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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/28/skydiver-luke-aikins-jump-without-parachute-live-tv
"He's made 18,000 parachute jumps, helped train some of the world's most elite skydivers, done some of the stunts for Ironman 3. But the plunge Luke Aikins knows he'll be remembered for is the one he's making without a parachute. Or a wingsuit.
Or anything, really, other than the clothes he'll be wearing when he jumps out of an airplane at 25,000 feet [7600 m] this weekend, attempting to become the first person to land safely on the ground in a net."
[...] "To me, I'm proving that we can do stuff that we don't think we can do if we approach it the right way," he answers.
"I've got 18,000 jumps with a parachute, so why not wear one this time?" he muses almost to himself. "But I'm trying to show that it can be done."
(Score: 4, Informative) by tangomargarine on Friday July 29 2016, @03:50PM
Vesna Vulović is a Serbian former flight attendant. She holds the distinction of being the world record holder, according to the Guinness Book of Records, for surviving the highest fall without a parachute: 10,160 metres (33,333 ft).
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @05:34PM
I don't think she fell by herself. If I remember the story well, she was in a broken-off tail section of the airplane which fell with her inside.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anne Nonymous on Friday July 29 2016, @06:08PM
> I don't think she fell by herself.
Nobody likes a cheater.
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Friday July 29 2016, @09:22PM
This lady did it without being in a part of a plane and she ended up with just bruises:
http://www.news24.com/xArchive/Archive/Skydiver-survives-15km-fall-20010213 [news24.com]
2001-02-13 12:22
Kuala Lumpur - A Malaysian woman, on her first skydiving jump, survived with only bruises after plunging 1.5km after her parachute failed to open, a news report said on Tuesday.
"I don't believe it. I'm actually alive," Tang Lee Ping told the Star daily newspaper, adding that she had blacked out in fear when she realised both her main parachute and its spare had not opened.
Perhaps the failed main and spare chute slowed Ms Tang's descent enough. Still very remarkable.
Would expect more like Vesna's fractured skull, three broken vertebrae and both legs broken: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovi%C4%87#Fall [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday July 29 2016, @09:27PM
1.5 kilometers is also less than 1/6 of 33k feet :P
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Informative) by esperto123 on Saturday July 30 2016, @01:20AM
it actually doesn't matter, once you reach terminal velocity, after about 200m fall, the initial altitude is irrelevant.
With exception of a altitude so high that you are closer to the Karman line than the ground, then the air drag may not be enough to brake you and you end up hiting the ground faster than that, but in that case you would already be dead due to lack of oxigen, so...
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday July 30 2016, @09:28AM
… you better bring a scuba tank for your jump. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Tuesday August 09 2016, @07:47AM
If you're still close to the Karman line wouldn't you still slow down in time to the normal terminal velocity? Felix hit about Mach 1+ but slowed down quite a fair bit as a result.
I suspect you'd have more problems if you were doing it from 300km instead of 100km: http://www.wired.com/2010/05/star-trek-space-jump/ [wired.com]
(Score: 2) by esperto123 on Tuesday August 09 2016, @11:06AM
Maybe, I didn't do the math, but the point I wanted to make was that you would reach a stable velocity no matter the initial altitude you were jumping from, unless it was so high that air drag and compression alone could slow you down enough to equalize the forces.
In Felix Baumgartener's case he was not even half the way to the Karman line and he had to use a drogue chute the slow him down enough to safely open the main, so maybe the altitude necessary for what I described to happen is even lower, but once you get above Mach speeds air drag gets all funky and at, lets say 75km, I think you would maybe die from the shock waves once you hit higher density atmosphere, and it would happen well before you hit the ground.