Dougiefresh 0 #26 June 3, 2004 You are correct, I am incorrect. I think we can all agree that hitting water is not a good idea. Hitting the ground is not a good idea either, for that matter. Aim for a big bowl of jello... Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. --Douglas Adams Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bmcd308 0 #27 June 3, 2004 >>Aim for a big bowl of jello... << Or the most powerful open-air wind tunnel ever made. ---------------------------------- www.jumpelvis.com Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LouYoung 0 #28 June 3, 2004 Cliff divers dive from a maximum of around a 100 feet. I've jumped from a 80-100 foot cliff twice before and landed in water, feet first of course, with shoes. It was quite fun and didn't hurt, but 100 feet is far from terminal, or even a de-arch, flare, or track or whatever. Lou Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
goose491 0 #29 June 3, 2004 Hitting water at terminal is like hitting concrete. Sure there are some cliff jumpers out there with real swinging pairs but there is still a vertical limit to this and think of people jumping from the golden gate bridge not for fun but for suicide. Bog on the other hand... or swamp... that IMUO (the U stands for 'untested.. thank goodness), that is the most surviveable. I've heard legends of old paratroopers firing themselves 8 ft into thick bog after mals... only to drown My Karma ran over my Dogma!!! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gjhdiver 0 #30 June 3, 2004 Quote Water is just as lethal as concrete. Due to the laws of physics, (I forget the technical terms) if you try to move through a liquid quick enough it takes on the properties of a solid. Water can litterally act like concrete. Yep. It's called hydraulics. Fluid doesn't compress much. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gjhdiver 0 #31 June 3, 2004 QuoteActually, aim for a field with bails of hay. I understand they disperse quicker than water will. I heard a story somewhere about a British pilot bailing out and landing in a bail of hay and surviving. I don't know if there was any truth to that story. Also don't forget to PLF. Anything is survivable with a properly performed DYNAMIC PLF. :-) Chris Not legend. Flight Sgt Nicholas Alkemade of the RAF over Germany in WWII, jumped without a parachute at 33,000 from the rear turret of a burning Avro Lancaster bomber. He couldn't get to his parachute and decided that he'd rather fall then burn in the plane. He awoke in a snow covered field having fallen throught the branches of a tall tree and onto a deep snow covered hillside which had broken his fall. The only injury that he had was a twisted ankle that he got from jumping out of the plane. Upon capture, he was nearly shot as a spy until the wreckage of his plane was found to corroborate his story. He's not the record holder for this sort of thing though. A Russian stewardess holds that dubious honor after a bomb blast on her plane gave her an unintentional 54,000 feet jump. She wasn't so lucky though. She survived the fall, but was left in a a condition described by those in the medical profession as "totally fucked" although she did recover somewhat over the following years. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dougiefresh 0 #32 June 3, 2004 We should cross-post this with the "luck" thread going right now... Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. --Douglas Adams Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cybervagrant 0 #33 June 3, 2004 I've jumped from cliffs at quarries and from damns in the 100' range with sneakers on hitting the water feet first of course. I recall that I actually felt the surface tension of the the water in the quarry when I hit. It felt like jumping on to a trampoline for just a moment, I felt it stretch slightly, then I was through surrounded by bubbles and water. Hitting the water feet first resulted in a very easy impact, I did it maybe 10 time that day. I'm sure such a jump could be survived from 200 and possible 300 feet. My buddy was jumping 20 to 25 feet higher than me at the quarry and going in head first Whoops, is my ignorance showing again? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rickfri59 0 #34 June 4, 2004 I posted this back in March 2004 to someone who commented that hitting the water was almost as bad as hitting concrete: Almost would be good enough to say you're F'd either way. But here's why I post... There was a program on TV last week that examined what happened to a stupid stunt gone wrong. Five or six guys decided to swing off of a 185 foot bridge over water. Without going into detail about how they attempted to do this, the bottom line is that the cable/harness assembly snapped nearly at the bottom of the swing (they were at the end of thecable swinging like a pendulm). It broke at the "perfect" point on the arc of the swing to send them into the water at an estimated 45 degree angle (this was of course all video taped from several angles). The only reason anyone received significant injuries was that they all crashed into each other upon entry to the water. Big question was how did they survive hitting the water at almost 80 mph. The answer was the angle of entry combined with the cushion effect of the PFDs. O.K. here's the point... The people doing the analysis then considered the question; Is it any more survivable, in general, to hit concrete or water at high speed. They made two identical dummies with skeletons and flesh from materials that were close in density and strength of human equalivants. Dropped the dummies from the same height as the aformentioned bridge. One into a pond, the other onto concrete. Speed at impact was about 80 mph. Both hit the surface in nearly a feet first orientation. Bottom line..... The concrete was worse, but worse really didn't matter. If the dummies were made to human like specs., I hope to hell I never have to see anyone who's gone in at high speed Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pdj6p 0 #35 June 4, 2004 The record for a fall or jump into water and surviving is only 134 feet. that is without anything to slow you down ( i.e. partially inflated canopy, bouncing off tree.) I have made cliff jumps from near 100 feet and I can tell you it can be very painful if you don't hit straight in. I would not recommend trying to break this record. Death is so permanant, and I'm just not ready for that kind of committment. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ChrisL 2 #36 June 4, 2004 I would bet that if you were to impact on a piece of angel food cake that was approximately 75 - 100 ft thick that you could survive the impact. Pound cake is probably too dense and therefore I wouldnt recommend you aim for the pound cake.__ My mighty steed Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jose 0 #37 June 4, 2004 The diffence between a water impact in lets say a lake or other non moving body of water, and a cliff dive is the amount of air in the water. Ever notice that the cliff divers almost always dive into a cove? Notice how the water is almost white? Its because of the turbulence of air and water from the waves smashing into the cliffs and mixing with air. This makes the mixture compressable and not nearly as hard of an impact as straight water. This is also why they aireiate the water underneath the exit point for olympic high divers, it allows the body to penetrate the water much further allowing it to decelerate for a longer period of time. So, if you are going it, and are over water..........aim for the bubbles..... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bch7773 0 #38 June 4, 2004 I saw a tv program a long time ago about a women who was skydiving and some part of her harnes got caught on the planes wheel (C-182). anyways she lost conciousness and was hanging underneath the wheel, so the pilot couldn't land. so they decided he would fly about 30 feet above nearby lake, as slow as possible, and cut her off. they videotaped it, and just from a 30 foot fall with maybe 60 mph forward speed, she actually bounced twice off the surface. she ended up braking a lot of bones. this tells you about hitting water at even a fairly low speed when you are not feet down... you get smashed. MB 3528, RB 1182 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jkwon 0 #39 June 4, 2004 There are cliff divers in Central America who jump from 45 feet into 5 feet of water. Of course they time it such that they hit at the peak on a set wave and really have more like 10 feet to work with...Either way pretty crazy stuff. Speaking from personal experience...I jumped from 15 feet and instead of having my arms to my side they were out at a 90 degree in a cruciform and I impacted the water like that...bruised the underside of my arms REAL good. Just imagine what would have happened at 100 feet. On a more somber note...a friend of mine in HS broke her back while cliff diving from 40 feet. --joe--joe HISPA #69 The Best Band in the WORLD!!! The new full length album "See What You Can Find" Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bmcd308 0 #40 June 4, 2004 A friend and I jumped a 40 foot cliff in HS also. We were terrified. Then we made a pretty tough hike up and over to a 70. There was no doubt in either of our minds that jumping off that was going to kill us, so we hiked back down to the 40 and did it again. People who jump off 100 foot cliffs into water have big brass ones. ---------------------------------- www.jumpelvis.com Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 1,623 #41 June 4, 2004 QuoteI would bet that if you were to impact on a piece of angel food cake that was approximately 75 - 100 ft thick that you could survive the impact. Pound cake is probably too dense and therefore I wouldnt recommend you aim for the pound cake. That's a 5g deceleration (very survivable), so if you weigh 200 in gear, the cake would have to exert an average force on you of (5x200 + 200) = 1200 pounds. I'd go for the pound cake!... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Staso 0 #42 June 4, 2004 hey, i have some nice bridge jumping pics :) too bad that the beam is not horizontal and it's hard to make a clean launch, otherwise i'd go for head first :) the bridge is 154 ft tall and one can static line from it ;) stan. -- it's not about defying gravity; it's how hard you can abuse it. speed skydiving it is ... Speed Skydiving Forum Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BASE813 0 #43 June 4, 2004 Quote the bridge is 154 ft tall and one can static line from it ;) obviously not where you are launching from then! hey people have actually freefallen that height! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Staso 0 #44 June 4, 2004 Quoteobviously not where you are launching from then! nah :) i asked the guy how bases there to let me jump his rig, but he said his canopy was too small for me :) stan -- it's not about defying gravity; it's how hard you can abuse it. speed skydiving it is ... Speed Skydiving Forum Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cybervagrant 0 #45 June 4, 2004 On the first jump I almost toppled over in the air. It was an intense few moments while I fought to keep my self straight up and down. I've hit the water sideways off a 3 meter board. When did that my knees slammed together. It took almost twenty minutes before I could climb out of the pool. I just clung to the side and prayed for the pain to stop. It was an amazingly painful from only fifteen feet. From a hundred feet, if one escaped drowning they'd probably need a doctors attention. Whoops, is my ignorance showing again? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
