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Skydriving
SanLouBlues writes "Autoweek has this article about a group of guys in Arizona who will drop your car out of a cargo jet for $15k. Parachutes for the car are optional. Their ultimate goal is to drop a Greyhound with forty people inside. More pictures here and here)"
I'M going to pay THEM $15k to achieve THEIR goal?
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
I swear I will return it in good condition :)
"There's no real science to it--it's hit or miss," says skydiver/skydriver Greg Gasson
I don't want to know what would happen if they hit, let alone if they miss. Hit what? Where?
(Although, I think this would make a neat little Junkyard Wars-esque competition.. or not)
Here I was all excited about getting dropped out of a jet and I see the plane has props.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
If you have an 802.11b-equipped laptop in the car on your way down, are you then warskydriving?
Parachutes for the car are optional. Their ultimate goal is to drop a Greyhound with forty people inside.
Think that would be enough to fit all the RIAA executives inside of? i'm not sure..
Seriously though why spend $15k to drop a car out of a plane when you can do the next best thing, throw wireless webcams off of tall buildings! It's fun for everyone!
-=Errors always defy logic.=-
If I hadn't read it on Slashdot, I never would have thought it possible to so willingly invite litigation upon oneself.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
And donate your car instead...please...
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
For some reason, I see this as a chance for Hollywood to make a Speed 3 ... ::imagines Sandra Bullock fighting terrorists in a parachute at 30,000 feet::
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I'm sure that any of the big 3 auto manufacturers would jump (excuse the pun) at the chance to put a paratrooping SUV into their adds. $15K/jump would be a pitttance to them. You might even have to raise your price just to get their attention.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
"I bet a funny thing about driving a car off a cliff is, while you're in midair, you still hit those brakes! Hey, better try the emergency brake!"
-Jack Handy
From the story: The hoods are duct-taped shut, since metal tearing off at terminal velocity could endanger the "drivers."
Boy, I wish I had a nickel for every time duct tape prevented someone's violent death at terminal velocity.
Use Ctrl-C instead of ESC in Vim!
Look! My car can go from 0 to 60 in 2.75 seconds!
--
http://ragnar.nilmop.com
Common sense is what tells you the world is flat.
It's one way of distributing the $15K anyway.
I can totally blow the doors off of any Mustang, so watch out! My plate says "00wnzU".
Take a look at this picture. Is it just me or is the thought of doing that even more scary than regular skydiving? Irrational, I know, but there's just something about the idea of falling while inside a car, which is normally a safe environment, that adds an extra psychological edge to it all.
Why whould i pay $15k to destroy my car? A big sledgehammer is a lot cheaper and a lot more fun.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Lets not forget the piano tossing trebuchets , inspiring crazy guys to throw big stuff since the middle ages.
Yawn.
Oh my God...
Okay so he's holding on to it but that's gotta get some respect.
Has the seen-it-in-the-movies jump ever been done, where someone jumps without a parachute and someone else catches up with them? I wonder which is worse, being the guy without the chute or the guy who has to catch him?
maybe it's not such a hot idea to chase a cargo plane from below and behind, while a car is falling out of its ass?
"Look bubba, *click* that car *click* just keeps getting bigger and bigSMASH
"Their ultimate goal is to drop a Greyhound with forty people inside."
This has the potential to be the first 40-way Darwin Award...
If you smoke after sex, you're doing it too fast.
Anyone else think that dropping a bus with 40 people is just asking for trouble?? Unless they're looking to rip the roof off of it, there's to many what if's to make this even remotely safe. Might just as well make parachutes for the people optional as well.
Is this like the semi-finals season for the darwin awards and I just wasn't looking?
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
...to wake up a drunk friend.
How many times do the cars miss the ground?
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
line for the bus forms to the right, first 40 get in...
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
I don't think this is what they ment when they said we'd have flying cars in the future.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
if at first you don't suceed ... skyd(i)ving is not for you.
"Teachers leave us kids alone
Their ultimate goal is to drop a Greyhound with forty people inside.
Something about that just sounds so illegal.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
But fast ROLLER COASTERS are the great, perilous danger from which we must protect the masses.
Riiiight.
Sometimes the funniest part of being American is comparing the things we can't do with the things that are perfectly legal.
crib
Please don't read my journal
They'll give me $15,000 to drop my uninspected '86 Plymoth from an airplane? Uh... ok, it's a deal!
From the shots page #2:
"[...] It is without a doubt, American decadence at its finest. [...]"
I can't stop trying to put things in perspectives theses days and realize how much the world is unfair. Some people will never get to use a car, and some are ditching one while skydiving. (I guess it doesn't work anymore, but still)
I am not saying it is not right to do so. It looks *really* cool!
But. Can't help and think about other human beings not even having access to drinkable water...
Some day we will have to face the fact that a more fair repartition is indeed needed. Are we happier today than 100 years ago because we can skydive in cars?
Go ahead, mod me down as redundant, libertarian bastard, suckers who speaks but does nothing, etc... I really just want to know if other feel the same way.
I just figured they were going to fill the bus will members of the MPAA and RIAA.
Why else would it be on slashdot?
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
Do we get to pick them?
...
Bill Gates
Hillery Rosen
Jack Valenti
Michael Eisner
Senator Hollings
Lance Bass
Britney Spears
N'sync
More suggestion, for this no parachute drop, please?
SCO (noun.)- A Slimy Corporate Ogre. Often seeks free money.
If they think they can safely parachute land a bus full of people, why can't they put safety parachutes on airliners? I understand airliners are much bigger, but the technology must be there. Isn't the cost worth it?
today is spelling optional day.
Hrm.... could donate a Xerox document station, or how about an old Tandy main frame computer. No parachute needed! Just toss em out, and I'll wash my hands of it all. Just don't tell my boss! ;)
/. trolls with no parachute... mabe throw a few parachues out seperate, but not as may as the trolls, and see how gets to the chutes and lives.
Seriously though, if they can toss out a bus, they can toss anything. Why not a toss a bunch of
Oh wait, it probably not cool to throw people out of a plane, they probably have to sign papers, and tossing people out of a plane is probably consider to be not kool in some states, even if they are trolls. darn... silly technicalities. oh well.
It isn't a lie if you belive it.
140mph? Is that right? It seems awfully slow to me. I would have thought that the terminal velocity of a car would have been much higher than that.
Sounds about right to me, especially when you consider that in the normal belly-to-earth position, the human body will hit a terminal velocity of around 120 mph. Cars have more mass, but they also have a lot more surface area against which air molecules will press as they fall, balancing out the extra mass.
Incidentally, I am both a licensed skydiver (A-38847, getting my B before too much longer) and an engineer.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
"There's no real science to it--it's hit or miss," says skydiver/skydriver Greg Gasson.
I can see the headlines now:
Bus Accident Kills 40 in Arizona
It looks like a lot of fun. :)
how about I make my bad dreams come true, drive off a bridge completely stoned and drunk, fall for fucking ever into the darkness, and end up waking up in a bed w/my girlfriend ;)
..to have MY car dropped out of the sky, but I'm pretty sure I'd pay a buck or two to see what it looks like when somebody ELSE's car is dropped!
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
Wait until the terrorists hear about this one!
Gee Whiz!
Thanks Slashdot!
The hoods are duct-taped shut, since metal tearing off at terminal velocity could endanger the "drivers." ...is there anything it can't do?
Well, that all depends if your civic is yellow, or how much yellow it has on it.
Speed is directly proportional to the amount of yellow on the car + (coffee can muffler + 2).
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
how do they expect to get out of the damn bus?
Assuming its like the time they dropped the car out, they will just cut the roof off.. although I personally think it would be cooler if they all exited the folding door in the front..
If at first you do not succeed, then skydriving is not for you.
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
Why back when I was a kid people were sneaky about their homicidal intent. Nowadays they just say "my goal in life is to cram 40 people into a bus, drop it from an airplane, and watch it smash to bits." Hmph.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I don't disagree, but there are still millions of people that abuse our welfare system. I agree that good comes from welfare too, but there are many people who abuse it. I know a couple of them.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
given that the skill level involved in thusly launching a car without a parachute is essentially zero, fifteen thousand clams seems like a lot of money. whatever it is that they're throwing the car out of is a typical big skydiver hauler. total fuel to 13,000 feet is less than $100 or $200 worst case. Car clean up = $300 or so (let's just say). Pilot - $150, absolute max. Assorted handlers--let's say, a few hundred. $15k seems way out of line.
Of course, if your client is toyota or whoever it said in the article, you might as well charge $150k.
FWIF: (FAA) Federal Aviation Regulations state that it is legal to throw / drop things from an airplane as long as care is taken to insure no damage to persons or property on the surface.
What's the max acceleration one of these would reach? You could tell everyone that your old '89 dodge went 5 times faster than their max speed... just don't mention that it was downward acceleration due to gravity. :-)
Oh, you think THAT'S fast, well the fastest I ever got my old Dodge Colt was 1000mph (insert exact number to the left of mph).
You'd need somebody really honest to vouch for you. Maybe could you cheat the world records for fastest automobile speed, but that's probably detailed as land-speed
NOW we know how they got the VW on top of the schoolhouse - phorm
Was that WarDrive or WarDive? ;o)
I guess adding a spoiler wouldn't help much in this case eh? :-)
It's a bird... it's a plane... - phorm
That this will be the first time in history that seatbelts DON'T save lives... Crash test dummies be damnned...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
They're just trying to draw out a superhero, like in Unbreakable! I mean, come on! Dropping a bus full of tourists from a plane at 15,000 feet? Why don't they also get a second plane, fill it full of young women that have relationships with teenage/20-something men, and drop them all at the same time?
Instant superhero's dilemma!
You're bound to get a Superman or Spiderman from that!
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
"What is the airspeed of an unladen Greyhound?"
"Evil company X is threatening to restrict our rights! Let's all get together to stop--OOOH! SHINEY!!!" -- AC
Keep in mind that the article said they remove the engine block. That would considerably reduce the mass, without affecting the surface area. Density goes down, and thus so does terminal velocity.
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Dude, do you have a coffee can muffler + 2? My coffee can muffler +1 almost got my party killed last gaming session (my elf just had to bring his Arabica along with him and the rattling attracted a pack of kobolds).
They that would sacrifice their
140mph? Is that right? It seems awfully slow to me.
That's only because you've never hit the ground doing 140mph. If you had, you'd realize just how fast that is.
.
I'm a skydiver, I've got over 400 jumps to my name.
Joe Jennings and crew have been tossing stuff out of airplanes in Arizona for quite a few years now. Joe does it because he's a profesional cinematographer, he's the guy that filmed the skydiving scenes in most of the recent James Bond films, plus recently Charlie's Angels and XXX. If there's an ad that features skydiving, Joe shot it.
Joe films these, and puts them on DVD - his most recent one is called "Good Stuff" - and you can buy it from www.joejennings.com. Buy it. It's worth it. Lots of incredible (and funny!) work.
Geeks will appreciate this. One of the funnier scenes, Joe throws a living room out of the back of the Skyvan. (note the skyvan is a turbo-prop, not a "jet".) I said they threw a living room out. They did it twice, they rigged up sofa's and loveseats, table lamps, telephones, tv sets, bolted it togeather on a platform, stuck two skydivers in the loveseat, the rolled the whole contraption out the back of the tailgate. What made is so cool is the tablelamps actually WORKED, and the TV was turned on. The tv worked all the way to impact.
I chuckled to myself when I read in the article "There have been no close calls, near misses or injuries in any of the jumps." On one of the "living room drops", the living room landed 20 feet from the ground film crew. Overheard on the video is "fuck that was close..."
Anyways I hate to make a post that's largely a sales pitch for a DVD, but for gods sake check this out. It's called "Good Stuff", and you can get it on www.joejennings.com
Its got full video of all of the car drops, both living room drops, the "chuteless" jumps, and whole lotta other REALLY cool shit.
_Am
140mph? Is that right? It seems awfully slow to me. I would have thought that the terminal velocity of a car would have been much higher than that.
Yes. Cars fall EXTREMELY unstable. They tumble, literally. Sometimes they do rotations, sometime they do what we call "potatoe chipping", where they just teeter-totter back and forth.
They tend to fall generally with their axels to the ground, meaning their biggest flat surface area is creating all that drag.
A human body in a belly to earth position has a terminal velocity of about 120 MPH. Put that human body into a verticle position (very dificult to hold), and speeds tend to go up to about 180 mph, but can go as high as 300mph.
Yes, I'm a skydiver. 400 jumps so far, and a "D" (master) licence from the United States Parachute Association.
_Am
or MacAddict... they've dragged one by a chain with a SUV and beaten the crap out of one with a sledge hammer on video before, back in the day. :-)
The Adult Happy Meal - "I'm lovin' it!"
If the parachute(s) are attached right, and there isn't too much wind or rough terrain, it should be possible to have the car land mostly on its wheels. You're definatly gonna need new struts and an alignment job after that, though... ;)
DennyK
Mass is irrelevant. If you drop a bowling ball and an apple off a building, they will hit ground at the same time.
This is assuming no air resistance. Air resistance makes a pretty big difference; without air resistance, the concept of terminal velocity would not exist. A freefalling object would just keep accelerating and accelerating until it hit the ground.
As a quick demonstration of this, compare the real-world terminal velocity of a human body in the belly-to-earth position -- 120 mph -- with what it would hit on a typical skydive from 12000 feet, minus the parachute pull. I'll use an arbitrary weight of 190 lbs for the purposes of these calculations.
Gravitational potential energy = mass * g * height
Kinetic energy = (1/2) * mass * velocity^2
Energy is conserved between GPE and KE considering that we are assuming no air resistance.
Setting (190/32.2) * 32.2 * 12000 equal to (1/2) * (190/32.2) * v^2 and solving for v yields an impact velocity of 878 feet per second, or 599 mph. This is a far cry from the real-world result of 120 mph, so you can see that friction caused by air resistance makes an enormous difference. As for mass not mattering, mass only doesn't matter if you don't take air resistance into consideration because, as I demonstrated above, the mass is on both sides of the equation so it cancels out. But if you consider air resistance [sum of energy before = sum of energy after plus energy lost to friction], mass no longer cancels out. Incidentally, yes, different skydivers (IAAS) do fall at somewhat different rates, but 120 mph is the generally accepted standard. Different people have different masses and different surface areas, so their terminal velocities will be slightly different.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
"One of the 200 or so ways that you can make a difference"
Damn, I miss Interstate 76. The only game I've ever played where you can rig a schoolbus with guns.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
... everybody out. Will there still be the little old lady with ten bags of shopping struggling down the aisle?
I could never see the point of jumping out of a perfectly servicable aircraft.
But driving out of one?!
Guess this brings a whole new meaning to "Hit the road....."
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Why don't they rent the largest cargo plane in the world, the Antolev An-124? Instead of putting a car in the hold, there is room for a couple of buses.
Dewd, You and laserjet are my kind of nerds...
A swift move from a ricer joke to a dnd joke in no time flat. Good sirs, I swill my Mt. Dew at you!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Seriously! This is right up his alley, considering all the stuff he's gotten to throw off the tops of buildings on past shows.
I can see it now: A Greyhound bus stuffed to the gills with watermelons, cantaloupes, honeydew, casaba, pumpkins, etc., plummeting to earth from multiples of 10K feet...
If nothing else, it would add new meaning to the term 'Fruit shake.'
Keep the peace(es).
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
I'll be impressed if instead of dropping the bus out of a plane, they base jump with it :-)
...
Now that would be a thrill ride
TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
umm are you aying things with more mass fall faster?
I hope not, but it sure seems like that is what you are saying.
You know hammer, feather, gravity.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
WarSplatting. ;)
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Once you've seen a tank parachute out of the sky, hit the ground, then drive off, everything else is eh.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This happened in a MacGuyver episode, too.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Thanks, good info. Someone mod this up please?