[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.
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