How Long Does It Take To Fall 1000 Feet

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Falling from an airplane would ruin virtually people's day.

But if you lot're James Bail, it'south no large deal.

Afterwards getting pushed out of a aeroplane in the 1979 film Moonraker, Bond initiates a midair fight with a nearby skydiving villain and takes the evildoer's parachute.

As his enemy plunges to the basis, Bond fights off a second bad guy, deploys his chute and floats gracefully to Earth. Slice of cake.

I remember seeing that scene as a kid and being pretty impressed. But I couldn't help but wonder: What happened to the other guy? You know, the villain who lost his parachute. He's totally expressionless, correct?

As information technology turns out, maybe not. A scattering of lucky people have survived like falls in real life.

Writer Jim Hamilton has compiled dozens of these stories. For instance, Alan Magee survived a 20,000-foot fall from his plane during Globe War II and survived by landing on the glass roof of a French railroad station. And Serbian flight attendant Vesna Vulović holds the Guinness world tape for the longest survived autumn — over 30,000 anxiety — subsequently her aeroplane blew upward in the 1970s, though some cynics think the real superlative of Vulović'south fall was a mere two,600 feet.

Simply how exactly exercise you survive such an extraordinary effect?

Rhett Allain, associate professor of physics at Southeastern Louisiana Country University, says that experimental show on the subject is thin because it's unethical to throw people out of airplanes for scientific discipline.

"Fortunately, we don't have plenty data to make a tendency line," Allain says.

Still, Allain and others have a few ideas about the factors that might determine whether yous survive a tumble from thousands of feet in the air. According to Allain, at that place are a few things you lot need to do.

Be small

This is 1 situation where size actually does matter.

"Smaller people are going to fall slower, so that's going to requite them a meliorate run a risk [at survival]," explains Allain.

You've probably witnessed this phenomenon if y'all've ever brushed an insect off your kitchen table. A 3-foot fall is pretty intimidating for something as small as an emmet. Just the ant survives. How does it do it?

The respond has to practice with the two chief forces interim on a falling person — gravity and air resistance.

You may call up learning in physics course that gravity accelerates all objects at the aforementioned rate, regardless of mass. So how can information technology be that a heavier skydiver will autumn faster?

Although ii objects with different masses will fall at the same speed in a vacuum, information technology'southward non so simple for a skydiver. For i, falling people aren't in a vacuum – they're surrounded by air.

While gravity pulls down on a skydiver'southward mass, air resistance pushes dorsum. When these 2 forces equal each other out, you've got final velocity – the stable speed at which a skydiver falls.

"In a normal position for a skydiver, that's around 120 miles per hr," Allain says.

Gravitational strength depends on the person's mass. A larger person will have a larger gravitational strength exerted on him and volition need a larger force from air resistance to stop his acceleration.

Consequently, larger people accelerate longer before they accomplish terminal velocity, Allain says, and then they hit the ground at a college speed.

Bigger people too have a larger area, which increases air resistance, only Allain says it's non plenty to compensate for the stronger downward force due to their larger mass.

Famed biologist J.B.S. Haldane, writing in 1928, sums the idea upwards nicely.

"You lot can drib a mouse down a thousand-one thousand mine shaft and, on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away," Haldane writes. "A rat is killed, a homo is cleaved, a horse splashes."

Hitting something soft

What y'all land on makes a large difference, Allain says.

Survivability, he says, is heavily influenced past G-forces – the acceleration strength you experience when you suddenly change speed.

Soft surfaces are easier on the body because they increase your stopping distance, which in turn decreases the Grand-forces you lot feel. So, Allain says that anything that increases a falling person'due south stopping distance is going to be beneficial.

"A skilful thing to state on might exist a tree, because a tree, you could hit the branches as you're going down," Allain says. "If it's a adept tree, that could really increase your stopping fourth dimension and decrease your dispatch."

Water could also be a practiced target, he says, every bit long as you don't belly-flop.

"Water could work," Allain says, "Just yous desire to be like a pencil, and go as deep as possible, which increases your stopping time and decreases your acceleration."

But Hamilton says that landing in water has its drawbacks.

"You would think that water would be helpful, but water tends to knock people out," Hamilton says. "And then, even if they survive, they may drown."

Hamilton says other surfaces — snow, ability lines and rooftops — have caught survivors in the past and might be a better option than water.

In 2004, for instance, a Johannesburg newspaper reported on a S African skydiver whose parachute failed to open. Luckily, she barbarous into power lines and suffered only a fractured pelvis, while as well escaping electrocution.

"Don't state on your head"

Experts disagree on the correct style to land, but at that place is definitely a wrong way.

Allain, for ane, thinks that landing faceup on your back gives you lot the best gamble at survival.

He bases his theory on NASA enquiry from the '60s examining the furnishings of farthermost G-forces on test pilots.

"NASA said, 'Hey, we similar to advance, so let'due south advance some people until bad things happen.' " Allain says. "Then they did."

The NASA results indicated that humans are well-nigh tolerant of G-forces that go from the front end of the body to the back, like the blazon that pushes race automobile drivers into the backs of their seats when they hit the gas.

NASA terms this kind of acceleration "eyeballs in," because people who experience it feel like their eyeballs are getting pushed into the back of their head. G-forces that come up from other directions, like the kind that push button y'all into the bottom of your seat ("eyeballs down"), are much more than deadly, Allain says.

Consequently, Allain thinks that landing on your back, faceup, gives you the best chance at survival because information technology mimics the "eyeballs-in" position.

Withal, a written report past the Highway Safety Research Constitute examined 110 case studies of relatively short-altitude fall victims and concluded that landing anxiety-kickoff is your all-time shot. The rationale is that you sacrifice your legs for the good of your torso.

"The body has more deceleration distance when it impacts anxiety-outset," the report reads, "and the long basic absorb a large amount of the impact energy before fracturing."

Although at that place is disagreement on the best way to land, there's agreement on one point.

"Don't land on your head," advises Dr. Jeffrey Bender, professor of surgery at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

Bender has treated numerous victims of falls from varying heights, including a Texas skydiver whose parachute malfunctioned. He explains why people who fall long distances often don't exercise then well.

"Information technology's ane of ii things: either a astringent head injury, or a massive hemorrhage," Bender says.

Past ensuring your head isn't the first matter to hit the basis, you can at least reduce the chances of i of those things.

Don't autumn in the outset identify

It'southward often said that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

That'southward certainly true when it comes to falling out of airplanes. Although people practise survive, your chances aren't very practiced, Hamilton says, so information technology'due south better to avoid the situation entirely.

In the end, the all-time way to survive a tumble out of an airplane may be to wear a parachute. Just don't let James Bond have information technology.

Paul Chisholm is an intern on NPR's Science Desk.