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posted by martyb on Friday July 29 2016, @03:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the aiming-for-a-record dept.

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."


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  • (Score: 2) by esperto123 on Tuesday August 09 2016, @11:06AM

    by esperto123 (4303) on Tuesday August 09 2016, @11:06AM (#385713)

    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.
     

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