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Skydiving Across the English Channel
loonix_gangsta writes "Felix Baumgartner, an Austrian, has become the first person to skydive 35 km (22 miles) across the English Channel. Wearing a jumpsuit with a large carbon fin strapped to his back he reached speeds of up to 360 km/h. The whole flight took approximately 14 minutes. The newsitem is being covered by the BBC, SkyNews
and CNN."
He must have accelerated slowly.
.23h == 82.8km
14 minutes is ~0.23 hours. 360km/h *
What interests me, is how he managed to accelerate up to the 360 kph mark, and slow back down, without the sharp sudden stop that I associate with skydiving. (C'mon you know you saw him bouncing along a field until he smacked into an old hardwood)
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Interestingly enough, something similar to this was in the latest Lara Croft flik. I haven't seen it, but this part was interesting. During one part of the movie Angelina Jolie and someone else were trying to escape and they went to the top of some building in Hong Kong. They had a special jumpsuit on with webbing between the arms & body and between the legs. Being chased, they simply lept off the edge and flew themselves to a boat waiting in Hong Kong's harbor - about 3 miles away.
What's interesting about it is that the scene is *NOT* a special effect. It was really done by two people. Jolie is a skydiver herself, and wanted to do the actual stunt but the producers wouldn't let her for fear of the insurance costs.
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How much velocity is necessary to start horizontal flight? I mean, what would have kept someone from strapping their glass desktop cover to their back and jumping outta the window?
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Ace McCloud from The Centurians. Click the first image link.
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/coldwar/pe. htm
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"On the third and last jump in Excelsior III on August 16, 1960, Captain Kittinger jumped from a height of 102,800 feet, almost 20 miles above the earth. With only the small stabilizing chute deployed, Kittinger fell for 4 minutes, 36 seconds. He experienced temperatures as low as minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit and a maximum speed of 714 miles per hour, exceeding the speed of sound. The 28-foot main parachute did not open until Kittinger reached the much thicker atmosphere at 17,500 feet. Kittinger safely landed in the New Mexico desert after a 13 minute 45 second descent. Project Excelsior successfully proved the new parachute system would solve the problem of high altitude escape by crewmen."
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/eagles/kitt-3.jp
While the photo on the BBC article shows a "backpack" with hard wings sticking out of it, the description (especially that of his legs getting tangled in the rear wings) sounds more like a "Birdman" type suit.
Popular Science did a great article on gliding/sky diving with wings featuring the Birdman suits. Read it here.
This article has some good info that helps answer comments made below about diving with wings not really being free-fall, but in fact being a form of gliding.
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BASE jumped off the statue of Christ in Rio, which is 30m.
"It's the lowest base jump in the world," said jump organiser Stefan Aufschnaiter. "Normally you need 50 or 60 metres. It's extremely dangerous," he said.
As you can imagine. BASE jumping is a sport with a pretty high fatality rate.
I live in Dover (where he jumped from) and the local radio was reporting yesterday about how the coastguard were pretty pissed off with him, he hadn't checked with them first and there was a decent chance that he was going to come down in the World's busiest shipping lane and they would have to go rescue him.
Suck figs.
I really think what that Austrian skydiver demonstrated may have some real military applications.
Imagine US Special Forces soldiers wearing these suits (which have been coated with radar-absorbing materials to reduce radar cross-section) and being launched from 32,000 feet on a C-17 cargo plane at night. They could glide 30 miles or more, which would allow these forces to be inserted far into enemy territory.
(Come to think of it, the US Special Forces may already HAVE this capability.)
Well i actively jump these wingsuits (here is a pic) while angelina may have done a few jumps she was no where near the experience level needed to fly a wingsuit, OR do a base jump. Instead 2 guys did that jump and they superimposed her face :)
Remember this is average. I would guess his speed varied a lot during his flight as pressure changed. So my random guess based on this, and that fact I've never trusted CNN is that 220 mph is correct for a max speed.
Apart from the weird contraption that he strapped on his back, what is the big news here? My former army unit and special forces all across NATO have done HAHO (High Altitude High Opening) jumps that go more than 50km since the 80s. Usually with predecessors of the G9. The main problem is that it's extremly cold at 8-10,000 meters and that you have to jump with supplemental oxygen. Don't try this at home, people have gotten frostbite and even died in exercises.
That's incredible! The article also said:
Mr Baumgartner said the plane was at 30,000 ft (9,000 m) when he jumped - and he initially reached speeds of 360 km (220 miles) per hour. For most of the freefall, he was travelling at about 220 km (135 miles) per hour, he said.
Well, that's not so incredible now. The BBC diagram makes things reasonably clear. 9km up 36km long, surprisingly enough gives you a path that's not that much longer than 37 km, we'll call it 39 because it was an arc. His maximum speed was 360 km/hr and he slowed down as he got closer to the ground. Fortunately for him, his chute opened and he got that great sudden stop that comes before you get a much greater stop. 14 minutes must have felt like an eternity.
His glide angle was a respectable 1 verticle to 4 horizontal.
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They didn't glide 3 miles. In the movie the guy says that 3 miles is too far, so after a little while (once they were far enough away from the building, I guess) they opened normal parachutes.
Yeah, I saw it, I admit it.
In the sense that he was unpowered, it's free fall.
There's obviously a fine line between gliders and parachutists anyway... The difference between guiding and arresting your descent with your arms, a birdman suit, a backpack wing, a parachute, a hang glider and an enclosed glider is all really just a matter of degree. Each technique uses the aerodynamic properties (such that they are) of their method to the best of their abilities.
I guess the major difference is that gliders can generate enough lift to reverse their descent. In that sense, Mr Baumgartners efforts don't qualify as a glider.