot easier than it actually is. | LorenPechtel wrote: | Not that hard for an experienced jumper. | anderspitman wrote: | You've probably got a minute or two to practice, yeah? | spbaar wrote: | Didn't it also mention that a lot of survivors hit some type of | slope? | merely-unlikely wrote: | Not sure if it was the same one but I've read you also want | to avoid water (since it doesn't compress). Go for dirt/grass | if possible. | ars wrote: | That doesn't make sense: dirt/grass also don't compress. | Small branches might be good, but water is certainly more | compresible than dirt. | chucksmash wrote: | I agree that it seems unintuitive, but compressibility of | water is up to four orders of magnitude lower than a very | plastic clay, and even worse than gravel[1]. Generally | the speeds at which we impact water are slow enough that | this effect is not noticable (i.e. we have time to | sufficiently displace, not compress, the water without | suffering a catastrophic deceleration). | | [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressibility#Earth_ | science | ars wrote: | This sounds like something that would have been perfect | for MythBusters. | BucketsMcG wrote: | It's really not. Earth's generally full of holes big and | small. Water isn't. | dirtyid wrote: | I remember that page | anderspitman wrote: | Any idea what some good search terms might be to find it? | Googling hasn't yielded any leads for me yet. Good chance | it's down but maybe it exists on archive.org somewhere. | knodi123 wrote: | "unplanned freefall" will get you there. ;-) | heavyset_go wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachute_landing_fall | prego_xo wrote: | _after you bounce_ is a terrifying concept. | londons_explore wrote: | I assume the failed automatic cut-off switch was in the tanker... | | If so, upon a refuelling the day before which caused a flame-out | and loss of a plane, there is no way they should have been | reusing that same tanker until the root cause was understood. | | There could have been other causes, like a bad batch of fuel | (could easily cause a flameout), debris in the fuel, water in the | fuel, a subtle leak in the connector, something that causes | foaming of the fuel, etc. | | Exception: A major war where risking loss of a few more planes | and people is worth it to avoid missing a military maneuver that | cannot be delayed. | jbverschoor wrote: | Did the parachute not simply open before he landed in the water? | He can't remember that part, and he only woke up after the | parachute was under water and yanking on him. | | Either way, refreshing to see a well written piece. | margalabargala wrote: | The closed parachute acted as a streamer, slowing him down | enough to cause only severe injury on a water landing. | | Had the parachute opened, an unconscious water landing would | not have caused such injuries. That would only happen at speed. | | Am a licensed skydiver. | jbverschoor wrote: | Not even when it opened at the last moment? | | I don't know how fast he was falling, but even in water it | seems almost impossible | LorenPechtel wrote: | A streamed parachute is a lot better than no parachute. Kinetic | energy goes at the square of velocity so even a fairly small | slowing is worth a lot in reducing injury. | martin1975 wrote: | God sometimes spares some who would surely die due to | circumstances, like this pilot through a horrific air crash....or | Viktor Frankl and other holocaust survivors.... to show His power | and glory to the rest of humanity. | | Or maybe it's just all "luck", as many opined. | tomcam wrote: | I on the other hand have literally broken my leg twice walking on | featureless asphalt | knodi123 wrote: | Yeesh, maybe you should try and avoid featureless asphalt in | the future. | tomcam wrote: | _furiously takes notes_ | | I think the first time was because the asphalt was very very | fresh. It was still sticky, and it was a hot sunny day in | Oregon. My theory is that my shoe stuck to it. | | The second time was on my nightly constitutional around my | own neighborhood. I'm hoping it's because there was a buckled | portion near the curb. But a couple years later I would have | foot surgery, and it turns out my bones are spongy. The | screws just kind of slipped out because the bone wouldn't | hold them. So now I take thousands of milligrams of calcium | per day on order of the foot doctor. That in turn has left me | with giant kidney stones. :O | | Long story short I just don't think I have the kind of luck | Cliff Judkins had that fateful day. | stall84 wrote: | Incredible find.. As a pilot, lifelong aviation freak.. being in | (nowhere near as 'unlucky') somewhat similar situations (running | out of fuel in midair .. being trapped in monterey marine layer | suddenly before instrument trained) there is definitely this | inexplicable ability or pursuit of the ability to just keep | trying.. Notice the author always went to the 'next thing'.. when | his primary chute didn't open .. he spent the free-fall time not | on looking out at the ground coming up at him, but looking up | toward the tangle, trying to shake it free.. Always trying | _something_ else after the previous attempt failed. | | Great story | pavlov wrote: | Weird 1990s HTML! The document is wrapped in a <table> and each | paragraph is inside a <big> tag for some reason. | | It's a lot easier to read if you add `line-height: 1.8em` to the | body tag style. | [deleted] | whoisjuan wrote: | Still not as impressive as Vesna Vulovic, a flight attendant who | holds the Guinness world record for surviving the highest fall | without a parachute: 10,160 m (33,330 ft; 6.31 mi) | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovi%C4%87 | mabbo wrote: | I'm even more impressed with Nicholas Alkemade: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Alkemade | | He was the tail gunner on a WW2 Avro Lancaster that was on fire | and going to crash. So he simply opened the door and jumped. | | > His fall was broken by pine trees and a soft snow cover on | the ground. He was able to move his arms and legs and suffered | only a sprained leg. | | > Alkemade was subsequently captured and interviewed by the | Gestapo, who were initially suspicious of his claim to have | fallen without a parachute. This was until the wreckage of the | aircraft was examined and his parachute was found as Alkemade | had described it. The Germans gave Alkemade a certificate | testifying to the fact. He was a celebrated prisoner of war, | before being repatriated in May 1945. | | He fell 5 km and basically walked it off. Even the Germans were | duly impressed. | Someone wrote: | Remarkable, yes, but I wouldn't use "impressive" for either | fall. Surviving such ordeals is (almost) 100% luck. | | I would use impressive for cases where the main subject has | considerable influence in the outcome, as, for example, Ernest | Shackleton had, or as people lost at sea for months with very | limited resources had. | | (In this case, the part where he survives while in the ocean | may be impressive, but I have no idea how hard that was) | throwawaymaths wrote: | I believe there was a woman whose parachute failed and she | knew her highest likelihoog of survival was to find a big and | fall into the bog. She survived with relatively few injuries | a4isms wrote: | Thanks for the link, although I believe we're now in a place | where "relative impressiveness" is all-but-meaningless. These | are all impressive stories, and trying to figure out which one | is more impressive is a little like sitting in a barbershop | trying to figure out who is the greatest boxer that ever lived. | | My contribution to impressive feats of survival bailing out of | an airplane is this story of a WWII ball turret gunner who | survived a fall from his bomber without a parachute: | | https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/03/04/during-ww2-an-amer... | | I think there are other such WWII stories, I seem to recall | someone who fell into an evergreen forest in winter and | credited the snow-laden trees for his survival. | LorenPechtel wrote: | I think you have the same story twice. The ball gunner went | into an evergreen forest in the winter. | a4isms wrote: | The story I was thinking of is of Nicholas Alkemade, linked | elsewhere in this discussion. He was a Lancaster tail | gunner: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Alkemade | | The story I linked to above is of Alan Magee, a B-17 ball | turret gunner who fell through the glass roof of the Saint | Nazare train station. | | They're not the same story, but boy are they similar! | aliqot wrote: | Dicky Ecklund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicky_Eklund | a4isms wrote: | "Any time we talking boxers, East Coast Elites gotta bring | up Dicky Eklund. Dicky Eklund, Dicky Eklund, Dicky Eklund, | that's all you hear. Stop with your Dicky Eklund, everybody | know it be George Chuvalo!" | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Chuvalo | jrumbut wrote: | Where is the quote from? Sounds familiar. | genghisjahn wrote: | https://youtu.be/gv7mO41bbPg?t=74 | chasd00 wrote: | didn't Eddie Murphy play all of those roles at the same | time? well i mean it was edited to look like he played | them all at the same time. | a4isms wrote: | Good call-out! | | That was the scene I had in mind when I mentioned sitting | in a barbershop arguing about the greatest boxer who ever | lived, and while I didn't want to repeat that speech | word-for-word, I was most definitely thinking of the Joe | Frazier Rocky Marciano line you picked out. | | Finally, for all three people in the world who care, I | picked George Chuvalo as my reply specifically because he | is famous for fighting Ali twice and staying on his feet | both times. | jrumbut wrote: | Wow you two really understand each other! | | I was thinking "what movie did I miss where they | discussed Dicky Eklund and George Chuvalo?" I was | wondering if it was from that old Showtime documentary | about Dicky's darker times. | yunwal wrote: | I imagine at 10s of thousands of feet, you're hitting terminal | velocity easily, and the extra 20000 feet is an advantage in | that you have more time to prepare for landing. | snarg wrote: | I think, once you've reached terminal velocity, all fall | distances are equally impressive. At that point, it's probably | best to judge by outcome. | AtNightWeCode wrote: | Sure, but statistically, survival rate from falls above a | certain height are about the same. I think it is as low as 10 | meter. A fall from that height will most likely kill you. | rtkwe wrote: | Cliff was almost definitely falling slower than Vesna though | because he had the partially deployed parachute providing | extra drag. | lazide wrote: | Terminal velocity varies a LOT based on body position and | individual mass to surface area ratio, so honestly hard to | know. | | A 'standard' human falls between 110-130 mph in a 'flat' | belly to earth position (which actually requires non- | trivial training to achieve reliably). | | Someone tumbling in an uncontrolled fashion will have | wildly varying and often higher speeds. | | Someone 'tracking' can have highly reduced descent rates, | even as low as 90mph (no wing suit required). | | Someone falling with a drogue chute or partially deployed | chute can fall slower, or faster, depending on what body | position it ends up putting them in and how much drag it | actually produces. If it wraps around their leg or arm for | instance, it can put them in a feet down or head down | position, which will have them falling a lot faster. Head | or feet down can easily be 150+ mph without special gear. | | Having done it, it's quite noticeably faster, and you have | to watch the altitude a lot more as your floor comes up | _much_ faster than your intuition expects. | | Source: licensed skydiver (C for anyone who cares), with a | decent number of relative formation work and free flying in | my logbook. | googlryas wrote: | But vesna was stuck in the fuselage, not just free falling. | So she may have had a higher speed, but she have | experienced fewer Gs as the fuselage crushed upon landing, | giving her a greater distance to decelerate. | | But really, it's silly to compare these. Neither relied on | any personal qualities to achieve the outcome, it is | basically just blind luck in both cases. Without Cliff's | lack of spleen or Vesnas weirdly low blood pressure, both | probably would have died. Or if they just landed oriented | slightly differently. | throwawaymaths wrote: | Terminal velocity is terminal velocity, so the speed at which | you fall tops out relative to altitude pretty quickly | | Water is basically concrete at terminal velocity. I'm not an | expert, but I wouldn't be surprised if he survived because he | fell into the water at the location of his plane, which was | emitting bubbles that break the surface tension and make water | safer to fall into | ars wrote: | There's nothing whatsoever to do with surface tension, which | is utterly minimal. | | The actual reason water is so hard is simply that the water | need to move out of your way when you fall into it, and if | you are moving faster than it can do that then you simply hit | the water as if it were a solid. | | Both bubbles and waves make it easier for the water to move | out of your way. | entropicgravity wrote: | And there were waves. He could have hit in the froth of a | breaking wave. Waves must have been of decent size for the | amphibious airplane to not be able to land. | hn_user2 wrote: | My guess is it is very unlikely he hit where the plane did. | More likely the rough sea and high swells created the | turbulence needed. | pea wrote: | There was also a lady who fell 15,000 ft after two parachute | malfunctions, only to land on a colony of fire ants who | preceded to sting her back to life (apparently). | | > Paramedics brought a barely conscious Joan to Carolinas | Medical Center for emergency treatment. Doctors determined that | repeated fire ant stings luckily shocked her heartbeat and | stimulated her nerves. The insect assault kept her heart | beating and her organs functioning long enough to keep her | alive during transport, where she fell into a comatose state. | | https://web.archive.org/web/20180313145230/skydiving.com/new... | mabbo wrote: | "Fortunately, I landed in a giant nest of fire ants" says | literally one person, ever. | im3w1l wrote: | An unopened chute has got to be better than none right? | | Edit: at slowing your fall I mean. | [deleted] | lazide wrote: | See my comment above - it depends on what body position it | puts you in, and what body position you'd otherwise be in. | | In sports skydiving, it's generally considered fatal either | way to not have a fully functioning parachute above your head | long before you come back in contact with the ground. | | A partially deployed parachute is also considered to be one | of the most potentially lethal types of malfunctions, as it | has a high risk of entangling the reserve parachute. Bailout | parachutes often don't have a backup. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-10-26 23:00 UTC)