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UPS

Kids fall rate

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Ok, I posted this in the tunnel forum section, but nobody seems to hang out there, I thought I'd have better chances here! Thx


There is a new skyventure opening close to my home(montreal), in a near future and I'm pretty exited by the idea to initiate my lil couzin to flying. He'll be having his 9th birthday in a couple of months and he told me he was disappointed that he will have to wait another 6-7 years before skydiving with me, but I told him he won't have to wait for that long!

So after seeing a couple of vids of kids flying in tunnels, I was wondering what are their freefall speeds. I can fly a little below 100 mph if it's needed on my belly, and can go around 160mph sitflying. He is lighter than me, probably almost a good hundred pounds, but his body surface is also smaller, so I thought that maybe this would all end up being proportional. Will I be able to fly with him?

Thanks!


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No practical experience here.

However, from a purely theoretical point-of-view: fallrate is proportional with the square root of mass divided by surface area (that is: sqrt(m/S)).

Surface area can be estimated as being proportional to the square of the height of the kid. So fallrate is proportional to sqrt(m)/h

From your own fallrate, mass and height you can determine the unknown factor. Plug in the kid's mass & height, and there you go!

If you can't do the math yourself, give me the kid's weight&height, and I'll plug it into the equation for you.

If the kid weighs half your weight and is half your height, his fallrate will be 70% of yours. So if you are doing 120mph naturally, you'll need to do 85mph to fly with the kid.

Would be nice to see afterwards how well the prediction fits the reality.

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i would say yes you could get in the tunnel with him and be able to fly....i did it when i was a kid with my dad and other people.

i posted a pic of me when i was 8...it says 11 but i was born in 87 and the pic was taken in 95 my dad is retarded i think, but anyway you see the guy is flying with me just fine.

later

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Tunnelmom's kids both fly at pretty high wind speeds and I can do two-ways with her 11-year-old daughter because she has mastered the fall rate problem. That said, her kids also fly several times a week and have a lot of experience working in their favor.

I, on the other hand, could spend all my time up by the fans if I really wanted to--and, trust me, it's not because I'm some little pixie who doesn't weigh anything.
TPM Sister #102

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I'll try getting instructor there, that's probably gonna settle the problem since they pay for the training so I'll be good enough to fly with him and it will also be less expensive to teach him B|.

But, I'm sure am already good enough...:D



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http://www.skyventureorlando.com/skyventurepromo.wmv

thats the tunnel video for skyventure orlando. If you watch it you can see that they take a family, give them a little training, and then you can see a kid and their father in the tunnel at the same time so im pretty sure it wont be a problem for you

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Quote

the kid is 4' and 60 pounds.



Taking myself as a reference (6'1" and 172lbs), and plugging into the equations above, the kid should have a natural fall-rate which is 12mph less than mine.

At least in theory that is ;)

Should be possible to fly together, especially if you wear a freefly suit, and the kid doesn't.

Let me know how it went!

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