Sorta related... I just remember having my mind absolutely blown when I learned about terminal velocity. It never made sense to me as a kid how small things could fall from relatively greater heights yet humans couldn't do even a few stories.
I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)
81–90 of 274 posts
Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was under the impression that for non-surfaced subs the only way to communicate them was to fly close to the surface and lower a boom into the water. Is that not the case?
These aren't subs, they are ships. I would imagine the plane circled overhead at a low altitude several times, tried to get their attention, kept going away and seeing if they would follow, kept going back when they didn't. And people on the ship were probably looking up being like, “what's his deal?” A “shot across the bows” is a colloquial expression for a warning demanding imminent action. The idea was that long a…
In German, we have almost the same expression, "ein Schuss vor den Bug." Literally, it translates to "a shot in front of the bow." I never thought about where it came from. Interesting to learn.
The expression has somehow always felt more like a frontal attack that stops right before actually hitting you. But my head may have conflated it with "jemandem etwas vor den Latz knallen," which translates to "slap something in front of somebody's bib."
Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)
#83I wasn't sure if it was real or fan fiction. But Googling his name turns up an IMDB account of the story (still doesn't answer the question) but also a link to the article from the Marion Military Institute:
https://marionmilitary.edu/grit-profile-cliff-judkins-56-sur...
Amazing story.
Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)
#84> “This is very serious,” I thought. Pilots are some of my favorite people.
And they say Brits are the kings of understatement. :)
Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)
#85Quoted post unavailable.
If you're going to be pedantic, at least be correct. "Absolute zero" is basically always referring to temperature, and space is not absolute zero. You're probably thinking of zero g. And in any case, zero g isn't even pedantically correct because you're still in Earth's gravitational field, so it should really be something like zero g-forces.
Yep. And not even absolue zero is so absolute.[0]
Zero gravity? Then why are you orbiting?
[0] https://www.quantum-munich.de/119947/Negative-Absolute-Tempe...
Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The whole description is wordy I for one really enjoyed reading this story, it was quite exciting and I never noticed anything 'wordy' about it. I thought it was very well written.
I meant it as a relatively neutral descriptor. In modern day and age, this would frequently be shared as a 20word phrase on tranquil image background on Facebook. Compared to that, this is "wordy" - which some of us will enjoy (I did too:), others will not.
Indeed I felt that way too when reading passages such as:
"As I was looking around, I was struck for an instant by the eeriness of the scene: here I was, attached, like an unwanted child, by an umbilicus to a gargantuan mother who was fleeing across the sky at 200 knots as though from some unnamed danger. Far below us was a broken layer of clouds that filtered the sun glare over the Pacific."
Wonderfully poetic and I enjoyed it, but yes, wordy.
Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)
#87Still not as impressive as Vesna Vulovic, a flight attendant who holds the Guinness world record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute: 10,160 m (33,330 ft; 6.31 mi) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovi%C4%87
There was also a lady who fell 15,000 ft after two parachute malfunctions, only to land on a colony of fire ants who preceded to sting her back to life (apparently). > Paramedics brought a barely conscious Joan to Carolinas Medical Center for emergency treatment. Doctors determined that repeated fire ant stings luckily shocked her heartbeat and stimulated her nerves. The insect assault kept her heart beating and her…
"Fortunately, I landed in a giant nest of fire ants" says literally one person, ever.
Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)
#88The whole description is wordy but astonishing. It is strange that the part that strikes me the most though is this one: "The Coast Guard amphibian gained altitude and flew off. (I learned later that he headed for a squadron of minesweepers that was returning to the United States from a tour of the Western Pacific. He was unable to tune to their radio frequency for communications. But this ingenious pilot lowered a w…
I was under the impression that for non-surfaced subs the only way to communicate them was to fly close to the surface and lower a boom into the water. Is that not the case?
Submarines under the surface can receive VLF signals. The signals are broadcast from either land stations[0], or aircraft[1] trailing a 5-mile-long wire antenna (the aircraft fly in a circle so the antenna is mostly vertical). Subs can extend a long antenna below the surface in order to receive the signals[2].
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lualualei_VLF_transmitter 1. https://twitter.com/lemonodor/status/1312134472280633345 2. https://twitter.com/thenewarea51/status/1347668162406477824
Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)
#89This happened in 1963. Planes had only been flying for 60 years at that point; it really is pretty amazing how quickly we progressed on technology during those early years. We still fly 737s, which are descended from a design that first flew in 1967. As well as the C130, which was part of this story. And don't get me started on B-52s, which are even older. We have made great strides since then, of course, but it does…
Some things are limited by unchanging physics, like what shapes work aerodynamically, limitations imposed by the speed of sound, the maximum amount of thrust that can be generated by a kilogram of fuel, and so forth. Once humans figure out what basically works, we keep making incremental improvements towards optimality given the physical constraints. In such scenarios the first steps always look the biggest.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner doesn't look very different from the 737 and its predecessors. But under the hood are some revolutionary technologies: fly-by-wire all-electronic controls, and construction primarily from carbon fiber composite materials rather than the traditional steel, aluminum, and titanium. It's actually pretty revolutionary, but it still looks and feels like a fairly normal plane, because it's the physics of air flow that dictates basic things like shape.
Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
The progress of aviation technology fascinates me. We went from the wright flyer to the B-52 in just 50 years and then in the next 70 years went from the B-52 to... pretty much still the B-52 (at least in terms of payload/range/airspeed). You could probably come up with something similar to Moore's law for for those stats over those first 50 years. Makes me wonder if/when computing will reach a similar plateau. It's…
I think the progress is mainly limited by cost of fuel and sonic boom. But progress has been made in so many other areas. Planes are safer quieter lighter and more reliable. Some parts of computers also stopped progressing. For example keyboards haven’t changed much and neither have laser printers. ;)
Progress is limited by security clearance.
The US has incredible aircraft but no incentive to 'share'.