Possibly THE Most Extreme Flying Experience ...

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

Then there's this woman, who is in the Guinness Book of Records as having survived the longest fall to Earth without a parachute - over 33,000 feet.

Remarkable!


I can vaguely remember a celebrity panel show called "I've Got A Secret" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27ve_Got_a_Secret ) in which one of the guests claimed that he had been aboard a burning bomber and had been forced to jump without a chute. He said that after jumping, he fell through the skin and into the fuselage of a plane flying beneath. - I don't know what injuries he sustained, (if the story be true*), but I imagine it hurt.

*I haven't been able to find any evidence to support the veracity of this story, but it would be nice if it were true.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Anything over about 1,000 feet is all the same, I think. You're going to hit terminal velocity in there somewhere and just not go any faster no matter how far you fall.

[Tyrannical]

Anything over about 1,000 feet is all the same, I think. You're going to hit terminal velocity in there somewhere and just not go any faster no matter how far you fall.

Yup.

And people have survived a free fall plane altitude before. Or maybe it was only one, or an urban legend 120 mph is around the free fall terminal velocity of a person. So if you could survive a 120mph hit, you'd live. So I'd aim for swampland, water might drown you.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Anything over about 1,000 feet is all the same, I think. You're going to hit terminal velocity in there somewhere and just not go any faster no matter how far you fall.

Yup.

And people have survived a free fall plane altitude before. Or maybe it was only one, or an urban legend 120 mph is around the free fall terminal velocity of a person. So if you could survive a 120mph hit, you'd live. So I'd aim for swampland, water might drown you.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111400/?ref_=sr_1

One documented case was of a lady hitting a recently watered lawn when her chutes failed. She survived and recovered fully. Except for freaking out at the color green a litte.

[Tyrannical]

http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/ffallers.html

Several free fall survivors.

Alan Magee, a gunner on a B-17 with the 303rd Bomb Group of the U.S. 8th Air Force, was on a mission to St. Nazaire, France in January of 1943, when his bomber was set aflame by enemy fire. He was thrown from the plane before he had a chance to put on his parachute. He fell 20,000 feet and crashed onto* the skylight of the St. Nazaire train station. His arm was badly injured, but he recovered from that and other injuries.

[mistermack]

Your best bet is to hit the side of a mountain, so that you don't stop dead, but skid through the undergrowth, and decelerate gradually. Or hit a steep snowy slope, with the same result.

If you hit water, I think you will just die, you stop too fast. Unless maybe you can go in feet first, toes pointed down, like a cliff diver.

You would be falling faster at 20,000 feet than when you hit the ground. You actually slow down, as you get closer to sea level, as the air is thicker.