They solved aircraft safety back in the 50s, but big parachute is keeping the research suppressed so they can sell more parachutes.
I always wear a parachute during paragliding :)
Parachute use to prevent death, trauma when jumping from aircraft (2018) [pdf]
11–20 of 169 posts
Re: Parachute use to prevent death, trauma when jumping from aircraft (2018) [pdf]
#12What point is this article trying to make?
Re: Parachute use to prevent death, trauma when jumping from aircraft (2018) [pdf]
#13What point is this article trying to make?
They do a Randomized Controlled Trial on parachutes, but due to ethical reasons the plane is only a few feet off the ground and there's no effect (the parachutes don't have time to deploy).
Re: Parachute use to prevent death, trauma when jumping from aircraft (2018) [pdf]
#14Is it typical for clinical trials to completely miss the point like this? I’d like to read a followup meta-analysis that focuses on the actual physiology — “Parachute use to prevent death … when hitting the ground”.
[shurely some mistake?]
Re: Parachute use to prevent death, trauma when jumping from aircraft (2018) [pdf]
#15What point is this article trying to make?
This para, buried deep in the paper, is the point:
A minor caveat to our findings is that the rate of the primary outcome was substantially lower in this study than was anticipated at the time of its conception and design, which potentially underpowered our ability to detect clinically meaningful differences, as well as important interactions. Although randomized participants had similar characteristics compared with those who were screened but did not enroll, they could have been at lower risk of death or major trauma because they jumped from an average altitude of 0.6 m (SD 0.1) on aircraft moving at an average of 0 km/h (SD 0). Clinicians will need to consider this information when extrapolating to their own settings of parachute use
Real studies have an equivalent para far too often.
Re: Parachute use to prevent death, trauma when jumping from aircraft (2018) [pdf]
#16There’s no evidence parachutes work.
And with this paper, we now have evidence that they don't work.
Re: Parachute use to prevent death, trauma when jumping from aircraft (2018) [pdf]
#17Re: Parachute use to prevent death, trauma when jumping from aircraft (2018) [pdf]
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh come on, my uncle touched a parachute once and survived so they clearly do work.
My grandfather was wearing one and died. This is clear and thorough proof they don't work (he was hit with flak as a paratrooper).
That's why I'm working on an invisible parachute. So that flak gunners can't see the paratroopers.
Re: Parachute use to prevent death, trauma when jumping from aircraft (2018) [pdf]
#19What point is this article trying to make?
I took it as a commentary on relying on scientific methodology when deciding the importance of a paper. Often the fact that there is a RCT study or whatever, a peer reviewed article in a prestigious journal, this is seen alone as sufficient reason to believe a finding. Scientists make this assumption, laypeople make this assumption, pop-sci media certainly do their thing; but this is essentially a counterexample, a scientific article that ostensibly checks all the boxes of rigorous science while being pretty obviously nonsense.
Re: Parachute use to prevent death, trauma when jumping from aircraft (2018) [pdf]
#20What point is this article trying to make?
There is a well-known joke "nobody has ever done a solid randomized double-blind trial to test whether parachutes actually work."
Now someone has -- and it turns out they don't have any effect!
It's also possible that the paper criticizes some common features of "scientific" studies.